Rant #2,321: The Final Countdown

We looked over the careers of the two actresses who played the iconic Marilyn Munster character on the classic spooky sitcom "The Munsters," so why not finish up today with our look at the character by talking about the next actress the play the role, who did it in a theatrical motion picture--

And in Technicolor, yet!

Debbie Watson was the actress' name, and she appeared as Marilyn in "Munster, Go Home!" in 1966.

I have heard two reasons why this movie was made. The first was that CBS wanted to use the film as a springboard for the proposed third season of the sitcom, which, for the first time, would be shown in color on the network.

The other reason that I have heard is that "The Munsters" had not yet debuted on European television, and this film would have ushered in the show to the continent.

Whatever the case, the film was made, and Watson was tabbed to play Marilyn Munster.

The second Marilyn Munster, Pat Priest, had become pregnant, and thus, could not play the virginal Marilyn in the movie, so Watson--a veteran of TV sitcoms, including a starring role on the short-lived "Karen" series--was inserted into the role on the big screen.

Watson was sort of a cross between Priest and her predecessor, Beverley Owen, as she was cute, perky, but kind of lacked the sexuality that Priest brought to the role.

But Watson--who was one of the last of the movie studio starlets, this time at Universal Pictures--was cast as the latest Marilyn, and if the series had, in fact, gone into its third year, she would have most probably played Marilyn in the new color format.

However, the movie bombed domestically, and this was one of the factors that convinced CBS that the show had run its course, and it was abruptly canceled, to live on in reruns in perpetuity as one of network television's cleverest sitcoms.

Watson ended up starring in some films--including "The Cool Ones" with Roddy McDowall--but she continued her popularity as a TV actress into the early 1970s, when she retired to raise her family. She has been married to record producer Richard Sanford Orshoff for 54 years (she married at 16 years of age), had a son, and recently turned 70 years old.

Of course, the Munsters saga has continued up to the present time, with a number of other actresses filling the role of Marilyn Munster, including Hillary Van Dyke in the horrid late 1980s reboot "The Munsters Today."

But to me at least, Pat Priest will always be THE Marilyn Munster who most clearly defined the role, being both sexy and completely innocent to the ways of the outside world. Owen was a bit too bland, and Watson, well, she is really just a footnote to the whole thing, to be honest with you.

Van Dyke ... to me, she doesn't even count.

"The Munsters" lives on in perpetual reruns, and there has been talk of numerous reboots that have kind of fallen by the wayside, including a version with an all black cast.

The show did come back very, very briefly as "Mockingbird Heights," a dramatic version of the story which lasted just one episode. That version finally gave us an explanation as to why Marilyn lived with the Munster family: she ran away from home when her mother was going to eat her!

I kid you not, and that is probably why that show was such a huge fatality.

So let's remember Marilyn Munster for what she was: the perfect counterpoint to the rest of the Munster clan.

And that closes the book on Marilyn Munster ... until the next misbegotten reboot occurs--

And you just know that it will.