The BEST episodes of The Munsters season 1
Every episode of The Munsters season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Munsters season 1!
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 - 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...
#2 - 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.
#3 - 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.
#4 - 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.
#5 - 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.
#6 - 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.
#7 - 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.
#8 - 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!
#9 - 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.
#10 - 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.
#11 - 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.
#12 - 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.
#13 - 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.
#14 - Tin Can Man
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/5/1964
Thanks to a recommendation from an investigator of The Board of Education Eddie is in danger of being expelled from school. The only way he can stay if he makes an excellent project for the school's Science Fair; Grandpa helps he make a robot. Herman walks on stage and is thought to be the robot causing Eddie to win first prize and stay in school.
#15 - Herman the Rookie
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired 4/8/1965
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.""
#16 - All-Star Munster
Season 1 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/14/1965
Herman goes to the dean's office of Marilyn's college to straighten out a tuition matter. When searching for the office, he wanders into the gym and is mistaken for a student basketball star who is expected for a tryout. Herman amazes the coach with his superhuman abilities and is offered a contract to play for the college team.
#17 - Country Club Munsters
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 4/15/1965
The Munsters win a membership to the highly exclusive Mockingbird Heights Country Club. The membership board wants to get a close look at the family to see if they measure up to their standards, so they invite Lily and Grandpa to a fashion show. Meanwhile, Herman is invited to play golf. While Lily and Grandpa stand out like a couple of freaks, Herman sends golf balls soaring like missiles and wreaks havoc on the putting green. Afterwards, the Munsters decide that the club doesn't meet their own standards.
#18 - Mummy Munster
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 4/29/1965
Herman arranges to meet Marilyn at the natural history museum. But he accidentally gets himself locked inside an Egyptian sarcophagus, whereupon a sleeping pill he swallowed earlier takes effect. A pair of museum curators open the box the next day and mistake the sleeping Herman for an ancient mummy. When Lily reads about their supposed scientific discovery in the newspaper, she goes to the museum and requests that the curators put Herman in a cab and send him home as soon as he wakes up.
#19 - Herman's Happy Valley
Season 1 - Episode 35 - Aired 5/20/1965
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.
#20 - Low-Cal Munster
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/29/1964
Herman wants to go to a reunion with his army friends. Unfortunately he can't seem fit into his uniform. Lily doesn't want Herman to go, but decides to make a deal with him. If Herman can lose enough weight to fit into the uniform, he can go. Herman quickly goes on a Diet limiting him to almost no food. When he is watching TV he sees a commercial for a Thanksgiving Dinner and loses control...
#21 - Movie Star Munster
Season 1 - Episode 28 - Aired 4/1/1965
A pair of con artists want to stage a phony accident as an insurance company scam. All they need is someone to play the part of the victim - preferably a big stupid guy with a face that looks as if it's been in an accident. When they stumble upon Herman, they realize they've found the perfect guy. Posing as a couple of movie producers, they get him to sign an accident policy by pretending it's a movie contract for a remake of DOUBLE INDEMNITY. As the crooks devise various ways to kill off their leading man, Herman becomes a stuck-up actor.
#22 - Grandpa's Call of the Wild
Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/7/1965
Herman takes the family on a camping trip in a national park. After a dinner by the campfire, Grandpa hears the howls of the wolves and remembers his days in the old country. The next morning, Grandpa is missing. Lily realizes that he changed himself into a wolf to roam the woods with his canine friends. When she hears a news report about the capture of a rare Transylvanian wolf, Lily goes to the authorities to reclaim her father.
#23 - Herman the Great
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/12/1964
Herman becomes a professional wrestler called The Masked Marvel. After he shows that he has superhuman strength to a friend of Eddie's who is the son of a pro wrestling manager. Herman uses the extra cash to save for Eddie's college education. However Herman is so nice and gullible his opponents can take advantage of him.
#24 - Knock Wood, Here Comes Charlie
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/19/1964
Herman has a twin brother Charlie who is a con-artist. He comes to town and ends up stays at the Munster home, which doesn't make Herman too happy. Charlie claims to have made an invention that takes uranium from seawater, he's looking for an investor. Herman thinks that the whole thing is a scheme to get a Lily's $5000 inheritance, he ends up being right.
#25 - The Sleeping Cutie
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/10/1964
Marilyn has insomnia and in a attempt to cure it, Grandpa accidentally gives her a Sleeping Beauty potion instead. Now Marilyn can't wake up unless she has been kissed by a prince. Lily and Herman advertise for a prince in classified section the newspaper, but this only attracts a couple of out-of-work actors. Meanwhile, Grandpa is negotiating with an oil company for the rights to use his magic pill that turns water into gasoline.