Monster of the Day #801

Updated on November 12, 2013 By Ken Begg 28 Comments

Feeling more like old Grandpa every single day.

By the way, did you ever notice Al Lewis totally has Koala Face?

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  • Flangepart

    His eyebrow mites have their own zip code.

  • bgbear_rnh

    If you can remember when magazines were 75 cents (or less) you are probably pretty old.

    (as a side note, are there any vampire girls in Playghoul? I mean can they be photographed? I know you can’t see her but, trust us, she is naked and HOT!)

  • All vampires in Playghoul are painstakingly drawn from unlife by a skeleton with steady hands and a clean mind. Then the picture is airbrushed. Just because.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I am glad Alberto Vargas can still get work after death ;)

  • Eric Hinkle

    Heh, Grandpa Munster, the original dirty old man. Come to think of it this was kind of an edgy sight gag for when it was made.

    And say, wasn’t there a remake of the Munsters that tried to make everything all grimdark and serious horror that bombed right out of sight? I seem to recall hearing about it, along with warnings not to go looking for it.

  • Ken_Begg

    It was on NBC a year ago last Halloween. I saw a moment of it whilst we flipped around the channels. The Grandpa guy was stooping over a body with the chest ripped out and he was covered in gore.

    The Munsters, everyone!

  • Ken_Begg

    Grandpa only read it for the articles.

  • Ericb

    WTF?!

    Anyway, was Grandpa the first Friendly Neighborhood Vampire? The (very) remote ancestor of Edward Cullen?

  • Ericb

    Oh, and that sounds like a bad SNL skit.

  • Rock Baker

    I’ve never actually understood the whole vampires-can’t-be-photographed thing (although I’ll not hold that against THE RETURN OF DRACULA). Okay, so they don’t cast a reflection, but how does that make it impossible to see them through a glass lens? If Dracula wanted to hide from someone, does that mean all he has to do is step behind a sheet of glass?

  • bgbear_rnh

    I am no physicist but, if you cannot reflect light then it follows there is no light for the camera lens to gather but, of course that means you also could not see them through the lens and mechanism of the human eye.

    So, I assumed “seeing” a vampire is some kind of telepathic-type trick that happens in your head. You don’t really see them, you only think you do because you know they are there and that is only because the vampire wants you know they are there. If they want to be “invisible”, they can be, or look like something else like a bat.

    I do not really know how well this has been thought out.

  • Greenhornet

    In at least one episode, “Grandpa” said that he was DRACULA.

  • bgbear_rnh

    eh, and Al Lewis used let people think he was the Al Lewis who wrote and directed “Our Miss Brooks”. People and vampires are that way ;)

  • Rock Baker

    My impression has always been that the vampire’s inability to cast a reflection has nothing to do with physics, but is rather a supernatural manifestation of their cursed being. (Granted, that easily explains away the inability to film them in certain tellings.) I’m pretty sure vampires can see their own reflections, I’ll add. Others not seeing their reflection is just a tip-off for those who are paying attention. Of course, then there are those films where Dracula DOES cast a reflection….

  • bgbear_rnh

    I see, it is the silver in the mirror’s reflecting surface that is the problem or, is that werewolves? I have got to work on my monster lore ;)

  • Rock Baker

    Monster lore is whatever works best in the picture being made at that moment. I wrote a werewolf story once and incorporated the killing by wooden stake usually connected with vampires, just because I knew the image would look great at the top of a movie poster.

  • Werewolves’ silver bane is the contribution of Curt The Wolf Man Siodmak to the legend and is technically no more accurate than vampires bursting into flames in sun light or turning to dust with a stake thrust.

    That said, technically Rock Baker is right. Whatever makes the story work is how it has always worked.

    EDITED TO ADD: IMDb contradicts me on Siodmak being the first, going so far as to site a source of the legend and mentioning (but not naming) novels with silver being used. Thus perhaps it would be better to say Siodmak made that particular legend famous. It still isn’t the only way werewolves were killed.

    TL;DR: Cullen learns something new every day.

  • I love my grasp of grammar. It’s so fluid.

  • bgbear_rnh

    OK, then I say vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors because of the silver amalgam used for the reflecting surface and you can kill werewolves by cracking a mirror over their heads (or maybe it just gives then 7 years bad luck).

  • Flangepart

    If Dracula is always well groomed…it’s because of his wives.
    “Oh, you are NOT biting necks looking like that! Come over here, and bring the comb…”

  • Eric Hinkle

    I shudder to think what they did with Eddie and Lily.

  • Eric Hinkle

    There’s a listing for the remake on Tv Tropes under the title ‘Mockingbird Lane’. Among others things, Grandpa can use his vampiric blood to make people into his slaves and even kill themselves; Herman needs a new heart so they yank one out of a scoutmaster’s chest; and Eddie doesn’t know he’s a werewolf. He also joins the Scouts and apparently usually ends up tearing his troop limb from limb on camp-outs. And oh yes, Grandpa is a total @$$hole to everyone, especially Marylin (who the family almost ate when she was a baby).

    You know, for kids!

  • The Rev.

    Wow, how did I never hear about this?

    I mean, I’m glad, but man…

  • Eric Hinkle

    “Wow, how did I never hear about this?”

    You were lucky? I wish I’d never heard about it myself, Just imagine what the people who made that show could do with/to other classic sitcoms!

  • Eric Hinkle

    Oh, one more thing: all the stuff I listed above apparently happened in the first episode — which was also the last one shown on TV.

  • Petoht

    Well, yes; story is elder to everything. However, silver working against vampires makes sense. Silver’s long been considered a pretty all-purpose holy metal.

  • Ken_Begg

    Produced by Bryan Singer.

  • Ken_Begg

    I’m pretty sure in folklore that silver was always more a vampire thing then a werewolf thing. Werewolves were generally just people who turned into wolves, and could be killed by any normal means.