October 29, 2007

What to Watch: Coming Up on Cable

What's scarier — The Munsters, or plastic surgery in Hollywood? Seth Arenstein checks out the season 5 debut of Nip/Tuck, WGN's Halloween marathon and MOJO's spin on car shows.

Tube Stake | Programming Reviews by Seth Arenstein

MUNSTER MASH: WGN plots Halloween marathon.

• Wednesday, October 31

The Munsters Halloween Marathon, 2pm-8pm ET, WGN.

It’s time to give The Munsters the recognition the series deserves. This week, appropriately on Halloween day, Superstation WGN will hale the strange crew who resided at 1313 Mockingbird Lane with a marathon of 12 classic eps from the series, which ran from 1964-66.

Below are 10 reasons, some substantive, why you should watch at least some of the marathon. 

1. The show’s makeup, costumes and attention to detail were magnificent. Instead of black hair, Lily (Yvonne DeCarlo) had a white streak meant to remind viewers of The Bride of Frankenstein. And Lily, Grandpa (Al Lewis) and especially Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) took hours to apply makeup and climb into their costumes. Gwynne’s accoutrements included a flat head, platform shoes and shoulder pads; he sweated so profusely in the gear that he was perpetually fighting weight loss. Sad thing is that after removing the costume and makeup, Gwynne, a fine actor and children's book author, still looked a bit like Frankenstein. On the other hand, his portrayal holds up well even after more than 30 years, as does the series.

2. Lily clutched a lily to her breast each night when she went to bed.

3. Grandpa, aka Count Dracula, started a sitcom tradition, followed by such stalwarts as The Golden Girls, that awards the actor playing the eldest member of the ensemble the best comedic lines.

Grandpa’s also the only known sitcom character whose favorite place to sit was in what appears to be the type of electric chair used to kill criminals.

Lewis, who died last year at 95 or 83 (there’s controversy about his birth date), was quite a character. A political activist, he ran for governor of NY in 1998 under the Green Party banner against incumbent George Pataki and collected 52,000 votes. He also ran a restaurant in NY’s Greenwich Village called Grandpa’s and was much in demand by college coaches for his ability to scout high school basketball talent.

4. Herman’s lunchbox for his job at “the parlor” was the size of most people’s attaché case. This culinary note leads us to reason #5.  

5. With The Munsters we once again see families on television sitting down for meals. And what meals—“More fillet of dragon, Grandpa?” Lily asks her father, The Count, in one episode. In another she serves shish kabob on long daggers—of course Grandpa ignores the meat and eats the metal. “That’s the way to cook a knife,” he tells Lily approvingly. And every drink The Munsters imbibed or offered to terrified guests always had tufts of smoke wafting from it.

6. The Munsters series must have kept theatrical dust companies in business. Supplies were needed every time Lilly vacuumed in her special way (her machine spewed dust and dirt out of its hose, making the Munster home even more dusty—couches and chairs spewed out dust any time someone sat on them) or Herman hit the deck from fainting or jumped up and down during one of his recurring temper tantrums, which also resulted in plaster and wood falling to the ground. And how many people did it take to put in all those cobwebs at The Munsters’ manse? And who decorated the 9-room and a dungeon house? And who was responsible for the haphazard landscaping? And who had the idea for the Munsters to make phone calls in a satin-lined coffin?

7. This marathon allows you to expose your kids to young versions of Paul Lynde, Dom DeLuise, Louis Nye, Charlie Callas and baseball’s Leo Durocher. Or you could savor them all by yourself.

8. The Munsters’ perversity could be a diversity lesson for your kids. Where The Munsters came from, everyone was hundreds of years old, had green skin, lived in dark, dirty homes, believed cold, rainy and dark constituted a beautiful day. In turn, The Munsters considered the norms in our culture unusual.  

9. If your kids haven’t seen this classic 1964 send-up of famous monster characters, wouldn’t it be a great way to get them warmed up for Halloween?

10. Marilyn.

• Thursday, November 1, 2007

Test Drive, series premiere, 9:30pm, MOJO.

With this new series MOJO becomes for men what Lifetime sometimes is for women—pleasant background noise. It’s not that this new series about men and their cars—which could just as well have been called Testosterone Drive—isn’t amusing.

The pilot tonight is a hoot. We find host Craig Jackson on a quest to test drive exotic cars whose total worth is $2 million, one of which is a $480,000 Mercedes. He also tells you how to best use an auto that can reach 200 miles per hour (you deploy equipment that jams police officers’ radar guns, although that’s not legal in every state). And Jackson seems to have his eye on those less fortunate, who might find buying a $400,000 car a struggle; join an exotic car club, he counsels. With yearly fees as low as $3,500, members get to test drive exotic autos.

Then there’s the segment of the show where Jackson attempts to scientifically ascertain whether or not cars can attract women, although he calls them babes. For his research he talks about the subject with a sociologist and dating coach, who has a lot of fun explaining that women, er, prefer hard things, as in hard-top cars. A convertible, with its soft top, isn’t cool, she says.

But Jackson wants to prove his point practically. To do this, he stands near a 2007 Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640 ($390,000) and sees how many women flock to him and the car. For control purposes, he also spends time next to Bessie, a 1978 Toyota Corolla. It’s not hard to figure out which auto attracts the ladies. Unfortunately for the lady hungry Jackson, he finds that the Lamborghini also attracts a lot of males.

While much of Test Drive is fun, MOJO’s “discering male” audience undoubtedly will find it’s easily digestible while doing something else—just make sure that it’s not driving.