THE MUNSTERS Pilot Episode In Colour - "My Fair Munster" (1964)

I accidentally turned to the next page in The Monster Cyclopedia, and guess what comes after Mummy? Munsters! 

Welcome to Alternate Reality Wednesday in The Dungeon sponsored this week by Lord Litter's Magical Music Box!

So, what the heck am I talking about? The pilot episode of "The Munsters was created in 1964, and was only 15 minutes long  in an effort to try and sell it to the network!

This episode wasn't released until 2004, some forty years later!

The first weird thing is that it was shot in glorious colour, unlike the real series which aired in black and white like this!

They changed a few other things too..........

........Like the look of The Munster's house!

The pilot episode was titled "My Fair Munster," and when they completed it with the necessary changes, it was used not as the first episode, but the second episode that aired the first season. The first episode ended up to be about a masquerade party and was called "Munster Masquerade!"

This episode starts with Marilyn coming home from a date, but he runs away when he sees Herman. Grandpa makes a love potion to make Marilyn more attractive, and that's where it ends. When fully aired, Herman and Lily end up ingesting the potion instead with predictable results!

I was watching this without knowing, and everything was fine until it got to the credits, and I was like what the Hell is going on here? Joan Marshall as Phoebe? Who the Hell is Phoebe? Very confused, I stopped watching, and started reading, and trying to figure it all out!

I'm just assuming the network liked the pilot but somebody decided it was just a little too dark, and started making changes!

Joan Marshall was in scores of TV shows in the 50's and 60's, and was in the "Twilight Zone" episode titled "Dead Man's Shoes," but she would never be part of The Munster family again!

Yvonne De Carlo as Lily Munster was nine years older than Joan Marshall, less scary, and much more maternal!

I guess they thought Beverly Owen as Marilyn was just fine in her role, because they kept her, but look, they spelled her first name two different ways! The black and white one is the correct one.

Nate "Happy" Derman's career never took off after this. He was in four other TV shows before calling it quits a a couple of years later!

In 1983 Butch Patrick released a 45 as Eddie and the Monsters called "Whatever Happened To Eddie?" Butch looks younger than Happy, but they were both born in 1953.

Again, why did Happy get axed from the show? For me, he was just a little too over the top maniacal, and maybe the producers felt the same way.

They kept Al Lewis as Grandpa!

 Al was just a little too unique, and I can't even imagine who they could have replaced him with!

Fred Gwynne would have been pretty hard to replace also, but....

.......They did goofy-up his role some I think!

It looks like they changed up his makeup a bit too!

Look how young he looks in this shot!

The more I look at Joan Marshall in this role, the more she looks like Barbara Steele, which just might have been too much for the 60's sitcom fans, but I would have liked it!

ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST / aka DOCTOR BUTCHER aka ZOMBI 3 - 1980

In this Italian multi-titled movie, members of an expedition in search for the last followers of Kito the cannibal god, land on a small island in the Moluccas, in the East Indies. They are soon hunted by both cannibals (with machetes) and zombies created by the sinister Doctor O'Brien (Doctor Butcher) who is experimenting with corpses. Lori, a woman on the expedition team, is accepted as queen of the cannibals, and directs them against the mad scientist and his army of zombies.

This wild production stars Ian (I, MONSTER) McCulloch, Alexandra (THE NEW YORK RIPPER) Delli Colli, Sherry (TENTACLES) Buchanan, Peter (HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET) O'Neal and Donald (GHOSTHOUSE) O'Brien.

We'll start with this scene where the focus is some strange goings on the island of Moluccas, where, grisly deaths are being discovered...

These photos make little sense, if these were the work of cannibals, why are they not being eaten? So, Lori Ridgeway, the woman at the meeting, gets a crew together to go to the island to find out some answers.

Once the crew arrives on Moluccas, someone is watching Lori undress through her window.

Then, all Hell breaks loose when the cannibals smells blood in the air. Man, those machetes are freaking effective when it comes to making a statement!

If that's not bad enough, there are also zombies roaming around too! Here're their ugly faces.

