Press Release MPI Press Release: Marineland Carnival with The Munsters Cast Members & More Lost Treasures (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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MARINELAND CARNIVAL WITH THE MUNSTERS TV SHOW CAST MEMBERS & MORE LOST TREASURES Comes to DVD on October 4th ​

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MARINELAND CARNIVAL WITH THE MUNSTERS TV CAST MEMBERS & MORE LOST TREASURES Comes to DVD on October 4th ​

TV’S FAVORITE FAMILY OF FRIGHT RETURNS WITH RARE SHOWS! The Munsters of Mockingbird Lane thrilled audiences of all ages with the weekly spooky comedy series when it originally aired in the 1960s and then through decades of reruns. Now, for the first time, long-lost television appearances of the cast—Fred Gwynne (Herman), Yvonne De Carlo (Lily), Al Lewis (Grandpa), Pat Priest (Marilyn) and Butch Patrick (Eddie) are available to be enjoyed again in this historical—and hysterical—collection. MARINELAND CARNIVAL & MORE LOST TREASURES WITH THE MUNSTERS TV SHOW CAST MEMBERS includes the hour-long Marineland Carnival 1965 special starring the Munsters, a 1966 full-color Munsters-themed “episode” with Fred Gwynne as Herman on The Danny Kaye Show, additional rare skits and vintage talk show interviews with The Munsters TV stars, an all-new featurette (Munster Memories) with Butch Patrick, hit music from the New Christy Minstrels, guest appearances by Edie Adams, Joey Bishop and more delights. # # #​ MARINELAND CARNIVAL WITH THE MUNSTERS TV CAST MEMBERS & MORE LOST TREASURES Street Date: 10/4/2022 SRP: $19.98 (DVD) Run-Time: 120 min Genre: Classic TV Rating: NR Language: English​

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[JamesSmith]

Well, it's good that some of these lost oddities are making it to DVD. It's nice for the fans to see something with their favorite stars that they may not have seen before.

--jthree

 

[BobO'Link]

That release is *infinitely* more interesting sounding than the new "Munster" movie...

 

[darkrock17]

How can MPI release this if it says not authorized by Universal, Universal still has control and rights to the series so if they don't officially release it themselves it would be copyright infringement wouldn't it?

 

[TravisR]

How can MPI release this if it says not authorized by Universal, Universal still has control and rights to the series so if they don't officially release it themselves it would be copyright infringement wouldn't it?

My guess is that, given the era, Universal didn't think to have the rights to the characters when they were used in this show and they don't own the footage. Five decades later, that allows MPI to release it.

 

[Timothy E]

I think the Marineland Carnival special was believed to be lost at the time that the complete series of The Munsters was first released on DVD. I will look forward to seeing this at long last.

 

[JamesSmith]

There are oddities out there, where television stars appeared in character at outside events. It would be nice if more of these surfaced. They could have made nice extras on the DVD sets.

--jthree

 

[Flashgear]

I'm looking forward to this release! I have no memory of seeing the Marineland special as a kid, just one part of the huge pop-culture Munsters phenomenon in 1965.

Here's what I was able to glean off of IMDB...

Marineland Carnival: The Munsters Visit Marineland OAD on CBS: April 18, 1965.
(B+W 1hr. Shot on Video). Fred Gwynne, Yvonne DeCarlo, Al Lewis, Pat Priest, Butch Patrick.
Sid Gould (Tour guide at Marineland), music by the New Christy Minstrels (Green Green, We'll Sing in the Sunshine).

From IMDB:
Trivia
Shot on videotape, the special was believed to be lost for many years, with only a commercial for the broadcast surviving. Subsequently, a weathered kinescope print was unearthed, made available for viewing at the Paley Center in New York, and surreptitiously made its way online.


But I'm equally excited for the color 'Munsters themed' 1966 episode of The Danny Kaye Show, another series that was weekly viewing in my family back then. I hope that the Danny Kaye Show episode is complete at 51 minutes or so, and presumably that episode (April 13, 1966) is where Fred Gwynne appears as himself and as 'Herman Munster', the wonderfully sexy Edie Adams sings with Danny. And folk singer Glenn Yarbrough (Baby The Rain Must Fall) also sings. All of these guests also perform together with Danny in the comedy skits.

The Danny Kaye Show S3E30, April 13, 1966.
Synopsis from IMDB...
Danny is joined by singer Edie Adams, actor Fred Gwynne and folk singer Glenn Yarbrough, along with series regular Joyce Van Patten. Spoofing Gwynne's role on "The Munsters" and NBC newscasters Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the cast performs a sketch with Danny as 'David Dracula' and Fred by 'Chet Munster' as the broadcast team behind "The Munster-Dracula Report" with Edie as Fred's neglected wife 'Lily'. Fred and Danny appear in a spoof of "Gilligan's Island" with Fred as the skipper and Danny as his incompetent deckhand.

