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The Munsters’ Eddie Actor Reveals Classic Sitcom That Influenced His Role As Only Child-TGN

Summary

  • Leave It To Beaver was a key influence on The Munsters, with its portrayal of life from a kid’s perspective and well-developed characters.

  • The creators and writers of Leave It To Beaver went on to develop and produce The Munsters, drawing on their success and experience.

  • Eddie’s character in The Munsters, although an only child, shared similarities with the mischievous yet earnest dynamic of the brothers in Leave It To Beaver.

The Munsters star Butch Patrick reveals another classic sitcom that influenced his role as Eddie. Patrick played the werewolf-like Eddie and the only child of the Munster family in 71 episodes of the classic sitcom that aired from 1964 to 1966. Other than Patrick as Eddie, The Munsters cast and family also included Fred Gwynne as Herman, Yvonne De Carlo as Lily, Al Lewis as Grandpa, and Beverley Owen/Pat Priest as Marilyn.

During a recent interview with Remind Magazine, Patrick reflected on his time on The Munsters and revealed another classic sitcom that influenced his role as Eddie. The actor, now 70 years old, says that Leave It To Beaver was crucial in the making of The Munsters and inspired how Eddie was portrayed. Read what Patrick shared below:

Leave It to Beaver is one of the key ingredients of the success of The Munsters. That was the first sitcom about life from a kid’s point of view and was very well done. Those same people were behind The Munsters, but instead of it being Wally and the Beaver, it is just Eddie as the only kid, which was OK with me. It was just me being me. I could do dialogue well and was a quick study. I felt like an equal cast member, which was unusual because in a lot of other series the kids were secondary and wouldn’t get meaty parts written for them. This was different.

How Leave It To Beaver Influenced The Munsters

Leave It To Beaver, which ran for six seasons, was a highly influential sitcom. As Patrick points out, it was the first sitcom told through the perspective of a kid – Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver. Fresh off the success of Leave It To Beaver in 1963, the sitcom’s creators and writers, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, developed and produced The Munsters starting in 1964. Though the two shows are very different, one a traditional suburban sitcom and the other a satire of suburban life, Leave It To Beaver‘s influence on The Munsters can be seen in the character of Eddie.

Related: The 50 Best Sitcoms Of All Time (According To IMDb)

As Patrick also points out, Leave It To Beaver featured a typical brotherly dynamic between Beaver and Wally. However, Eddie is an only child in The Munsters, though the show approached the character similarly. He was mischievous like Beaver, though the show treated Eddie as an equal and examined his relationships earnestly, including his cousin Marylin who was closer to his age. At the time, Eddie was an uncommonly substantive role for Patrick which, before Leave It To Beaver, probably wouldn’t have been possible.