“The Munsters” is one of the best shows of the 1960s, but is it ripe for contemporary reboots? It certainly wasn’t in 2012, as Bryan Fuller’s attempt to bring America’s First Family of Fright back from the dead didn’t exactly go according to plan. Enter “Mockingbird Lane,” a pilot NBC decided wasn’t ghoul enough for school.
Named after the street where the Munster family lives, “Mockingbird Lane” was a darkly humorous update of the ’60s sitcom. Starring Jerry O’Connell, Mason Cook, Eddie Izzard, and Portia de Rossi, the pilot mostly focused on Eddie Munster (Cook) as he enters puberty and realizes he’s a werewolf. However, we also learn that Herman Munster (O’Connell) has heart issues, and Grandpa (Izzard) likes making blood-filled cookies for the neighbors.
“Mockingbird Lane” was released as a 40-minute Halloween special and received pretty positive reviews. As of this writing, it boasts a 60% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the warm feedback wasn’t enough to stop NBC from sending the “Munsters” reboot to the cold crypt of cancelation.
Why Mockingbird Lane failed to receive a series order
“Mockingbird Lane” debuted to middling ratings, drawing 5.4 million viewers on the night. However, the pilot reportedly cost $10 million to produce, which was rather costly for the network at the time. What’s more, then-NBC boss Robert Greenblatt felt that the pilot was too creatively disjointed to warrant a full series order.
“[W]e felt great about that cast,” Greenblatt revealed at a network event (via Deadline). “But we tried to make it not just a sitcom. We tried to make it an hour, which ultimately has more dramatic weight than a half-hour. It’s hard to calibrate how much weirdness vs. supernatural vs. family story. I just think we didn’t get the mix right.”
The pilot was supposedly hindered by problems en route to the screen as well. Bryan Fuller and director Bryan Singer reportedly butted heads behind the scenes, causing the project to be delayed. This was also around the time Fuller began working on “Hannibal,” his tasty cannibalistic horror series that got a three-season run on NBC, so he had other stuff to focus on.