The BEST episodes of The Munsters
Every episode of The Munsters ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Munsters!
At 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Mockingbird Heights, lived one of America's strangest sitcom families, The Munsters. Strangest looking, that is, for beneath Herman's Frankensteinian facial features, Lily's vampiric visage, Grandpa's Dracula countenance and Eddie's Wolfman looks, lurked possibly the sweetest and most sensitive sitcom family ever to grace the small-screen. This, of course, was the nub of the series: that a family so weird could overcome the everyday problems of modern living - and the fact that people ran away from them, screaming - by their generosity, gentleness and belief in traditional American values.
#1 - A House Divided
Season 2 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/7/1966
A massive argument erupts between Grandpa and Herman after Herman accidentally destroys a go-cart the two of them constructed for Eddie. Since Grandpa claims to own half of the house, Herman draws a white line down its center and insists that Grandpa remain on his side of the line.
#2 - Prehistoric Munster
Season 2 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/10/1966
Herman has his ego flattered twice by his family. First, Eddie wants to enter him in the Father of the Year Contest. Next, Marilyn wants to sculpt a clay bust in his likeness. When she tells her art professor that the sculpture represents a living person, he plans to make a bundle from his discovery of a missing link. Herman is summoned to his office for an examination, but he's under the impression he's about to receive an award and a bunch of neat prizes.
#3 - Pike's Pique
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/22/1964
The gas company wants to run a pipeline 25 feet under the Munsters' house. At that height is would run through Grandpa's dungeon lab. When the workers are digging they get extremely frightened by Herman and Grandpa's appearance. Mr. Pike, the manager of the Gas Company, thinks that the Munsters are trying to scare the workers to drive up the cost of construction on the Munster Property. He thinks its a good idea to visit with The Munsters to see what's going on...
#4 - Herman's Driving Test
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/25/1965
Herman gets promoted to hearse driver and has to renew his driver's license. This requires him to take a road test, which he fails. Grandpa convinces him that he'd have better luck taking the test in a one-horse town. He turns out to be extremely correct.
#5 - The Treasure of Mockingbird Heights
Season 2 - Episode 14 - Aired 12/23/1965
While searching for a fuse box in the dungeon, Herman and Grandpa discover a secret chamber and a clue to the pirate treasure hidden on the Munsters' property.
#6 - John Doe Munster
Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/11/1965
A 300-pound safe drops on Herman's head, causing him to develop amnesia. In order to get him released into her custody, Lily petitions the court to adopt Herman as her son. Until he restores his memory, he is treated as Eddie's brother John.
#7 - Herman's Peace Offensive
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/30/1965
Herman advises Eddie to turn the other cheek when he gets pushed around by a bully. Shortly thereafter, Herman is the victim of a practical joke at work. Grandpa takes the situation in hand by teaching both Eddie and Herman how to box.
#8 - Herman, the Master Spy
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/23/1965
In this Cold War episode, a Russian fishing trawler picks up a scuba-diving Herman in its haul of fish and mistakes him for the missing link. The crew members report their find to Moscow, claiming it puts the Soviets ahead in the ""missing link race."" The response from the Commissar is that Herman is an American spy.
#9 - Munster Masquerade
Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/24/1964
Marilyn's boyfriend invites Marilyn and her family to a masquerade party. Marilyn goes as Priscilla her boyfriend as John Alden. Lily is Little Bo Peep, Grandpa is Napoleon, and Herman is King Arthur dressed in armor. Marilyn's boyfriend's father (Dressed As Frankenstein) is insulted when Herman compliments him for not wearing a costume :). At the end of the night Herman with a prize for wearing a Frankenstein costume under his suit of armor. Lily and Grandpa feel insulted because that is Herman's real face! However, Herman doesn't realize that he is being insulted.
#10 - Underground Munster
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/9/1965
The Munsters' pet Spot runs away from home and is mistaken for a dangerous monster when he is sighted in the sewer. When Herman goes down the manhole to search for Spot, he too is mistaken for a dangerous monster. The Mayor vows to rid the city of these menaces by using TNT.
#11 - Love Locked Out
Season 1 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/4/1965
After Herman attends an office party that goes on until the wee hours of the morning, Lily locks Herman out of their bedroom and makes him sleep on the sofa. When they are unable to reconcile, Lily and Herman each see a marriage counselor independently.
#12 - Rock-a-Bye Munster
Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/15/1964
Herman and Grandpa overhear Lily and Marilyn talking and somehow get the idea that Lily is pregnant. What's really happening is Dr. Dudley's son, Elmer, is coming to stay with the Munsters while Dr. Dudley and his wife are on vacation.
