Overview of 'The Munsters' Season 1

Episode 1 - Munster Masquerade

Release Date: 1964-09-24

Marilyn’s boyfriend, Tom Daily, invites the Munster clan to a masquerade. Eddie remains at home with Mrs. Morton as his sitter. Marilyn goes as Priscilla, Lily is Little Bo Peep, Grandpa is Napoleon and Herman is King Arthur in a suit of shining armor.

Episode 2 - My Fair Munster

Release Date: 1964-10-01

Grandpa mixes up a love potion designed to make the opposite sex fall madly for anyone who drinks it.

Episode 3 - A Walk on the Mild Side

Release Date: 1964-10-08

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!

Episode 4 - Rock-a-Bye Munster

Release Date: 1964-10-15

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.

Episode 5 - Pike’s Pique

Release Date: 1964-10-22

The gas company wants to run a pipeline 25 feet under the Munsters’ house. However, at that depth it would run through Grandpa’s dungeon lab...

Episode 6 - Low-Cal Munster

Release Date: 1964-10-29

Herman wants to go to a reunion with his army friends. Unfortunately he can’t seem fit into his uniform. Lily doesn’t want him to go, but decides to make a deal with him. If he can lose enough weight to fit into the uniform, he can go...

Episode 7 - Tin Can Man

Release Date: 1964-11-05

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 is if he makes an excellent project for the school’s Science Fair, so Grandpa helps him make a robot.

Episode 8 - Herman the Great

Release Date: 1964-11-12

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.

Episode 9 - Knock Wood, Here Comes Charlie

Release Date: 1964-11-19

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.

Episode 10 - Autumn Croakus

Release Date: 1964-11-26

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.

Episode 11 - The Midnight Ride of Herman Munster

Release Date: 1964-12-03

After going to the car to find something Herman falls asleep in the back of his car with the keys in the ignition. The car is then stolen by bank robbers who don’t know that Herman is sleeping in the back seat. When Herman wakes up he wanders into their hideout and is thought to be Big Louie, a gang member who has taken twenty years of beatings in the boxing ring. Herman winds up as an accomplice in a bank robbery.

Episode 12 - The Sleeping Cutie

Release Date: 1964-12-10

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.

Episode 13 - Family Portrait

Release Date: 1964-12-17

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.

Episode 14 - Grandpa Leaves Home

Release Date: 1964-12-24

Grandpa feels neglected and decides to depart the Munster Family. In the beginning Lily and Herman believe this is just a ploy to get attention and they let Grandpa leave, expecting he’ll soon come back. Shortly afterwards, they begin to miss him and try to track him down. The find out he’s doing a magic act at a local nightclub.

Episode 15 - Herman’s Rival

Release Date: 1964-12-31

Lily thinks that Herman has lost all his savings through a bad investment – when in fact he loaned it to her brother, the Wolf Man. She decides to build-up the family’s funds by taking a palm-reading job in a tea room. In a plot twist Grandpa and Herman suspect that Lily is sneaking out of the house to have a love affair.

Episode 16 - Grandpa’s Call of the Wild

Release Date: 1965-01-07

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.

Episode 17 - All-Star Munster

Release Date: 1965-01-14

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.

Episode 18 - If a Martian Answers, Hang Up

Release Date: 1965-01-21

When Herman fools around with a ham radio in Grandpa’s dungeon, he thinks he’s contacted Martians. But he is actually speaking to two kids who are fooling around with walkie-talkies and just pretending to be Martians. The kids think Herman is also a kid, and a stupid one too.

Episode 19 - Eddie’s Nickname

Release Date: 1965-01-28

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.

Episode 20 - Bats of a Feather

Release Date: 1965-02-04

Eddie needs an impressive pet to take to the school pet fair, but Spot, the fire-breathing monster, is too shy to come out of hiding. Eddie decides to take Igor the bat, but Igor is insulted by one of Herman’s wisecracks and flies away. Without Eddie’s knowing, Grandpa changes himself into a bat to impersonate Igor. This causes trouble when Eddie gives Grandpa to another student whose father wants to send him to outer space on a scientific mission.

