Favorite Albums: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society

There was a time when my favorite group was The Kinks, and I was busy trying to get all the albums that featured my favorite songs by the eclectic British Invasion group. From You Really Got Me, through Lola and All Day and All of the Night, I picked em all up! But there was one particular album that I didn’t know anything about. It was called The Village Green Preservation Society, and was one of the last albums featuring the original 4-man lineup of Ray, Dave, Mick and Pete. What WAS this album? Was it Country? or, by the look of the cover, was it Folk?

Well, I didn’t know, but since the album was one of the few Kinks albums in the NICE PRICE line, (for those who don’t remember, the NICE PRICE albums were these selected cheaper priced albums that sold for $3.99) I didn’t have anything to lose by purchasing the album and checking it out- and MY GOSH, did THAT end up being a BARGAIN!

Like I said, I assumed it was going to be a country or folk album just by the title and cover picture, so I was COMPLETELY TAKEN UNAWARE when I was hit by one of the most witty, sentimental and HILARIOUS concept albums I’d ever heard in my life! Listening to this album was like foraging through an old chest of treasures in a dusty attic- all these little gems singing about the most mundane things in life, tunes that were innovative AND catchy at the same time!  We only had to listen to it once before the album became THE soundtrack me and my friends listened to for MONTHS, and to this day, The Village Green Preservation Society still remains one of my most beloved albums in my collection, easily one of the top twenty LPs I own!

The Village Green Preservation Society

An Ode to all things pure and simple in the world, championing such things as antique tables, little shops and virginity! This song about celebrating all the everyday things in life sets the template for the theme of the Village Green Preservation Society LP!

Do You Remember Walter?

A sentimental song about a childhood friendship. After reminiscing about adventures he’s had as a kid with a friend named Walter, he realizes that if he were to meet Walter now, He’d probably be nothing like the childhood friend he knew, and would probably not even care about the things they did. But that’s okay, because he still has his memories of their childhood days.

Picture Book

A song about the magic of looking through old Photo Albums, this song is more recently known for its brief stint as the theme song for one of those computer photo printers.

A sort of precursor for the album closer “People Take Pictures of each other”.

Johnny Thunder

We’ve always debated whether this song was about a true Paul Bunyan-ish hero or a misunderstood savior, but one thing is sure- Johnny Thunder’s a tough  ol’ guy, and he has a little sweetheart named Helena who has all the faith in the world in him.

Last of the Steam-Powered Trains

A sad song sung in the first person of a now passé Steam-Engine lamenting his replacement by the more slick and modern express Trains  that progress has presented. But he perks up by saying that by being an antique and placed in a museum, his well-being will be seen to!

I love the way this song’s beat trudges along like a train chugging, slowly picking up speed as the song progresses, to its big end!

Big Sky

And just who might the character “Big Sky” be, if not our Father who Art In Heaven?

A song about the sometimes callous indifference God has regarding the trials and tribulations we petty humans go through, while reminding us that one day, all our suffering will be rewarded. “One day we’ll be free, til that day can be, don’t let it get you down!”

Sitting By The Riverside

Ah, a song drenched with shades of Maurice Chevalier! This song completely encapsulates a dreamy scene sitting in a little café sipping tea as gondolas go by in the orange sunset, soaking in the Joi de vivre…

A sweet way to end Side One!

Animal Farm

Side Two’s opening track about leaving the headaches and bustle of the big, noisy city and moving to the country, where a man can rest easy and clear his head, free of traffic and superficial people…

Village Green

A sort of sequel to Animal Farm, this one’s about a fine, upstanding young man who has made a name for himself in the big city, but has fond memories about his days growing up in the simple country.

Phenomenal Cat

And what would an album  about the sweet and innocent things in life be without a NURSERY RHYME? A song that conjures up the images of “The Owl and The Pussycat”, the highlight of the melody is Ray’s own distorted singing as the voice of the Phenomenal Cat merrily humming away!

Starstruck

A fun ditty about a young girl who gets obsessed by the glitz and glamour of the  Hollywood scene, and her subsequent transformation into a wanna-be socialite, this tune is made fun by it’s showtime revue refrain: Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba!!

