"The Munsters," the classic '60s sitcom about a family of fun-loving monsters, is up to its third generation of fans, much to the delight of Butch Patrick, better known as the boy werewolf Eddie Munster.
Working on the show was a "great experience" says Patrick, one of the headliners at this year's Spa-Con, which kicks off Friday at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
"We had a wonderful cast; we had great producers and writers, (and) directors. Overall, it was a very good experience. A positive experience," Patrick said earlier this week in a telephone interview.
The same is true of the show's fan base, according to Patrick. "It's been consistent. It's always been positive."
Patrick says today's fans range from adults who grew up with the show as a big part of their childhood to younger fans who will come up and say, "my father or my grandfather has passed, but one of my best memories is watching 'The Munsters' with them, and having these really good family moments. And that's a good thing."
The show, which starred Fred Gwynne as the patriarch of the family, aired 70 episodes from 1964 to 1966. Like a few other shows of the era, it found new life in syndication.
"Back then, you just did a show, and it aired once or twice, and then it was gone forever." Syndication, which started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was a "nice situation that's evolved, but nobody foresaw it."
Patrick said he believes the uniqueness of the show is what continues to attract generations of fans.
"On the surface, you have just the fact it was a one-of-a-kind show. People dressed up as monsters, living next door, and everyday Americana. That's the hook. But what kept it going was the scripts and the family values, and the acting and the family interaction. The warmth and the humor," he said.
Patrick had done a couple of other TV series before "The Munsters," but he wasn't the first choice for the show.
"They weren't happy with the kid that they had picked, so they were having one last screen test for these two kids" they had narrowed it down to. Each had been called in for about 15 interviews when they flew Patrick out for a screen test -- "I hadn't even done an interview" -- but his agent had finagled him to be the last entry in the screen tests.
"I wound up winning it over these two kids that had been going back on and on and on. I got very lucky," Patrick said.
Patrick said one of the things he enjoyed the most about the show was the fact it was "such an unusual set."
"Being a monster movie fan myself, here I am at Universal Studios where they made all these great monster movies with all these old sound stages, and here we are, sort of resurrecting them into a sitcom, a comedy but yet it had all the overtones of a great old monster movie," he said.
Asked if he kept in touch with his castmates, who included Gwynne and Yvonne De Carlo, who gained fame portraying Sephora, Moses' wife, in "The Ten Commandments," Patrick said "Hollywood doesn't really work like that. You work together very closely and then everybody goes on their own merry way."
He noted that Gwynne and actor Al Lewis, who played the character of Grandpa, were from New York, and were adults. "It's not like we hooked up and hung around, as a child, with them, although when I turned 30 I actually started reconnecting with them."
Patrick is no stranger to the con circuit. He appeared at the original Chiller 25 years ago and the original San Diego Comic-Con 30 years ago.
"Halloween used to be a one night a year deal; now it's turned into a six-week holiday that rivals Christmas for people spending money. ... Comic-cons are an offshoot of Halloween. You give people a reason to dress up."
Local on 09/20/2018