This Day in Pop Culture for September 24

Both “The Munsters” and “60 Minutes” premiered on this day in pop culture history.

September 24, 2020

4–5 minutes

1964: ‘The Munsters’ Moved into the Neighborhood

Ironically, both monster sitcoms The Addams Family and The Munsters sitcoms debuted in the fall of 1964 just as TV shows were starting to turn to color, but both were shown in black-and-white. While the Addams were modeled after the Charles Adams comics found in The New Yorker, The Munsters were a mix of Universal’s monsters and traditional family values. In fact, the show was produced by the same people who created Leave it to Beaver.

The show starred Fred Gwynne as father Herman, Yvonne De Carlo as mother Lily, Al Lewis as Grandpa, Butch Patrick as son Eddie and both Pat Priest and Beverley Owen as niece Marilyn.

The Munsters TV series only ran for two seasons, but that wasn’t really the end. In 1966 after the show went off the air, Universal Pictures released the full color movie, Munster, Go Home! in theaters. It starred the whole cast except for Priest who was replaced by Debbie Watson. In 1981, Gwynne, De Carlo and Lewis reprised their roles once again for the made-for-TV movie, The Munsters’ Revenge.

In 1987, a new syndicated version of the show, The Munsters Today was filmed at Universal Studios. It starred John Schuck (Herman), Lee Meriwether (Lily), Howard Morton (Grandpa), Jason Marsden (Eddie) and Hilary Van Dyke (Marilyn). In one way, the new series was more successful than the original since it ran for three years, but overall, it never measured up to the original. But Hollywood still wasn’t ready to give up.

In 1995, FOX aired the made-for-TV movie, Here Come the Munsters, where De Carlo, Lewis, Patrick and Priest made cameo appearances, but not as their classic characters. A year later, FOX aired yet another movie, The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas, with a whole different cast.

In 2012, Universal tried out another Munsters series called Mockingbird Lane written by Bryan Fuller and directed by Bryan Singer. It was a modern, more spooky and even a little mean-spirited with a great cast. It starred Jerry O’Connell (Herman), Portia de Rossi (Lily), Eddie Izzard (Grandpa), Mason Cook (Eddie) and Charity Wakefield (Marilyn). It aired as a Halloween special but was not picked up as a series. It just didn’t work.

Rob Zombie tried his hand at creating The Munsters movie in 2022. It starred Jeff Daniel Phillips as Herman, Sherri Moon Zombie as Lily and Daniel Roebuck as The Count (Grandpa). It never made it to theaters but did air on Netflix.

2024: Coca-Cola Spiced Goes the Way of New Coke

In 1985, Coca-Cola sales were sagging, so the cola giant decided an upgrade was in order. They released “New Coke” on April 23 but 79 days later, the company announced that the classic flavor would be back on store shelves shortly.

History sort of repeated itself on this day when Coca-Cola announced that they were discontinuing Coca-Cola Spiced, the company’s newest “permanent” flavor. Perhaps it was a matter of miscommunication. The flavor was actually a raspberry flavor with some spices thrown in, but either way, it failed to make much of an impression with consumers. In a statement from Coke, the company said, “We’re always looking at what our customers like and adjusting our range of products. As part of this strategy, we’re planning to phase out Coca-Cola Spiced to introduce an exciting new flavor in 2025.

New flavors of Coke are nothing new. The company continues to introduce limited flavors like the 2024 Oreo cookie pairing. Other “permanent” flavors that have come on gone over the years include the half sugar Coca-Cola C2 (2004), the coffee-flavored Coca-Cola Blak (2006) and the half sugar/half stevia Coca-Cola Life (2013).

1968: ’60 Minutes’ Begins Ticking

The stopwatch on the cover of the CBS video news show, 60 Minutes first began ticking on this day in 1968. The magazine-styled show was created by Don Hewitt which began as a bi-weekly program that was hosted by Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. The show also featured Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Charles Kuralt, Roger Mudd, Bill Plante and Eric Sevareid. In addition to the three long-format news stories, the show often included a Point/Counterpoint segment featuring James J. Kilpatrick representing conservative views and Nicholas von Hoffman representing liberal views on a different topic each week.

Beginning in 1978 and stretching all the way to 2011, many of the shows ended with “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” who often ranted about a variety of topics but usually with a comical tone.