The Munsters (Yes, the Actors Themselves) Recorded a Bizarre Tie-In Album

Imagine if the premiere of, say, Modern Family was accompanied by a Tidal-exclusive album of each member of the Dunphy family introducing themselves in song. Not the soundtrack of a musical episode, mind you, just a wholly unrelated work of music performed by the actors themselves for… people who don’t know who they are but aren’t willing to watch the series to find out, apparently. 

Okay, that actually sounds kind of fun. In practice, unfortunately, it just doesn’t work, as evidenced by 1964’s At Home With The Munsters.

Clocking in at a paltry 39 minutes and change, the album released by Golden Records is scarcely longer than an episode of the series itself, and it’s bafflingly unclear who it was for. The Munsters wasn’t even out of their first season when it was released, so it’s not a collector’s item for superfans. Its content — a tour through 1313 Mockingbird Lane led by Herman Munster and assisted by various members of the family as they’re encountered by the hapless visitor, the listener — doesn’t add anything to the viewer’s enjoyment of the series. They’ve seen the house. They know the characters. They’ve heard Grandpa’s corny jokes.

In fact, the audio format is uniquely mismatched to the album’s entire premise, as many of the gags rely on, you know, sight. When the listener is introduced to Kitty, all they hear is the roar of a lion, not knowing that the joke is that Kitty is a normal black cat who sounds like the king of the jungle. It’s the same with Spot, who greets the listener at the door with a guttural shriek that gives no hint as to his form, which is a fire-breathing dragon who lives under the stairs. Herman leads you through strapping him into an electric chair, examining Grandpa’s vulture noodle soup and a series of secret passages that don’t mean much if you can’t see them. 

By the end of the album, fully a quarter of listening time is spent recapping episodes in the form of stories told by Herman and Lily, so you can really tell they ran out of ideas.

That brings us to the strangest part of the album: The tracks “Herman’s Favorite Story” and “Lily’s Favorite Story” recount the plots of the episodes “Grandpa’s Call of the Wild” and “If a Martian Answers, Hang Up,” respectively, both of which aired in 1965. You’ll notice that number is bigger than 1964, the year the album was released. Were Munsters viewers/listeners delighted to realize they already knew the plot of the episode they’d tuned into? Or were they pissed about spoilers? 

The answer may be lost to time, or at least the caverns of some obscure university’s media history offices.