This is what the cannibals do to a main dude on the expedition! Not real pretty!!..

In the meantime, Dr. Obrero, aka Dr. Butcher, continues to experiment on whatever body he can get his hands on. This time it's a woman, and, why the Hell not, right?!

Somehow, Lori becomes the Cannibal Queen in a nudie ceremony... Now what?

St the same time, Lori's beau, Peter, has been captured by the mad doctor. While him and his new helper are distracted by an experiment, Peter cuts himself loose from the leather straps...

At the opportune moment, Peter uses the scalpel to slit the throat of the traitor that was part of the expedition. Maybe he can be another zombie for the doctor's army of doom.

Peter is stopped from making his escape, the zombies have him securely in tow. But, Lori has ordered the cannibals to invade the doctor's place, and soon thereafter, the cannibals have eaten most of old Doctor Butcher! Peter and Lori escape into the jungle, ending this tale.

Here's the poster for the alternate title. Love it, Salvador Dali is Doctor Butcher, wild ass shit! Tune in again Wednesday for more cool junk, from, The Dungeon!

YOUR SHOW TIME - "The Mummy's Foot" (1949)

 The Mummy mood I'm in keeps moving forward into the past, and that's why this Saturday Night Special is called "The Mummy's Foot!"

That's probably the worstest Mummy title I've ever heard, but this is actually a pretty good little tale, even if there's not a real bandaged up Mummy in it! 

I've never read the story, but from what I can tell, this TV show is absolutely based on this story by Théophile Gautier, even though they give him no credit at all, and instead credit the story to Stanley Rubin. It's either that or just a coincidence that the main character is named Princess Hermonthis in both the book and the movie!

 "The Mummy's Foot" was episode number 4 out of 26 episodes from a television show called
"Your Show Time" that ran for one season back in 1949! The host, or The Bookshop Man as they call him, was Arthur (Daughter of Dr. Jekyll) Shields! Lucky Strike must have been the sponsor, because he chain smokes through all his parts!

 Herbert Anderson has the role of a writer named Peter who is writing a play set in ancient Egypt. Yes, his apartment is adorned with Egyptian stuff, and he is walking like an Egyptian to get in the right frame of mind.

 This is Peter's girlfriend, soon to be his fiancée, Sylvia, as played by Peggy Dow.

"The Mummy's Foot" was the first of Peggy's ten credits. Maybe being in a movie with a human-sized invisible rabbit named "Harvey" was enough for her because she quick acting soon after that.

 Peter might already have a lot of Egyptian antiquities, but he's really happy because he just found a 3000 year old mummified foot at an antique store! Sylvia is less enthralled!

 This was Herbert Anderson's first appearance on TV, but he ended up being on a number of shows over the years. Probably the epoch of his career was his five year, and 146 appearances as Dennis The Menace's Dad, Henry Mitchell.

 Look who just walked in the room! It's Princess Hermonthis herself, in the flesh!

 Peter is taken off guard and is totally astounded by the sight of her!

 Why has the Princess just shown up out of the blue?

She's come to regain her foot that looters stole from her tomb!

 The gorgeous Princess Hermonthis is played by none other than
Phyllis Coates, Lois Lane herself!

The Princess is going to take Peter back to her home so her Father, the Pharaoh, can thank him!

 Peter's digging the idea for more than one reason!

 Who cares how, but somehow they are magically scooted off to ancient Egypt!

She really wants Peter to marry her, and become her seventh husband. Her other six husbands were all stuck into large urns and unceremoniously dropped into the Nile River when they pissed her off!

 The Princess shows her Father that she got her foot back!

The Father is played by J. Edward (Son Of Dracula) Bromberg. He was accused of being a Communist in 1950, and was blackballed from acting after that. His health soon went to Hell, and he had a heart attack the following year! He was only 47 years old!

 Oddly enough, something we don't see in these old movies much any more, Phyllis Coates and Peggy Dow are still both alive which puts them both in their early 90's!

No Mummy's curse here!

When Peter gets back home, he wakes up, and realizes the whole thing was a dream, but there's just one thing!

The foot is gone!