All of My Friends Were There

A trauma all of us go through- drinking too much and making a fool of yourself in front of everyone!

Wicked Annabella

Once you’ve sung a nursery rhyme, what could be more appropriate than to follow it up with a Fairy Tale? And a pretty spooky one, at that! The story of a wicked old Witch that flies the skies at night, looking for kids who haven’t gone to sleep like good little children…

Effectively sinister guitar riffs for this one, too!

Ah, haven’t we all known girls like the songs titular heroine? Smart, sexy, and oh-so-highly desirable, Monica knows she’s too good for just about ANYONE, and enjoys shooting hopeful young suitors down in flames! A man obsessed with a gal just aglow with confidence and charisma!

People Take Pictures Of Each Other

A HILARIOUS, fun way to end the album! The song sings about the wonder of Photo taking and photo sharing, and as the nostalgic host shows more and more pictures to his guest, the bored captive audience begs, “Don’t show me no more, please”! Something that ANYONE who’s been forced to watch somebody else’s family slideshows can relate to!

A Mark and Brian Christmas: Bacardi Rum Cake

More Classic Gems from Mark and Brian Christmas Past!

As the days got closer and closer to Christmas, the Mark and Brian gang started getting more and more winsome and sentimental, and a lot of the conversations  leaned towards childhood/early memories of Christmas...

While discussing the various food items that they’d brought for their Christmas potluck, Frank “Mr. Owl” Murphy related a short but interesting story about the Bacardi Rum Cake his wife had made for the occasion…

A Mark and Brian Christmas: Top Nine Rejected ELMO Dolls

More Classic Gems from Mark and Brian Christmas Past!


In the spirit of Christmas Shopping for Children's Toys, Mark and Brian offer up the Top Nine Rejected ELMO DOLL themes before the manufacturers finally settling on the famous "Tickle-Me Elmo"one!

Favorite Albums: Duran Duran / Rio

It was actually my sister who introduced me to the music of Duran Duran as a whole. Before she started bringing home all their albums and EPs, the only song I knew from them was the heavily-played on MTV song Hungry Like The Wolf. But after a few months of listening to her playing her albums over and over, I actually began to dig their music quite a bit!

I had an RCA Videodisc Player which I had purchased so I could watch The Who’s “Kids Are Alright” movie (the only format it was available in at the time), so most of my music concerts were in the Videodisc format as well. Discs like The Beatles’ “Let It Be” (Yes! They released it on Videodisc!) and Fleetwood Mac’s “Mirage” Tour Concert were bought on a regular basis, and one day my sister asked me if I’d let her use the Videodisc Player if she bought a Videodisc of her own. I said sure, and the following weekend, she came home with a video collection of DURAN DURAN!

For a guy who didn’t know much about Duran Duran , this was a  mind-blowing and very educational experience! You got to see the band go through their early new wave roots up to their current (at the time) status as video-as-art mavericks! You got to see them go through several phases of “looks”…The songs segued into each other, making the contrasts of each type of video all the more palatable! And the SONGS were so damn good!

Eventually I had to go ahead and purchase their albums myself, including both versions of their “first” album, as well as what I consider their pop-art masterpiece, RIO.

The cover art for Rio was the (soon to be) iconical image of a smiling woman done by Patrick Nagel, at once capturing the whole “Nu-Romantic” feel before you’d even started playing the record!

1.Rio

The album starts off with a single synthesizer note, then the drums kick in to introduce the beat and then the song turns this into a jumping, rocking piece, setting the stage for your musical trip!

 2. Most of the songs here had videos shot on exotic locations (like, famously, Sri Lanka) and so when hearing songs like “Lonely in Your Nightmare” conjures up visions of faraway lands, giving you a melancholy (and quite lonely) feeling, John’s bass solos are particularly expressive here.

3.The version of the song “My Own Way” I learned was from the video, which featured the dance-“night” version of the song, and when I first made a cassette to play in my car, it was THAT version I inserted into the album’s playlist. And even now I still would prefer to listed to that version than the decidedly slower one originally on the album!

