FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER, 10/26/18 - HERMAN MUNSTER (AGAIN)

We’re celebrating Halloween with our last two Friday Hall of Famers for the month.  Last week it was Barnabas Collins as a multi-dimensional and now we have perhaps one of the most prominent of TV characters connected to horror fiction, albeit in a twisted version.

Technically, Herman Munster is already a member of the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  The Hall was “founded” in 1999, but before that I did write extensively about certain iconic characters who were certainly qualified to have already been in the Hall if it existed.

And among those were all of the Frankenstein creatures, including Herman Munster.  But unlike the others who were mostly one-shot appearances (and still growing!), Herman had quite the body of work. 

But before we get into that, let’s take a look at the “life” of Herman Munster in the main Toobworld:

From Wikipedia:
Herman Munster is a fictional character in the CBS sitcom ‘The Munsters’, originally played by Fred Gwynne. The patriarch of the Munster household, Herman is an entity much like Frankenstein's monster, comparable to Lurch on the show's competitor, ‘The Addams Family’.

 In the context of the series, Herman was created in 1815 at the University of Heidelberg by Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Work on him was finally completed around 1850 (neither Lily nor Grandpa is quite sure when) along with his twin brother Charlie. Leaving (Germany) for Great Britain at a young age, Herman was adopted by the Munsters of Munster Hall, a noble family living in the fictitious Shroudshire, England.

At some point Herman moved to Transylvania (a region in Hungary, from 1920 part of Romania), where he met Lily Dracula. In 1865 (technically at the age of 15, but physically older) Herman married Lily, and eventually the couple and Grandpa (Lily's father) moved to America, where Herman joined the U.S. Army, fighting in World War II.  In episode 34, Grandpa says that it was thanks to Herman that he was able to leave Transylvania and have a better life in America.

Here are the credits which cemented Herman’s claims to be in the TVXOHOF as a citizen of Earth Prime-Time:

‘The Munsters’ 
72 episodes

“Munster, Go Home!” 
The Munsters travel to England after Herman discovers he's the new Lord of the Munster Hall.  

“The Munsters' Revenge” 
When a wax museum owner attempts to frame the Munsters for pulling a jewelry heist, they must both prove their innocence and find out the true thieves.

Two of those qualifications were movies and only one of them, “The Munsters’ Revenge”, is a TV movie.  “Munsters Go Home!” was a theatrical release which, like several other movies, has been absorbed into the greater TV Universe out of the Cineverse.

With that hefty amount of credits, and still being so popular that he commands a two-hour block of programming on the COZI-TV retro network, Herman Munster does deserve to have a listing for himself, apart from his many “brothers” and “cousins” (those created by Frankenstein cousins.)
  
But as I said, he is already a member of the Hall; I just wanted to salute his contribution to the main Toobworld first.

Herman Munster is a multidimensional as well as a multiversal.  And so today we’re celebrating Herman Munster – but the one to be found in Skitlandia. 

Hopefully you know that Skitlandia is the sketch comedy TV dimension in which all of those comedy skits over the years share the same world – characters from ‘Saturday Night Live’, ‘Fridays’, ‘MadTV’, ‘The Carol Burnett Show’, ‘The Dean Martin Show’, ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ and the many late-night talk shows; where Miss Swan could rub shoulders with the Coneheads, for example, or Norma Desmond could make a movie with Master Thespian.

So Herman Munster is one of those comedy sketch characters and luckily he covers the minimum requirements for membership in the Hall:

‘The Red Skelton Hour’ 
- Ta-Ra-Ra-Bum-Today (1965) 
Fred Gwynne appears as Herman Munster in a 'Freddie the Freeloader' comedy sketch.

From Hal Erickson:
Fred Gwynne, then starring in the sitcom ‘The Munsters’, is Red Skelton's guest on this episode from April 27, 1965. In a "Freddie the Freeloader" comedy sketch, hobo Freddie (Red) camps out in the spooky domicile of Herman Munster (Fred, of course). 

‘The Danny Kaye Show’
- Episode #3.30 (1966) 
Spoofing Gwynne's role on ‘The Munsters’ and NBC newscasters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the cast performs a sketch with Danny as 'David Dracula' and Fred as 'Chet Munster' as the broadcast team behind "The Munster-Dracula Report" with Edie as Fred's neglected wife 'Lily'.   

“Salute to Stan Laurel” 
A program featuring original comedy skits written as a tribute to Stan Laurel.

O’Bservation: Fred Gwynne’s contribution as Herman Munster was that he burst through a door while playing a violin in a sketch about making a silent movie.  Nothing to do with Stan Laurel, and it’s pretty grim viewing.  (Others in the sketch include Cesar Romero, Tina Louise, Louis Nye, and Leonid Kinsky.) But nevertheless it counts towards Herman’s tally.

I doubt there’s anybody out there who writes Skitlandia fanfic, specifically, but there you go – Herman Munster is part of that TV dimension.  So you could have a teenaged Eddie Munster bringing home a classmate – Ed Grimley, which would freak the kid out, I must say.  Or any combination with other sketch comedy characters.  That's up to you.  But if you do write Herman of Skitlandia fan fiction, let me know where I can read it.

So now we have two Herman Munsters in the Hall.  When it comes to fictional TV characters, that may be a first.  (We already have Adam West, a member of the League of Themselves, included for both the main Toobworld and for the Tooniverse.)

Welcome to the Hall, Herman.  Again….