The Best Episodes of The Munsters
Last Updated: Apr 13, 2019
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 - Big Heap Herman
Season 2 - Episode 18
The Munsters are heading for a vacation in Buffalo Valley when Herman gets off for a rest stop at Indian Flats. He wanders into the village of an Indian tribe that specializes in luring the tourist trade. The tribe's eldest member mistakes Herman for an ancient spirit leader.
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#2 - Prehistoric Munster
Season 2 - Episode 25
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.
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#3 - Family Portrait
Season 1 - Episode 13
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.
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#4 - Happy 100th Anniversary
Season 2 - Episode 6
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.
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#5 - The Treasure of Mockingbird Heights
Season 2 - Episode 14
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.
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#6 - A Visit From Johann
Season 2 - Episode 26
Dr. Victor Frankenstein IV from Germany visits Mockingbird Heights and brings with him Johann, Herman's look-alike cousin. Johann is quite primitive and behaves like the Frankenstein monster from the movies. It is up to Herman to try to civilize him and teach him English. Lily is not informed of this; mistaking Johann for Herman, she takes him away for a romantic weekend getaway.
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#7 - The Fregosi Emerald
Season 2 - Episode 21
Eddie gives Marilyn a ring he found in the attic as a birthday present. Grandpa recognizes it as the Fregosi Emerald, a centuries-old ring with a Transylvanian curse. Herman doesn't believe in such a silly superstition; he is intent on proving that the ring does not bring about bad luck. He quickly regrets trying to do this.
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#8 - Yes, Galen, There Is A Herman (a.k.a. My Friend Herman)
Season 1 - Episode 38
Herman saves the life of a young boy, Galen Livingston Stewart, by bending the bars his head is stuck between. They immediately become close friends. The only problem is that Galen's parents think Uncle Herman is a figment of the boy's imagination. They take him to a psychiatrist, played by Harvey Korman with a broad German accent.
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#9 - The Most Beautiful Ghoul in the World
Season 2 - Episode 19
With inheritance money from Cousin Wolverine, Grandpa and Herman develop an invention for transporting an electrical current without wires. Lily and Marilyn use the rest of the money to operate their own beauty salon. Both endeavors turn out to be disasters, causing various parties to take legal action.
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#10 - Herman, the Master Spy
Season 2 - Episode 2
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.
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#11 - Autumn Croakus
Season 1 - Episode 10
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.
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#12 - Munster the Magnificent
Season 1 - Episode 34
Eddie volunteers Herman as a performer for his school's Talent Night. Since Herman has no discernible talent, Grandpa conjures up a pair of magic ballet shoes that will transform whoever wears them into a gifted dancer. But Herman is uneasy about strapping on this footwear. Fortunately, Eddie already has him billed as the world's greatest magician.
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#13 - Don't Bank on Herman
Season 1 - Episode 21
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.
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#14 - A Visit From the Teacher
Season 2 - Episode 32
When Eddie reads a school composition entitled ""My Parents - An Average American Family"" to his class, his teacher believes the boy is exhibiting symptoms of an overactive imagination. The school principal suggests that Eddie's wild exaggerations might be motivated by an underprivileged home life. It is decided that a visit to the Munster home is in order.
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#15 - Zombo
Season 2 - Episode 22
Eddie, an avid fan of ghoulish TV host Zombo, becomes the winner of the ""Why I Like Zombo Contest"" and gets to be on the Zombo show. Herman becomes jealous of Eddie's new hero and wants to appear equally outlandish. But his efforts to impress his son fail. Eddie eventually learns that Zombo is not a real person but a phony character played by an actor.
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#16 - Cyrano de Munster
Season 2 - Episode 23
After Herman has his poetry published in The Mortician Monthly, a shy coworker named Clyde asks him to compose love letters to help him attract the attention of a young lady he's fallen for. Herman obliges, but soon Lily discovers samples of this mushy writing and becomes suspicious. After a re-enactment of the ""hiding in the bushes"" scene from CYRANO DE BERGERAC, the object of Clyde's desire falls for Herman. Meanwhile, Herman mistakenly suspects that Clyde's object of desire is Lily.
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#17 - Dance With Me, Herman
Season 1 - Episode 22
In order to accompany Marilyn to her school dance, Herman decides to take dancing lessons. He goes to Happy Havemeyer's Dancing School, where he is suckered into signing a ten-year contract for 1500 lessons (at $7.50 a lesson). Herman is under the wrong impression that he is going to become a dancing instructor for the school.
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#18 - Hot Rod Herman
Season 1 - Episode 36
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.
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#19 - Eddie's Nickname
Season 1 - Episode 19
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.
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#20 - Herman the Rookie
Season 1 - Episode 29
Leo Durocher, manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, needs a power hitter for his team. When he gets conked on the head by one of Herman's line drives from seven blocks away, he believes he has his man. He tracks Herman down and asks him to try out for the team. After Herman demonstrates his powerful force as a batter, Durocher comments: ""I don't know whether to sign him with the Dodgers or send him to Vietnam.""
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#21 - Herman's Happy Valley
Season 1 - Episode 35
Herman purchases ten acres in Happy Holiday Valley through a magazine ad. It turns out to be a patch of wasteland in a broken-down ghost town, so the Munsters absolutely adore it. This makes things difficult for the fly-by-night salespeople who get a better offer for the property and want to buy it back.
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#22 - A House Divided
Season 2 - Episode 29
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.
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#23 - Herman's Peace Offensive
Season 2 - Episode 15
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.
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#24 - Lily Munster, Girl Model
Season 1 - Episode 33
Fearing that she is not useful around the house, Lily searches for a job. She eventually lands a position as a fashion model, causing Herman to become wildly jealous as he entertains fantasies about the suave men she's liable to mingle with. With Grandpa's help, Herman transforms himself into a swinging playboy. Grandpa, in a disguise, poses as his beautiful blonde girlfriend.
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#25 - Underground Munster
Season 2 - Episode 13
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.
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