4. The one song I’d already known before coming in, this is a fun number that’s only marred by an EXTREMELY irritating end with a lady loudly moaning during the fade out. WTF, this wasn’t so noticeable in the single version!

5. Hold Back The Rain

Side One ended with this longish song in ths style of the above Hungry Like the Wolf track, this one foreshadowed later songs New Moon On Monday and Union of the Snake.

7. New Religion

This is one ROCKING number, another one driven by John’s distinctive bass plucking.

ME and my friends would LOVE to sing this song with its interesting lead vocal overlaid with a counter vocal during the choruses! One of my faves from this album!

8.Last Chance On The Stairway

 Ah, another BIG favorite  of mine- this one begins with an almost whimsical and romantic feel (with him sweetly reminiscing "I don't remember quite how I met you, wasn't long ago") but turns into a rocking song full of desperation!

9. Save A Prayer

Like Lonely In Your Nightmare, this one was shot on location and so gives an added feel of displacement, loss and loneliness. One of the more famous MTV videos by them, I might add. A truly beautiful and haunting song!

10. The Chauffeur
Did I mention Haunting? MAN, songs like  album closer “The Chauffeur” go even further by giving you the strangest sense of unease!  its Magical Toyland feel to it, I've always imagined the picture on the cover of Aerosmith's "Toys In The Attic" with the dolls and hobby-horses coming to life, and there's even a disembodied voice asking about "the toys in the attic" A mesmerizing end to an amazing album!!

Years later, and though they’ve made many video collections after that, they’ve never released that original Duran Duran Video Collection on DVD. Sure, the videos themselves are (for the most part) available on other collections, but there was something about the way that old video was put together that just made it…perfect! 

Good Girl Art Covers starring those Fighting Force Girls

Once again I’ve taken a famous Good Girl Art Comic Cover and inserted my own Fighting Force gals into the scene, this time STARTLING COMICS #45, with Wendy & Karen fighting Tim as the Jackalwere...

Startling Comics #45

Fighting Force Featuring Wendy #206, Art by Z

Favorite Artists: MAD's Angelo Torres

Angelo Torres Cheesecake Art

People will sometimes ask me why my illustrations of girls always tend to have gals with real curvy hips and legs, and my answer is immediate: “Ah, That would be the influence of Angelo Torres!”, To which inevitably, the next thing the person usually asks is, “Who?!”

 Readers of MAD Magazine in the seventies and eighties knew the format of each issue was pretty set. The magazine would start with a Movie spoof usually drawn by Mort Drucker, the middle of the magazine would feature Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side Of…”, and the issue would end with a TV Sitcom spoof. The TV spoofs were almost always drawn by an artist named Angelo Torres, and I’ve always just loved how he drew women.

  My first exposure to the greatness of Angelo’s work was way back in 1977 or so. I was an avid Charlie Angels fan, (owing to the fact that I was in love with Jaclyn Smith) and one day I was over at my friend Byron’s house after school, and he had the latest issue of MAD magazine featuring a beautifully rendered cover of Charlie's Angels by Jack Rickard, and a satire inside drawn by Torres!  I immediately sat down and read it, and it was love at first sight!

Charlie's Angels, MAD #193

   First off, His depiction of Jaclyn was right on, and furthermore, most of the s(tory had the girls running around in bikinis! (I’ve noticed that whenever anyone spoofs Charlie’s Angels, they always show the three girls in bikinis, but viewers will attest that Kate Jackson never went NEAR a bikini on the show…but I digress)

  Maybe it was since the first girl I ever saw him draw was Kelly Garrett, but I became an instant fan right there, and from then on I would always recognize him as the guy that drew the Charlie’s Angels Spoof, and over time I noticed “That guy that always draws girls in bikinis ”, or at least It seemed, much to my delight!

Fantasy Island

  One of the things I really dug was the gorgeous way he drew women of all different ethnicities, whether they be Spanish, Black, Asian, or just the good ol’ California girls, and it almost seemed like the script put in exotic bikini-clad women simply because they knew Angelo would be illustrating it!

