Walk on the Mild Side

Infobox Television episode
Title =Walk on the Mild Side
Series =The Munsters


Caption =
Season =1
Episode =3
Airdate =October 8, 1964
Writer = Norm Liebmann, Ed Haas
Director = Norman Abbott
Guests = Cliff Norton, Barry Kelley
Episode list =List of "The Munsters" episodes
Prev = My Fair Munster
Next =Rock-a-bye Munster"Walk on the Mild Side" is an episode of "The Munsters" from the show's first season. It guest-stars Cliff Norton as Chief W. R. Harris, and its title is a play on the expression "walk on the wild side."

Plot

Overwhelmed by the cost of high electrical bills (mostly due to Grandpa's newest invention, an "enlarging machine"), Herman decides to take a walk at night through Midcity Park in the hopes of curing his insomnia. Meanwhile Chief Harris of the Mockingbird Heights Police Department sends a desk sergeant (Larry Blake) out to the same park to look for a prowler who's been reported. While the real prowler roams around catching people unawares, several people report having seen a monster (Herman) in the park. Chief Harris orders an "around-the-clock stakeout" of Midcity Park for a person roughly matching Herman's description, but with bits of the real prowler confused in with it.

The next morning the paper reads creature terrorizes midcity park. Worried, Lily asks Herman to stop walking at night lest the creature get him, too. Herman, however, refuses on the grounds that nothing else will cure his insomnia.

In his dungeon, Grandpa shows Eddie his enlarging machine, but when Eddie asks if Grandpa will enlarge him, the count accidentally shrinks his grandson instead.

Meanwhile Herman is assailed by police officers in the park (whom he takes for the "midnight Midcity marauder") and runs back home, barricading the door shut.

The next morning, Grandpa (having fixed Eddie's size) adds more electricity to the machine to stop it from shrinking things. In so doing, the Munsters' electronic appliances go haywire and the Mockingbird Lane street lights explode.

That evening, Marilyn goes out on a date through Midcity Park without telling her aunt or uncle. Aghast, Herman works up the courage to go and rescue her. Meanwhike Chief Harris has disguised himself as a woman in order to catch the prowler. When he arrives at the park, he is attacked by the real prowler and screams. Herman thinks he's Marilyn and runs to the rescue. Horrified to find a man dressed in drag, Herman hooks the prowler up in a tree and quickly returns home. There he learns that Marilyn did not go to the park after all.

Chief Harris is awarded a medal for having caught the prowler with the help of an "unknown citizen". When Harris describes this citizen as green-skinned, red-eyed, and nine feet tall, however, he is transferred by the commissioner to the "most desolate, deserted, law-forsaken part of town."

Unable to get enough electrical power, Grandpa gives up on his machine after enlarging a sleeping pill, which he claims cured Herman's insomnia. When Lily asks how Herman could eat a giant pill, Grandpa says that he didn't eat it, he was knocked out by it.

Characters

*Herman Munster (Fred Gwynne)
*Lily Munster (Yvonne De Carlo)
*Grandpa (Al Lewis)
*Marilyn Munster (Beverley Owen)
*Eddie Munster (Butch Patrick)
*Chief W. R. Harris (Cliff Norton), the chief of police.
*Commissioner Ludlow, the police commissioner.
*The Raven (Mel Blanc), the Munsters' pet raven.
*the policemen, played by Larry Blake (the desk sergeant), Mike Gordon (Officer Finkel), and Jim Gruzal (Officer Ball).
*the park-goers, played by Harrison Lewis, Kate Murtagh, and Almira Sessions.

Trivia

The 80s sitcom "Who's the Boss" had an episode titled "Walk on the Mild Side" (season 3, episode 21- aired 17 March 1987). There is no apparent connection between these episodes of the shows other than a similar play on the common phrase "walk on the wild side."

References

*"Walk on the Mild Side"
*"A Trip Down Mockingbird Lane"