Exclusive: 'Munsters’ Reboot ‘Mockingbird Lane’ Will Be 'Delicate Balance' Says Concept Artist

M is for Munsters
An exclusive interview with concept artist John Gallagher about the Munsters (1964) reboot Mockingbird Lane.

You know that scary house on the corner you were scared of as a kid? Imagining all the horrible monsters inside? Well, it turns out you were right about this house.

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly has concept art of the new reboot of the 60s comedy The Munsters. Bryan Fuller is developing a dramatic re-telling of the show called Mockingbird Lane for NBC.

“We want this show to be an American Harry Potter,” Bryan Fuller says. “To have that sense of a magical world that you get to go to with your family and find stories told in a fantastical way that are instantly relatable. It’s an American Horror Story that the whole family can watch.”

Here are some comments from the creator Bryan Fuller and some exclusive comments from the concept artist, John Gallagher, on the designs. Gallagher breaks down some of the elements of color and design and even gets into some of the things we'll see in the house. It's all pretty exciting.

We wanted [the mansion] to have feeling of the original. We wanted a house in the neighborhood that children would walk past faster than other houses. - Fuller

The image below shows the concept designs for Grandpa and Lily. Charity Wakefield has been cast as the "freakishly" normal Marilyn and Eddie Izzard as Grandpa.

We’re not doing bolts in the neck and Bela Lugosi. It’s almost the Real Housewives of Transylvania. These are a blinged-out representation of what monsters would be doing if they lived in our society today. How they would look, how they would interact. Our wardrobe is heavily influenced by Alexander McQueen and his use of animal textures. For instance, with [the vampire] Lily, all of her wardrobe comes from nature. The first time we see her this nest of spiders weaves her dress on her body as she’s standing there. We’ll see ravens come in and assemble her blouse out of their feathers. We won’t see animal skins because the animals are donating as opposed to dying for it. She has domain over nature and nature has a fantastic aesthetic. - Fuller

And now here are the words of the illustrator

Pilot season is always a busy time in Vancouver and this year was no exception. I got a call from Don MacAulay, the art director, checking on availability. For the Munsters? I was all in. In fairness, as a kid I was more Addams Family than The Munsters but you couldn't beat some of the core elements of the original series and its off-center satirical skewering of mainstream sensibilities. But I jumped at the chance and was especially looking forward to reading the script given Bryan Fuller's pedigree and they didn't disappoint. The script crackled with smart, sharply-drawn characters and a delightfully wicked worldview. In other words, not simply a branded rehash but a bold and clever cache rethink. So after broad strokes conversation and a meeting of design minds off we went.


The marching orders from Don and Michael Wylie, the production designer, on palette and aesthetic is the dark fantasy convention of desaturated and muted cool tones punctuated by bold punched through with warm textural flourish...golds, reds, yellows. The world they inhabit isn't exactly overflowing with technicolor mirth so the visual metaphor needs to reinforce that prevailing mindset. In terms of the house, this is a virtual extension, a green screen second story incorporated over an existing location. The main floor was to be recladded and fitted with scalloped siding, window caps, wrought iron railings, tiled diapers and moulding to dovetail with the neo-Victorian look and the second floor festooned onto the roofline of the original building. We co-opted details everywhere from Queen Anne finishes to the Carson House. The home is meant to engage as a regal slightly tarnished mansion. Not so outright haunted but with a slightly menacing grandeur. The interior grand foyer borrows from Everton Station to the Titanic grand staircase. Again, an old world opulence with some significant new world finishes. And of course Spot's home beneath the stairs is there, along with the twin perched vultures at the railing foot. They've moved in and some of the previous owners tastes linger in places. And given that the Munsters don't stand on ceremony they don't seem to be in any hurry to unpack. Grandpa's Cellar will be a delight to behold for fans of design: Barrel vaulted polished tile meticulously applied with a moody chiaroscuro mad coroner's decorative choices. I can't reveal details but the previous owner was inclined to strange and specific practices.

We did look at the original house but what is often lost on viewers is how small the original actually was. It's marginally larger than a two story bungalow size footprint. By loosely defining the immensity of the house's form on our version, the writers are freer to explore the space given that it hasn't been strictly locked and we have room to enlarge or compress for creating scale for interiors. In the case of a re-imagining like this one, capturing the spirit of the original is critical. Alienating fans by disregarding the show's visual cues is disaster in my opinion. So they're everywhere and I think fans will get a big kick out of spotting them. Michael and Don are very smart guys. They know the score. And this one will be that delicate balance between respecting all the trappings of the original and introducing this new property rethought from the ground up by a very sharp team.

Thanks John! You can see more work from John Gallagher at http://uncannyknack.com/.

I was a huge fan of the show, so I'm looking forward to it.

@ 2012 Universal Television, John Gallagher

Via Entertainment Weekly

Image source: Entertainment Weekly and http://www.comingsoon.net






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