According to IMDB, Richard Kiel (James Bond's 'Jaws' and the 'Kanamit' alien from Twilight Zone's To Serve Man) also appears here in a skit. And of course, Both Harvey Korman and Joyce Van Patten were among Danny's regulars on his wonderful variety show, along with the Paul Weston orchestra.

Fred Gwynne also appeared as himself in a 1965 and 1967 episode of The Danny Kaye Show (the guy could sing!).

I have the two MVDvisual double DVD collections of complete-as-originally-aired episodes of The Danny Kaye Show (1963-67), which I absolutely love! I'd like to have more complete episodes on disc or at least streaming. Nothing takes me back to the sixties like a variety show!

According to IMDB, Fred Gwynne appeared as Herman Munster in two other TV specials in 1965... Salute To Stan Laurel (with Lucille Ball, Danny Kaye, Buster Keaton, Audrey Meadows, Bob Newhart, Tina Louise, Gregory Peck, Louis Nye and Phil Silvers!) and It's What's Happening Baby! (alongside Jan Berry, Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, Bill Cosby, The Dave Clark Five, The Drifters and Marvin Gaye!) And as Herman also in a 1965 skit on The Red Skelton Hour, presumably NOT INCLUDED in this new release.
Synopsis from IMDB:
Trivia
In the main skit, Freddie the Freeloader meets Herman Munster when Freddie and his hobo pals sneak into Herman's mansion to get out of the rain. The British group Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas perform a couple of songs including 'Little Children.' Skelton and Gwynne portray Mr. and Mrs. Abe Lincoln in a sketch titled 'The Lincolns at Home or He Might be the President But his Wife is the Speaker.'

Also excited about 'vintage talk show' interviews and 'rare skit' excerpts. (Joey Bishop?)

 

[Randy Korstick]

I wouldn't expect high quality on either of these but at least they are getting released. Rarities for sure.

 

[JoeDoakes]

I think this is terrific! I saw this on Facebook, and assumed it was a typical boot. If not an official release, I bet it's pretty good. I'm sold

 

[RobertMG]

I wouldn't expect high quality on either of these but at least they are getting released. Rarities for sure.

look pretty good on youtube expect better than this

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Not quite sure why I thought this might actually feature at least some of the original special in color? The cover, maybe? As it specifies b&w and color AND a prominent front photo with garish, over-saturated color AND promotional images inside with color (added by hand?).

Was the original tape really shot in b&w? Idk, personally.

Still, for what it is, it is, as Chuck Jones might have stated, "amusing" rather than "funny", and only sporadically.

I do think the bootleg with original commercials looked better than what we have on this disc. In fact, I'd wager this is just a digitally scrubbed copy of that same bootleg (which conveniently disappeared from the interwebs recently), as the frame rate is weird, faces are "waxy", and there is this peculiar frame jump/morphing effect about every 8-15 seconds, especially notable in the underwater sequences-- which kinda kills it, since that's 1/2 of what the special was promoting, right?

Plus, right out of the gate, the first minute or two of Munster dialogue is out of sync. Later, this same problem recurs whenever the image "morphs" and skips frames.

I haven't watched through the other guest spot snippets, yet, only scanning them to see what they look like and, judging by the runtimes, they are all just clips rather than full episodes, of course. Most of the vintage material seems to have been ripped from the web and digitally scrubbed rather poorly, with the same weird, jumpy frame rate issues and sync problems.

Nice to see Butch Patrick take about 10 minutes to reminisce about his experience with The Munsters and to promote the new Rob Zombie flick (wasn't this featurette on his Facebook or Youtube account, already?) though, not surprisingly, this represents the bulk of the color features on the disc-- apart from The Danny Kaye Show clips with Edie Adams and Herman, and some other MPI series trailers which happen to feature color series.

MPI even includes a trail for The (nonetheless incomplete and slightly edited) Color Honeymooners sets, which have been out of print (or, at least difficult to obtain at reasonable prices) for nearly 5 years or more.

Should I have expected more? Probably not. This is neat to have all in one lil' bundle next to the complete series set with the tv movies, and the separate release, First Family of Fright.. But as for the presentation? It actually looks like a public domain release from 1998 or so. This IS 2022 and video encoding has come a lonnnnng way since then.

And this release, unlike some other rare vintage material releases, did NOT come with any sort of warning that the image may show age or imperfections. Just a nice, bright and VERY colorful cover!

Points for not colorizing the b&w film copy, though.