#13 - Operation Herman
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/28/1965
When Herman visits the hospital to see Eddie, who is having his tonsils out, he is mistaken for an accident victim and is immediately given a dose of laughing gas. Grandpa rescues him and brings him home, where Lily assumes that Herman has been drinking.
#14 - Herman's Raise
Season 1 - Episode 37 - Aired 6/3/1965
Egged on by Lily, Herman demands a raise from his boss Mr. Gateman. He is promptly fired. Herman is afraid of Lily's reaction, so he pretends that he is still going to work when in fact he is searching for employment. He gets fired from a number of blue-collar jobs - including one at a Chinese laundry, where he wreaks total slapstick chaos.
#15 - Happy 100th Anniversary
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/21/1965
Herman and Lily want to buy each other an elaborate gift for their 100th Anniversary. Without telling each other, they both take night jobs as ship welders. Since the job requires them to wear protective helmets that conceal their faces, they don't realize whom they're dealing with when they start flirting with each other.
#16 - Herman Munster, Shutter Bug
Season 2 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/7/1965
Herman takes up amateur photography and accidentally snaps a picture of two men making their escape from a bank robbery. Herman has visions of getting a big reward for his evidence, but the bank robbers track him down and decide to hold up with the Munsters until the heat is off. This episode revisits the show's recurrent fascination with criminality, especially bank robberies.
#17 - Follow That Munster
Season 1 - Episode 23 - Aired 2/25/1965
Herman goes out each night in order to practice becoming a real detective. Lily thinks he's having an affair with another woman and hires the same detective agency Herman is working for to have Herman followed. In a Plot twist Herman gets the assignment to follow himself.
#18 - Herman's Child Psychology
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/16/1965
Eddie is upset that his family does not treat him cruelly because he thinks this means they don't care about him. When Eddie decides to run away from home, Herman employs a little child psychology, which naturally backfires. Various circumstances eventually lead to Herman's getting involved with a dancing bear.
#19 - Eddie's Nickname
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired 1/28/1965
Eddie wants to quit school because all the kids there call him Shorty. Grandpa helps by fixing a potion to make Eddie grow six inches overnight. Instead, the potion causes the young Munster to grow a full beard and mustache.
#20 - A Walk on the Mild Side
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/8/1964
Herman is suffering from insomnia. The only thing that will make him sleep is a late-night walk in the park. A "Monster" type creature has been spotted in the park at night and Lily would prefer if Herman would stay home. What she doesn't know is that the monster is Herman!
#21 - Autumn Croakus
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/26/1964
Grandpa is feeling lonely and depressed so he contacts a matrimonial agency to find a mate. The agency sends over a nice looking elderly woman who find Grandpa to be delightful. She turns out to be the Black Widow: she makes her living by marrying her suitors, getting them to sign a life insurance policy naming her as beneficiary, and then murdering them.
#22 - Don't Bank on Herman
Season 1 - Episode 21 - Aired 2/11/1965
When Herman and Grandpa go to the bank to make a withdrawal, they are mistaken for bank robbers and handed eighteen thousand dollars in cash. When Herman gets home and realizes the wrong he's done wrong, he can't rest until he returns the money. When trying to bring it back in the middle of the night, Herman and Grandpa wind up locked in the bank's vault.
#23 - Hot Rod Herman
Season 1 - Episode 36 - Aired 5/27/1965
Eddie, under the impression that his father is the greatest driver in the world, volunteers Herman in a drag-strip competition. After souping up the Munster Coach and dressing up like Marlon Brando in his Wild One days, Herman loses his car in a drag race. In a rematch, Grandpa races in the Dragula, a motorized coffin on wheels.
#24 - Family Portrait
Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/17/1964
The Munsters have been chosen by Event Magazine as the average American family. Grandpa is insulted by being labeled ""average."" He disappears, jeopardizing the family's photo opportunity and the large amount of prize money that came with it. When a journalist and photographer arrive at the Munster home, Herman and Lily think they are burglars.
#25 - My Fair Munster
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/1/1964
Grandpa mixes up a love potion designed to make the opposite sex fall madly for anyone who drinks the potion. Grandpa mixes some in Marilyn's oatmeal to help her keep a boyfriend. Marilyn is in a rush and has no time for breakfast; so Lilly puts her oatmeal back into the big pot and serves the oatmeal to the rest of the family. Now the potion affects them all! The mailman becomes interested in Lily; the next-door neighbor now has an attraction for Herman; Eddie is even chased home by all the girls from his class.