Six Million Dollar Man,MAD #172, Hawaii 5-O, MAD#141

    The girls were always drawn with special details in the face (eyes, lips), and MAN could he draw girls’ legs! I remember that every time an issue came out with a story featuring Angelo Torres’ art, I would buy it, and as I got older , I would try and try in vain to copy the drawings of those issues, attempting to emulate the style of the master himself. And I’m still trying to this day!

Here are more of my FAVORITE Angelo Torres "cheesecake" illustrations!

Riptide, MAD # 254

The Love Boat, MAD #202

Vegas, MAD #210

Three's Company, MAD #196

Owl and the Pussycat,MAD #145

  I Love this one- Who else but Torres could give Babs such great legs? AHAHAHA

Scott Corbett’s “Trick” Books

The “Trick” Book Series...another favorite children’s book series of mine, 

written by Scott Corbett and illustrated by Paul Galdone

  Scott Corbett’s Trick Books centered around the adventures (and misadventures) of a young boy named Kerby Maxwell, his friend Fenton, and his dog Waldo.

  Kerby stops to help an eccentric old woman with her heel stuck in a drainage grating. Her name is Mrs. Graymalkin, and she is so grateful to Kerby for saving her shoe that she later rewards him with a mysterious old chemistry set that belonged to her son when he was a boy. But this is no ordinary chemistry set- when the mysterious chemicals are mixed to Mrs. Graymalkin’s instructions, they have the powers to create many wonderful, exciting effects!

  Trouble hitting a home run at the game? A drop of a special mixture onto the ball will solve that! Your dog run away? A special concoction will make his whereabouts appear in the beaker! And so on and on. For every problem, there’s a potion to fix it!

  Mrs. Graymalkin’s potions create such magical results, Kerby believes she is a witch, whereas levelheaded Fenton believes she is a genius scientist who happens to be extremely eccentric!

And who knows…? Maybe they’re BOTH right!

Here are some of my favorite books in the series:

The Lemonade Trick

Mrs. Graymalkin has some fun with Kerby in this, the first book in the Trick Series.

She tells him if he mixes two bad-smelling chemicals together, it will bubble and fizz together and end up smelling like roses. He goes home and tries it, but instead he is compelled to drink the concoction, which makes him do good deeds all day!

The Limerick Trick

This was the first Trick book I read, and maybe that’s part of the reason this is my favorite book in the series. Kerby wants to win a poem contest because the prize is a new bike. He asks Mrs. Graymalkin to give him a potion that will make him write the winning entry. She gives him what he wishes, but adds a little bonus- for his greediness, he starts to speak uncontrollably in limericks!

The Hairy Horror Trick

Kerby’s cousin Gaye discovers his Chemical set! The boys mix a concoction to make her forget that she has seen it, but unfortunately Gaye has moved around some of the chemicals when she was looking at it so the experiment goes wrong, the end results leaving Kerby and Fenton with beards and moustaches, and Waldo bare as a poodle!

The Hateful Plateful Trick

Kerby’s cousin is back, and they try another experiment which leaves all of them smelling like the type of food they hate the most. The terrible news is that the only way to get RID of the smell is to EAT the very dishes they despise! But where will they find a place to get all the dinners before their parents come home?

Like the THREE INVESTIGATORS series I mentioned before, much traveling around to other libraries was needed to read all of the books in the TRICK BOOK series. And even with all that legwork, I still didn’t get to read THE HOME RUN trick till I got a copy off of Ebay when I was trying to complete the set. (succeeded, too!)

 My Scott Corbett "Trick" Books Collection:

The Trick Books:

The Lemonade Trick

The Mailbox Trick

The Disappearing Dog Trick

The Baseball Trick

The Limerick Trick

The Turnabout Trick

The Hairy Horror Trick

The Hockey Trick

The Home Run Trick

The Hateful Plateful Trick

The Black Mask Trick

The Hangman’s Ghost Trick

There is one book in the series that sticks out, though. It is THE MAILBOX TRICK, and there’s no trick in it. In fact, Mrs. Graymalkin isn’t involved with the story at all. Which is kind of weird when each dust jacket writes on the inside “Mrs. Graymalkin! No TRICK book is complete without her!” They should have taken their own advice!

