The Art of The Munsters : Arnold Kohn

Here’s a scrumptious 1965 illustration of The Munsters by Arnold Kohn, done for Whitman Publishing, the children’s book division of the Western Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Western also published The Munsters comics under its Gold Key imprint.

Artist Kohn established himself in the late Forties with his dynamic pulp covers, fronting such titles as the venerable Amazing Stories. He would go on to produce numerous paperback covers and pinup art for magazines and calendars. He was an early contributor to the new Playboy magazine in 1953. His collaboration with Western Publishing spanned more than twenty years, producing work for a wide variety of licensed products that would include new covers for Doc Savage reprints under the Golden Book logo.

The delightful Munsters family portrait, done in gouache, displays Kohn’s easy, airy touch, and a vibrant color palette with abstract background.

The piece was used as a cover for a Whitman “Authorized TV Adventure” book called The Munsters and the Great Camera Caper, written by William Johnson . It was possibly recycled as a puzzle illustration. Confirmed! The Kohn illustration was used for a low-priced, 100-piece puzzle. Image added.

Found on cartoonist Patrick Owsley’s eye-popping blog, with thanks for the heads up to Karswell of the incessantly awesome The Horrors of it All.

Herman Munster Meets Santa Claus

The Munsters have been periodically revived through the years in TV specials and even a clone series that tallied as many episodes as the original 1964 sitcom. The latest incarnation — notwithstanding a recent Hustler Video Classics-Gone-Porn version — was the 1996 Holiday TV Movie, The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas, in which Grandpa’s experiments transport Santa Claus to 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

Critics were unimpressed. The best thing said about the show was that very young children might be entertained. At least the casting was inspired, with Sam McMurray valiantly channelling Fred Gwynne’s genius, Sandy Baron — a Catskills-trained comic — picking up for Al Lewis, and the formidable Ann Magnuson a good pick to essay Yvonne De Carlo’s Lily. The 91-minute special survives on DVD.

Staying in a Christmas mood, here’s a real treat: The original Munsters appearing in Macy’s Santa Claus Parade!

Up on YouTube is a wonderful vintage movie newsreel from 1964, Santa’s in Town, subtitled “Munsters Escort Kris in Parade”. Gwynne and Lewis appear in character, riding the Munsters Koach down Broadway. There are nice shots of the novelty car’s detailing, such as a spider and its web in a corner of the windshield.

Not sure, but I think the first shot might have been doctored by Universal’s special effects department, the film marquees whited out so as not to promote competitors’ films.

It’s a wonderful time machine glimpse of Macy’s parade 44 years ago, and its fun seeing Al Lewis having a ball in the city he loved.

The Munsters in Santa's in Town on YouTube.

Screencaps from The Munster’s Scary Little Christmas on Marky Munster’s elaborate fan site.

The Munsters Scary Little Christmas on DVD.

Related
The Munsters's Color Pilot
Frankenstein Meets Santa Claus

Frankensteinian : Jonathan Brewster

Can you name the actor with the stitched-up face?

In Joseph Kesselring’s play, Arsenic and Old Lace, killer Jonathan Brewster returns to his childhood home in Brooklyn where he plans to lay low for a while. The cops are looking all over for him on account of twelve murders (thirteen if you count the one in South Bend who “wouldn't have died of pneumonia if I hadn't shot him!”). Now he’s stuck with Mr. Spinalzo, a cumbersome corpse that he needs to unload, and there’s also the matter of his plastic surgeon pal, Dr. Einstein, fixing his face. The last time Jonathan needed a new mug, the inebriated Einstein had just seen “that movie” and made him look like Boris Karloff!

In 1941, the line, “He looks like Boris Karloff!” brought the house down every night at the Fulton Theater in New York. No wonder. It was a bold self-referential joke. The man who looked like Boris Karloff was, in fact, played by Boris Karloff!

A masterpiece of jet-black humor, Arsenic and Old Lace was a Broadway sensation. When Frank Capra shot his very faithful film adaptation, the same year the play opened, principals Jean Adair and Josephine Hunt, as the cuddly but murderous spinster aunts, and John Alexander, as the comically insane Teddy “Roosevelt” Brewster, took a four week stage break to appear in the film.

Ever a trooper, Boris Karloff stayed back in New York to preserve the hit play’s marquee value.

The film part of Jonathan Brewster went to Canadian-born actor Raymond Massey, whose angular, Lincolnian features suited the sinister role to perfection.

The “looks like Karloff” line being so important, the filmmakers took steps to make it relevant no matter who played the part. On stage, Karloff appeared without special makeup, relying on his frowning, bushy black eyebrows to convey menace, and body language to evoke his famous film role. In the movie adaptation, Massey was given a pasty complexion and a network of face stitches, making the Monster connection obvious.

It’s a shame that Karloff did not get to immortalize his Jonathan Brewster performance on film when it was fresh, especially considering that Capra's film was held back and unreleased until 1944, after the play had ended its run. Karloff went on to appear in three different TV adaptations of Arsenic and Old Lace, in 1949, 1955, and 1962.

The play, a real gem and a true classic, has been in continuous revival for over sixty years, with Jonathan Brewster as the plum and pivotal villain part. Even Bela Lugosi essayed the role in a late forties theatrical version.