Episode 21 - Don’t Bank on Herman

Release Date: 1965-02-11

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.

Episode 22 - Dance With Me, Herman

Release Date: 1965-02-18

In order to accompany Marilyn to her school dance, Herman decides to take dancing lessons. He goes to Happy Havemeyer’s Dancing School, where he is suckered into signing a ten-year contract for 1500 lessons (at $7.50 a lesson). Herman is under the wrong impression that he is going to become a dancing instructor for the school.

Episode 23 - Follow That Munster

Release Date: 1965-02-25

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.

Episode 24 - Love Locked Out

Release Date: 1965-03-04

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.

Episode 25 - Come Back Little Googie

Release Date: 1965-03-11

Grandpa is under the impression that he’s turned Eddie’s friend Googie into a monkey. The truth is that the little boy is hiding to fool the Munsters.

Episode 26 - Far Out Munsters

Release Date: 1965-03-18

The Standells, a rock group from Hollywood, are in town for a club appearance. They want a secluded place to stay in order to escape from their screaming teenage fans. Their manager pays an exorbitant fee to the Munsters to use their house for the weekend. The Munsters pack up and relocate to a hotel, but they can’t get adjusted to its cleanliness and normality. When they arrive home prematurely, they find The Standells singing, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, and throwing a wild party filled with far-out beatniks and hipsters. The Munsters are initially shocked, but soon find that they fit in with these freaky people – who never once question their unusual appearance.

Episode 27 - Munsters on the Move

Release Date: 1965-03-25

In order to accept a promotion, Herman has to shuffle his family off to Buffalo. Eddie, who happens to be doing great on the baseball team, throws a temper tantrum. Since Grandpa has already sold the house to a wrecking company, the Munsters have no choice but to wage war.

Episode 28 - Movie Star Munster

Release Date: 1965-04-01

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.

Episode 29 - Herman the Rookie

Release Date: 1965-04-08

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.”

Episode 30 - Country Club Munsters

Release Date: 1965-04-15

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.

Episode 31 - Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights

Release Date: 1965-04-22

The Munsters receive $180,000 in gold doubloons from Uncle Gilbert in Transylvania. When their bank’s assistant manager arrives to pick up the money for deposit, he instantly falls in love with Marilyn. Grandpa and Lily do their best to encourage the romance, not realizing that this gentleman is only after Marilyn for her doubloons.

Episode 32 - Mummy Munster

Release Date: 1965-04-29

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.

Episode 33 - Lily Munster, Girl Model

Release Date: 1965-05-06

Fearing that she is not useful around the house, Lily searches for a job. She eventually lands a position as a fashion model, causing Herman to become wildly jealous as he entertains fantasies about the suave men she’s liable to mingle with. With Grandpa’s help, Herman transforms himself into a swinging playboy. Grandpa, in a disguise, poses as his beautiful blonde girlfriend.

Episode 34 - Munster the Magnificent

Release Date: 1965-05-13

Eddie volunteers Herman as a performer for his school’s Talent Night. Since Herman has no discernible talent, Grandpa conjures up a pair of magic ballet shoes that will transform whoever wears them into a gifted dancer. But Herman is uneasy about strapping on this footwear. Fortunately, Eddie already has him billed as the world’s greatest magician.

Episode 35 - Herman’s Happy Valley

Release Date: 1965-05-20

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.

Episode 36 - Hot Rod Herman

Release Date: 1965-05-27

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.

Episode 37 - Herman’s Raise

Release Date: 1965-06-03

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.

Episode 38 - Yes, Galen, There Is a Herman (a.k.a) My Friend Herman

Release Date: 1965-06-10

Herman saves the life of a young boy, Galen Livingston Stewart, by bending the bars his head is stuck between. They immediately become close friends. The only problem is that Galen’s parents think Uncle Herman is a figment of the boy’s imagination. They take him to a psychiatrist, played by Harvey Korman with a broad German accent.