   In this story Kerby’s cousin Gaye mails out letters he wrote only to blow off steam and never meant to send out. So the whole book he’s trying to get the letters back before the recipient can read it. I remember reading it and WONDERING when the heck he was going to call Mrs. Graymalkin for help, and was pretty disappointed when the story ended with nary an appearance of her!

Super-Vixens: Ms. Marvel

When I was first introduced to Ms. Marvel, I have to confess I didn’t find her very interesting, and as a matter of fact, thought that the Red and Blue Captain Marvel costume looked absolutely ridiculous cut into  a bad one-piece swimsuit. But I had a friend who absolutely loved her, (and I mean LOVED her!) and insisted on sharing,  so I was exposed to her comic whether I liked it or not! This actually worked out to my benefit as I was able to filter through the stuff I didn’t like and appreciate the stuff I did, and eventually I came around and started picking up some of those issues myself!

Original Costume

The biggest part of what turned me around from a non-believer to a general fan of the comic was, of course, THE NEW COSTUME! Now THIS was what I liked! Rendered by a master of sexy super-heroine costumes was the mighty DAVE COCKRUM, and YES, the new outfit looked EXACTLY like a variation of Jean Grey’s revamped PHOENIX costume, but HEY, when you’ve got a winning formula, you don’t mess with it…

The Bold n Sassy NEW Outfit

So, anyway, gone was the horrendous red and blue outfit, in was the sleek ‘n’ sexy blue outfit with the lightning bolt and golden sash , and just in time for a  return slugfest against super baddie Deathbird (who would go on to give Hawkeye a run for his money in AVENGERS #189) then onward to my favorite arcs of the series, where Carol dukes it out with a civilization of super Lizard Men! Ah, trust me, it’s cooler than it sounds.  And THEN…

The Comic got cancelled. Yep. GEEZ! All that coaxing and convincing me to get onboard the Ms. Marvel Fan Ship, and then the voyage was abruptly ended! But the best was yet to come with the aforementioned AVENGERS stint, all lovingly rendered by John Byrne, who was TOTALLY in his PRIME at this time!

At this time we started trying to buy all the back issues of old Avengers stories, and when we got our hands of the epic KREE-WARS stories, got to see exactly where Carol Danvers had come from in the first place! It was kind of nest to realize she actually had a bit of “history” within the pages of those old Silver Age Marvels!

So yeah,  I was a fan there…but after that surrealistic ( and highly controversial) AVENGERS issue  (196?) where she gets pregnant in some convoluted cosmic drama, I kind of lost interest and drifted away again. Next time I checked, for some reason the character named “Ms Marvel”  was a big female version of  the Thing! I didn’t know if this was supposed to be Carol Danvers or some OTHER character, and I  DIDN’T WANT TO KNOW! (Okay, I found out later it was some OTHER gal, but still, the shock…!)

 In fact, it was only with the arrival of Frank Cho’s cool and sexy MS MARVEL revival did I breathe a sigh of RELIEF, for here once again was that awesome dynamic costume, proving it could stand the test of time! The MS Marvel of Old was back! ( and MAN, let’s hope she STAYS that way!)

Frank Cho Ms Marvel

 A funny side-story that always makes me smile is remembering when my friend picked up a new issue of Ms Marvel and saw that Carol was dating some dude with a beard, he mock- angrily declared war against all bearded men, and set about cutting up every picture of a bearded man in the daily newspaper. I sat on the couch howling with laughter as he jokingly destroyed all the pictures, until he got into trouble when his father scolded him and said “What are you DOING to the Newspaper? I haven’t even READ it yet!”

Ahahahahahaha!!!

Ms. Marvel / Carol Danvers

First Appearance: Marevel Super-Heroes #13

By Roy Thomas and Gene Colan

Favorite Songs: "Love of the Bottle" by Tiny Monroe

British Alternative magazine SELECT would occasionally give away free music cassette samplers of upcoming / rare tracks from groups like Gene, Lucy’s Fur Coat, and Lush as a free bonus shrunk-wrapped with their issues.

On one of these fantastic collections, there was an incredibly catchy, jangly pop-perfect tune called Love of the Bottle, by new indie Britpop group Tiny Monroe. Fast- paced, and sassy , I fell in love with it immediately and knew I wanted to have a “hard” copy on CD (we all know how temporary those cassettes are), and I made a mental note to grab the release when it came out.

