Portia de Rossi will play Lily Munster!

Portia de Rossi and Yvonne De Carlo

I don’t really know a whole lot about The Munsters, mostly because I was born in the 90’s, so my knowledge of sitcoms from back in the black and white days of television is severely limited. But that’s okay, because Bryan Fuller is rebooting the series (called Mockingbird Lane), and casted the lovely Portia de Rossi as Lily Munster. Someone tell me if that’s good or bad, please. Via Hollywood Reporter:

De Rossi, whose ABC comedy pilot The Smart One was passed over at the network in May, will play the vampire bride to Herman Munster (Jerry O’Connell) and the daughter of Eddie Izzard’s Grandpa Munster. Yvonne De Carlo played the role in the original 1960s CBS sitcom, opposite Fred Gwynne. The original Universal Studios-produced series aired for 70 episodes. Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller is writing NBC’s hyper-stylized reboot, with Bryan Singer on board to direct. De Rossi joins the previously cast O’Connell, Izzard and Mason Cook, who will play Lily and Herman’s werewolf son, Eddie, in the pilot. Newcomer Charity Wakefield will play Marilyn, their “plain” cousin.

For the sake of clarifying whether this is good or bad, I asked my boyfriend (who’s an vintage TV buff) and he told me that this was good, but that he had no idea how The Munsters would ever qualify as a “drama”, although I’m guessing that this is going to be something akin to Fuller’s previous effort, Pushing Daisies, the critically acclaimed but sadly cancelled fairy tale. So I’m putting this down as a solid yay.

Portia de Rossi and Yvonne De Carlo

About JEREMY FEIST 5002 Articles
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.