I Met Eddie Munster

I certainly was not expecting to shoot two car shows in two weekends but I heard there was the possibility of seeing the Munster Koach. Even the Drag-U-La would be featured at a little car show in Downtown Hollywood. Had to go!

The Munsters was one of the first TV shows I remember watching as a kid. Yes I'm old enough to have seen it first run. I can't even count the times I've seen the re-runs and the Munster Movie. The show will always be part of my childhood but the cars are what I remember most vividly.



Seeing the Munster Koach in full color was a bit of a shock. In my head it is still B&W. If you look close you can still see it's born from a Model T or three. These two vehicles were extremely well done replicas but Eddie Munster (Butch Patrick) was the real thing. A little older maybe but during the Q&A he was reminiscing about the show like it just shut down production a week ago.



The bits of trivia, like the show only ran for two years, he was not originally cast as Eddie, The Munsters were in direct competition with the Addams Family, and a lot of behind the scenes anecdotes really brought the simple pilgrimage to car I once saw on TV to life.

I found his take on The Munsters - a show about monsters trying to live a normal life, and the Addams Family - a show about seemingly normal people who were in fact monsters, very thought provoking. As in I never thought about it before yet it's so obvious. Reminds me a lot of real life.



Right across the street was Bumble Bee from the Transformers movie. How times have changed from a car used as a cool prop in a TV show to a car that was an actor in a film. I can drive stick so given the choice, I would take the antique hot rod over the car that talks back every time.



Then I spotted it - The Mustang I used to own. OK - A few years older and a different color but who knows, maybe there is a valve cover or oil pan from mine in there somewhere. I bought my metallic green beauty from my Dad when it was already 8 years old and kept it another 5. I have no idea how many miles we drove together in the heat of Florida with no AC. The odometer stopped clicking off the miles after 135,000. Since it was packing a Cleveland 351 under the hood, there were several times I had to blow the heater in the car to help cool the engine on those pesky August days stuck in Miami traffic. I think they call that Hot Yoga now.

All I know, it was my first car, nothing I've driven since can compare, and although I could never afford to repurchase a car like it,  I would not mind just sitting behind the wheel for a moment. My memories of that time are way down the road but just seeing that car brought the best ones right up to the rear-view.




To see the rest of the photos from the show [click here]