When the CD from Tiny Monroe called VOLCANOES came out, however, I was shocked to find the version on the album being QUITE different from the version on the cassette that I’d loved for so long! I was utterly baffled! Was the version on the sampler a single version? Or a work-in-progress? I do know that the LUSH song on the same sampler, a song called “The Childcatcher”, was a demo-form, which was ALSO quite different from the LOVELIFE release, so maybe that was it.

The Album version was slower, more rock-oriented, and NJ’s voice was double-tracked during the choruses. The entire structure of the song seemed different, with new guitar breaks and guitar riffing during the second verse. Oh, and there were new vocals overlaid over the lead-out, as well… a LOT more polished, but where was that happy, poppy song?

In any case, although I did like the Volcanoes version and the Album in general (esp. Cream Bun), part of me wasn’t satisfied, knowing I was still missing my favorite song from the band! What I ended up doing was taking that precious SELECT cassette to a friend’s house, and he ripped it to MP3 for me. I know it ain’t “State of the Art”, but at least I can relax, knowing that my song won’t warp or demagnetize out of my life when I try to listen to it!

Hey, if there’s anyone out there who knows exactly what the scoop is with the cassette version, I’d really appreciate if you’d drop me a line!

Super-Vixens: Misty Knight

My first exposure to Misty Knight was in the same place that I first saw Colleen Wing: In the pages of the Byrne / Claremont run of THE UNCANNY X-MEN.

 My first actual memory of Misty was,in fact, Uncanny X-Men #122. In that issue, Ororo returned to the apartment of her childhood where she has a violent tussle with some punk drugged up kids. Power Man arrives with a very slick  "Pam Grier"-ish chick at his side. Who WAS this gal? Assumptions at the time told me she MUST be Luke Cage's girlfriend, maybe nothing more?

 But I was wrong- reading back issues later I was to find she had closer ties than I thought- she was Jean "Phoenix" Grey's roommate, and later when I began collecting the Byrne / Claremont run Of MARVEL TEAM-UP, I found she was co-owner of NIGHTWING INVESTIGATORS along with Colleen Wing (Get it, Knight-Wing.) and her beau was non other than Daniel Rand, A.K.A. IRON FIST!

 It was only when I started delving into these earlier issues that I got a clearer picture of how cool she really was. Collecting IRON FIST (and later POWER MAN and then POWER MAN/IRON FIST), I was surprised how fully developed her character was! Reading these, it really seemed a shame that her character never took off (back then). I bet if Colleeen and Misty had gotten their own series with Byrne and Claremont at the helm, we coulda been in for one HELL of a story!

 Oh, and funny thing- All that time reading those issues, I NEVER knew that Misty sported a Bionic arm a la the Six Million Dollar Man! They relied so heavily on her cool attitude and smart thinking that I don’t believe I ever saw her use it once! In fact, it wasn’t unitl the John Byrne NAMOR comic years and years later that her “powers” were dramatically revealed to me!

First appearance (unnamed)

Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #1 (March 1972),

Second Appearance (name revealed)

Marvel Premiere #20 (January, 1975)

Created by          

Tony Isabella, Roy Thomas and Ross Andru

Super-Vixens: Arathaza

Ah, another one in the category of “salacious one-shot characters” that seem to spring forth effortlessly from the pen of comic maestro John Byrne, Arathaza is at once both awe-inspiring and utterly disposable!

 Issue# 585 of Superman’s ACTION COMICS begins with a bang not so unlike the explosive opening teasers of the great JAMES BOND movies of yesteryear where we come in not at the beginning but rather the end of the last mission, and so we see Superman already engaged in battle with a new (and after, never again seen) villainess who is slowly draining the life force out of Supes.

 Through their dialog we learn that the majestic (and slightly Tina Louise al la Ginger Grant looking) Arathaza was once only a mild mannered secretary named Barb Kowaleski until she found the means of transferring Superman’s powers to herself. It is here that he turns the tables on her, rendering himself completely passive so that there is no power to draw from!