And the picture at the top of this post? It's from a 1969 ABC Movie of the Week adaptation, and that’s Fred Gwynne, late of The Munsters, as the malevolent Jonathan, in makeup created by Dick Smith. I haven’t seen this version, sometimes chided for its minor but unnecessary updates and tweaks. I just hope they didn’t change that famous line to “He looks like Herman Munster!”.

See the amusing original trailer for the 1944 film. “Raymond Massey… makes Frankenstein look like a glamour boy!”

A New York Times Hirschfeld caricature of the original 1941 cast.

The Munsters Early Pilot Episode

It’s a clear measure of how big the sixties’ Monster Boom was when two network fielded monster-themed sitcoms in 1964. ABC went with a satisfying adaptation of Charles Addams’ deliciously macabre The Addams Family while CBS put out the sweet and silly The Munsters, turning the iconic Universal Monsters into comedy characters.

The Munsters were originally planned as a cartoon show. The original idea has been tracked back all the way to a 1943 “Monster Family” concept by animator Bob Clampett, and the TV project submitted to Universal in the early sixties was penned by Rocky and Bullwinkle writers Alan Burns and Chris Hayward. Somewhere along the line, Universal ordered a pilot to be made as a sitcom with live actors, and that’s how The Munsters played out, though the characters did assume cartoon form in comic books and a 1973 animated short, The Mini-Munsters.

The strength of The Munsters lies, no doubt, with it’s inspired casting, led by the muggings of Fred Gwynne as a doofus Frankenstein Monster named Herman, Al Lewis as an irrepressible borscht belt vampire Grandpa, and actress Yvonne De Carlo displaying perfect comic flair.

The series had decent ratings, outperforming The Addams Family, and it even earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best TV Show, but it was cancelled after only two years on the air, murdered in the ratings by ABC’s new, flashy, color Batman series. Despite its short run, the series’ 70 episodes would go into syndication and its ongoing popularity led to cast reunions for specials, a TV movie and a theatrical feature, Munsters Go Home! (1966). New casts were used for a revival series, The Munsters Today in 1988, a TV movie, Here Come The Munsters in 1995, and a Christmas Special in 1996. Through it all, The Munsters would jump around from CBS to ABC, NBC and eventually Fox. It is said that The Munsters was one of the most merchandized series ever, its instantly recognized characters turned into toys, model kits, dolls and Halloween costumes, their likenesses stamped on apparel, games, squirt guns, and lunch boxes.

There were three different pilots made as the series was taking shape, the first one shot in color. It’s interesting to note how the characterss appearances evolved. Gwynne appears thinner, without the bulked up chest padding and the Monster’s prominent brow is high on the forehead, above the actor’s eyebrows, perhaps in an attempt to make the face more expressive. Grandpa Al Lewis’ pointy nose is even pointier, thanks to a makeup appliance he must have been thrilled to abandon for the series. A different child actor plays the werewolf boy part that would be toned down and given to Butch Patrick and, most significantly, Herman’s wife — here called Phoebe — is played by Joan Marshall as a Morticia Addams-type character, far sexier than Yvonne De Carlo’s glamorous but motherly Lily Munster.

The short and fascinating 17-minute pilot is on YouTube: Part One, Part Two.

There are innumerable Munsters fan sites on the net, including Munsters.com (hosted by Butch Patrick), Munsterland, the very complete Marky Munsters, and The Munsters Unofficial Website.

The original TV series is available on DVD: Season One, Season Two.

An amazing site devoted to Fred Gwynne.

The Covers of Frankenstein : Monster World No. 2

In the mid-50s, the Monster Boom was ignited when the classic horror movies of the previous two decades were packaged and released to the still-new medium of TV. The phenomenon was fueled by local station horror hosts, monster magazines, comic books, bubble gum cards, novelty records and model kits. In 1964, monstermania went mainstream when two monster-inspired sitcoms hit the networks. ABC’s upscale Addams Family brought the witty, perverse panel cartoons of Charles Addams to life, while CBS' The Munsters was more of a traditional, down-to-earth, domestic comedy, with iconic monsters standing in for the usual cast of characters.

The Munsters were still brand new, having aired but a handful of episodes when they were featured on the cover of Monster World, the companion/clone magazine to Famous Monsters of Filmland. This issue, published in November 1964, with a cover date of January 1965, marks The Munsters first appearance on a national magazine.

The realistic art, a straight copy of a cast photograph, is by the prolific Vic Prezio who painted uncountable covers for paperbacks and men’s adventure magazines. He stepped in when Basil Gogos went on hiatus as Famous Monsters’ defacto cover artist, producing portraits of movie monsters that were perfectly serviceable, but lacked the pizzazz that distinguished Gogos’ art. Prezio was infinitely more inspired when he painted covers for Warren’s comic magazines Eerie and Creepy.

The Munsters’ competitors, The Addams Family, eventually rated their own group portrait cover on Monster World number 9, in July 1966. It was the next to last issue of the magazine, soon to be absorbed by Famous Monsters. The use of a color photograph instead of a more expensive painted job suggests a cost-cutting measure that telegraphed the imminent end of the short-lived title.

I posted previously about Monster World.

A complete gallery of Monster World covers.