Mockingbird Lane / Munsters remake.

Don't get me wrong, Fuller does some good stuff in his other episodes emotionally, but the pilot...I dunno. I guess because I didn't know these people well enough yet to feel for them.

Stick with The Addams Family, less gimmicky.

I like The Addams Family, but it is just as gimmicky, just for completely different reasons.

This whole thing has completely lost me, and I'm actively struggling to see where folks are coming from. And I really want to because I enjoy a spirited debate. But if the only appeal was the costumes and makeup, and removing them destroys the appeal or the point or whatever, than why are people so protective? Why is this a thing that matters, that cannot be defiled or changed in any way?

And there is more to it, but I don't here anyone arguing Mockingbird Lane is bad because its not slapsticky, or because the actors don't embody the roles like the original did. It always comes down to the damn costumes. That's why everyone damns the thing. It makes no sense to me.

It all worked for me right away. The garden sale scene really hit me. But I can see it being YMMV. I would say I just felt I related to a lot in that episode.

I miss the halloween stuff on here.

My mom didn't like it because she didn't like the characters being killers, since they didn't kill anyone in the original series. My sister and I both loved it though.

See, that? That I can understand! That's a perfectly reasonable complaint because it could make the characters hard to relate to and diminishes the "acceptance" lesson by making them people we probably shouldn't accept. It didn't bug me but I can see why it would bug other people.

The lack of make-up, though? I'm not seeing it.

Oh yeah that bugged me, forgot to comment on it. That was.....not tonally right. I think I read Singer and Fuller had conflicts about the tone of the show, I bet that's where you can see one vision clashing with another. It was....weird, and unlikeable.

I'm interested in learning who was against having the actors wear makeup. Artists!

Bryan Fuller. He felt it would undermine the emotional moments and pull viewers out of the experience.

Um... They're monsters.

Yes, they are. And they remain so in Mockingbird Lane without looking campy and ridiculous, so we can empathize with them in a way we weren't intended to in the original.

edited 1st Nov '12 5:05:20 PM by Wackd

The funniest part is that there's just as much makeup as there was in the original.

It's just on Grandpa, instead of Herman. And it's not quite as obvious.

I will concede one thing—Herman is bland as shit in this.

The problem, of course, is that Herman is the audience surrogate. I think that may have been Marilyn in the original (don't quote me on that), but Fuller elected to make her delightfully psychotic, instead, which meant that the role was left to Herman, who, as our protagonist, it should really be with in the first place.

(Besides, next to Eddie Izzard's rendition of Grandpa, everyone would seem boring.)

I think Marilyn was my favorite part of this. Especially her talking about how some deer are depressed and want to be eaten.

Marilyn was probably my second-favourite thing. Because seriously, I think I laughed during every one of Grandpa's scenes, which is quite an achievement.

Going back to Herman for a moment—my dad, who was a huge fan of the original—that was the only thing he was disappointed about. It's all he'd talk about during commercials. "Y'know, Herman was much funnier in the original. Like, whenever he moved—" "I know, Dad." "—he'd break something, like he'd swing his arm around and the wall behind him would collapse—" "I watched it, I know." "—and when he sat down there would be this huge dust cloud—" "Dad, I've seen the originals." "You did?" "Yeah, I did." "Oh.

...

Eddie Izzard is great in this." "I know, right?!"

His main point seemed to be that we didn't need to identify with someone, and if we did it certainly wasn't gonna be the guy plotting the murder of his kids' scoutmaster.

Oh, one other thing he was disappointed about—the first time the stairs opened and Spot wasn't there, he was a bit upset, and I told him Spot was still in it, he was in the commercials. He was disappointed as hell when the scoutmaster fell through the stairs and Spot didn't eat him, he was sure that was gonna be the big reveal.

edited 1st Nov '12 8:51:19 PM by Wackd

Still wondering why the budget caused NBC to can this thing? That, right. Making Spot roam around free ate up a lot of budget, no doubt about it, more than having him live under the stairs would.

Also, if a show has no character for the audience to connect with, then anything that happens afterwards won't affect them. It's basic screenwriting.

It's not just Spot. There were a lot of effects shots in this. I was at Universal this summer, and can tell you that half of the house and most of what's behind it is digital. Yeah.

Dunno. Not sure I can agree with what maxwellelvis or Wack'd dad are arguing about there being no audience identification figure. From where I was standing there were at least three — Herman, Marilyn and the little kid.

The idea that a show should have some sort of bland central character in order to to maintain a marketable level of normalcy is restrictive and problematic. It's the same argument that leads to leads being white men, or the failure for screenwriters to pass even basic minority milestones (like the Bechdel Quota), and not one that should really be supported. Especially when it's not true to the work.

Surely basic screen writing should be investing in thematic coherency and not maintaining marketability? Or would you argue, maxwellelvis, that it should be the other way around?

edited 2nd Nov '12 6:31:55 AM by Nicknacks

He's right about Spot, though.

No, he's right. If there isn't a central character to which the audience can say "That's my guy. He's the one who sometimes needs the mythology explained, and is a Straight Man that the zany characters can bounce off of," then they're going to lose interest, because they're not going to understand what's happening, and there isn't going to be an honest reaction to anything to make them care.

The viewpoint character doesn't have to be bland, and I would argue that Herman really isn't bland, either. Remember that this wasn't meant as a self-contained television movie. It was a pilot for a hopefully long-running series. As such, we got an introduction to characterization, which could be built on later. Herman comes off as bland because his central character trait is that he is proud to not be supernatural. His ultimate goal is the American Dream; a nice, simple life with his family in the suburbs, despite the fact that his family is anything but normal.

Saying that viewpoint characters are bland, white males that exist for marketability and don't contribute to the themes of the story is a gross generalization and an overpoliticization of a basic storytelling concept.

Did you read what I wrote?

I said there were three people who supplied this, and other things I am tired.

I would argue two. Marilyn is the "normal" character, but the show makes her so normal that it's unsettling. Sort of like the people who research serial killers for fun.

As for the other two, Eddie would have been a much better viewpoint, yes. However, this is the place where you can say NBC may have stepped in and said that a child was probably not the easiest sell for the sole audience surrogate of a darkly comedic drama series.