At that point, he grabs her staff, which he rightly figures is the source of her powers, and she’s turned back into the frumpy looking mortal that she was. Supes sweeps her up, saving the day and delivering the coupe de grace to the latest would-be world dominator!

And  then and ONLY then did the actual story featuring the Phantom Stranger start!

Arathaza / Barb Kowaleski

Action Comics #585 By John Byrne

More Fave TV: The Munsters

I’m going to come right out and say it…when I was growing up; I was INFATUATED with Lily Munster! I mean, I liked Yvonne De Carlo as an actress and all she did, but I was IN LOVE with the Lily Munster Character she played!

   It all started when the local channel here began re-broadcasting The Munsters on TV. The show was SO Witty and Funny! The stories were well scripted and the ACTING was top-notch! Fred Gwynne played lovable Herman Munster, Al Lewis played crotchety Grandpa, Beverly Owen played cute Marilyn and even Butch Patrick was a terrific kid actor...

  Then there was Lily! Watching the show now, I can clearly see what made her so attractive to me. She was kind, giggly and tough as nails all at once, and Yvonne De Carlo played her character 100%. I don’t know, maybe it was the long draping hair or her flowing gown or even that BAT pendant she wore ‘round her neck.

 I remember there was a time that I was SO obsessed with Lily, I would force my friend to stay up with me so I could catch Yvonne DeCarlo on the “Nite-Owl Theater” at 2:00 in the morning in shows like “Salome” and “Criss Cross” (the latter is still a movie I love watching!) I remember going to the library to Xerox stills of her in those BIG reference books! AHAHA! Heck, I’m STILL in love with her!

  In any case, I loved watching the Munsters. The stories were usually great, and even when they were mediocre; I always still had lovely Lily Munster to keep me occupied!

Some of My Favorite Episodes:

“Tin Can Man”

Eddie creates a robot for the school fair. When the robot breaks down, Herman takes over. The audience is in awe because they think he’s a robot. HERMAN thinks they’re in awe because his jokes are so funny.

“Family Portrait”

 A Magazine has chosen the Munsters as THE American Family, and has come to interview them and take pictures. Harvey Korman is hilarious in this one!

“Eddie’s Nickname”

Eddie is teased at school because he’s short. Grandpa gives him a milkshake to make him grow…instead, he grows a BEARD!

Fave Line:

Grandpa:” Eddie, with that beard, you look just like Mitch Miller!

“Eddie: “WAAAAHHHH!”

“Follow That Munster”

Herman has been taking a course in detective work, and has been going out at nights

doing footwork. Lily thinks he’s cheating on her. Her suspicions seem to be true when she confronts him with a girl he’s guarding.

Fave Line:

Herman” Lily, You may not believe this, but I’m Secret Agent 702!”

Lily “Herman, YOU may not believe THIS, but I’m SONNY LISTON!” POW!

“Just Another Pretty Face”

Herman gets struck by lightning, and his face gets horribly disfigured. That is, his face changes to a regular human face, or rather, Fred Gwynne without any makeup on! What a neat episode!

and my two faves of all time:

“Don’t Bank On Herman”

 Herman and Grandpa are mistaken for bank robbers, and are given a cache of money. After an angry Lily tells them they cannot keep the money, the two break into the bank to put back the money.

Fave line:

Herman (counting)”18200, 18200, 18300 dollars!”

Lily: "Herman, I have some news for you.”

Herman: “Yes, Dear?”

Lily: “We only HAD $680 IN our tax account.”

Herman: “Really?”

Lily: “Really. You Know what this means now, don’t you?”

Herman “Yes I do, dear….It mean our bank gives a generous amount of interest!”

Lily: ‘It MEANS Herman, that you have GOOFED IT AGAIN!”

and

“Herman’s Rival”

Herman lets unreliable Uncle Lester borrow money for an investment. Lily thinks the bank account is short because they’re poor, so as not to embarrass Herman, she secretly goes out to work at a Tea House to make extra money. This is fine, but Herman thinks she’s seeing someone behind his back!

The ending confrontation between Lily, The tea House owner and Uncle Lester is TOO FUNNY!

Another one of my very favorite Sitcoms of the sixties!