Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Munsters As You've Never Seen Them Before

Fans of that charming family from 1313 Mockingbird Lane have great reason to rejoice in a little less than two weeks, when The Munsters: The Complete Series DVD box set will be released. But of course, if you already have the individual season sets, then it's really nothing new for you.

Unless, that is, you have an interest in seeing the original Munsters for the first time... in color. You see, the new collection will also include the first season episode "Family Portrait" in a brand new computer colorized version.

Now, before you start raving about "double-dipping", rest easy--because Universal has done the right thing, releasing "Family Portrait" individually on a separate DVD the very same day.

Most people serious enough about home video to buy an entire TV series are likely to be the same people who viciously object to the colorizing of old movies and TV shows. Usually, I agree. But I have to give it a pass in this case. For one thing, it's The Munsters for crying out loud--and it's only one episode. And furthermore, I really believe that The Munsters is the kind of show that was meant for color, and most certainly would've been in color, but for the fact that TV production hadn't completely made the switch yet from black-and-white. Also, from what I've seen, the colorization process has made great strides since the era of Ted Turner's crude defilements of classic films.

Yet I also sympathize with those who would argue that colorizing it detracts from the original intent of the show to be a parody of the old Universal monster movies of the 1930s and '40s. Still, this just seems like it's all in good fun to me. Hopefully it's not some kind of "testing of the waters" for broader colorization down the road.

Screen grabs courtesy of DVD Talk.