Weird Wednesday

Travel 4 Minutes

Welcome to The Munster Mansion!

“Most people didn’t get past the characters to notice the house,” says Sandra McKee, a lifelong Texan, former lingerie store owner, great-grandmother, and Waxahachie resident. McKee is talking about the home at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the fictional city of Mockingbird Heights in the sixties TV show The Munsters. “But I loved the house,” she continues. “You could flow from any room without turning around and going back. The flow was wonderful.”

She loved it so much that she decided to recreate it. Twenty years ago, McKee and her husband, Charles, built a Victorian-style home in Waxahachie and designed it to look just like the Munsters’ house. The McKees lived there until a few years ago. Now they live next door and open the mansion for private tours as well as for monthly murder mystery dinner parties catered by the Olive Garden. It’s not just a tribute to the original but a nearly exact duplicate. The electric chair is there. The rotating suit of arms is there. The dishes laid out on the dining table are the real dishes the cast ate from on the show. Spot, the Munsters’ pet fire-breathing dragon, lives under the stairs: “We did a cardboard mock-up,” McKee recalls. “Shipped it off to a guy up north. He did the fiberglass and the mechanism to make the mouth open. We can’t do fire out the nose, of course, because you’d burn down the house, but we used to have fog coming out.” She adds, “On tours, a lot of people have breathing problems, so we don’t do fog anymore.” Even the candelabras and beaded-fringe lampshades and cheesecloth cobwebs look just like the originals.

“I watched all seventy episodes,” McKee says, reminiscing about the origins of her project. “We’d freeze-frame a wall. Figure out what goes on that wall. Lily Munster was five feet four. I’m five two. I could see how many steps it took her to get to the staircase or the stove. And that’s how we determined where things were. I don’t mind researching things. I spent a lot of time researching. A lot of time watching the show. Eventually I could say the words before they said the words.”

Waxahachie, a city of more than 35,000 residents about thirty miles south of Dallas, might be the best spot in Texas for a Munster Mansion. A town with an Old West feel—some scenes of Bonnie and Clyde were shot there—it also has a spooky side. Not only is it home to Screams Halloween Theme Park, it’s rumored to be haunted. Local Cajun restaurant Catfish Plantation advertises its cast of ghosts (ask the owner about the levitating fry basket). Unexplained turning door handles and tales of an elevator-riding girl ghost draw tourists to the Rogers Hotel. There’s also a popular historical ghost tour.

But the Munster Mansion is less spooky than simply extraordinary. There’s something so impressive, almost subversive, about giving one’s life to something that no one else has likely even conceived of, something that many people wouldn’t understand. For years, the Munster Mansion was simply the McKees’ house. They opened it for tours and charity events a couple times a year. They’d dress up like Lily and Herman and have the show’s cast members over for visits, but they didn’t build the house with the intention of making money. Sandra McKee just … loved The Munsters. And Charles went along for the ride. “If it were up to him, we’d be living in the Starship Enterprise,” she says. “But it was up to me, so here we are in the Munster House.”

Once she’s given me the grand tour, McKee shows me the memorabilia room, crammed with photos and figurines. “My favorite piece in here is this tuxedo,” she says, touching the formal suit with red bowtie. “When Grandpa Munster [the late actor Al Lewis] came to our charity event, the town next to us donated this tuxedo for him to wear for the weekend. Well, Grandpa burned it right here with his cigar—yeah, I’ve got his cigar, too—so I bought the tuxedo from him, didn’t have it dry-cleaned or anything. It’s got his DNA all over it.”

The Munsters, which aired for only two seasons, was produced by the creators of Leave It to Beaver, and like Beaver, it depicted suburban life, albeit satirically. The Munsters were monsters, but they were otherwise a traditional, loving sixties family. The McKees, too, are typical, if you don’t count the coffin phone built into their wall. Charles is a plumber. Sandra adores her family so much that she doesn’t give tours on Halloween because she likes to take the kids trick-or-treating. “I had six grandchildren grow up here,” she tells me. “I told them, don’t run your toys in the cobwebs.” She smiles. “We had a lot of love in this house.”

Marshall Hinsley/Courtesy of the Munster Mansion

SOURCE: TEXASMONTHLY

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Published by pat frederick

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145 thoughts on “Weird Wednesday”

  2. Clarion
    August 2, 2023 11:23 am

    Something very concerning about Special Counsel Smith’s legal theories –

    Even if widespread election fraud were 100% proven, Trump could still be charged for asking VP Pence to reject or send to the states Biden’s electoral votes.

    Also strange how Smith has built his case around Pence’s various recollections of what Trump is supposed to have said about stuff but somehow Smith forgot to mention that Pence himself caused most of the damage by raising false hopes with his pre-J6 speech?

    Also strange how Smith has built his case around Pence’s various recollections of what Trump is supposed to have said about stuff but somehow Smith forgot to mention that Pence himself caused most of the damage by raising false hopes with his pre-J6 speech?pic.twitter.com/CnUJbipZ3t https://t.co/Iz28q33xS4

    — Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) August 2, 2023

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  3. “Ole’ Joe ain’t the only crazy one in that family…

    President Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, wants Meghan Markle to pursue her rumored political ambitions all the way to the White House, suggesting that the former “Suits” star would make a good presidential candidate. Tells you everything you need to know about how far from the pier that family boat is floating. Read the rest of this article here:”
    https://nypost.com/2022/05/10/bidens-sister-says-meghan-markle-a-good-presidential-candidate/

    Liked by 1 person



  4. “The company has decided it’s best for their business if they integrate into the communities they serve. This is the newest store front design for their Massachusetts stores.”

    Liked by 1 person


  5. “I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I’m almost 70 years old and I’m just tired of taking shit from people. I was in the McDonald’s drive-through yesterday morning getting my monthly sausage biscuit fix and it was busy as fuck – there were probably 15 cars in front of me when I got on the line.

    When I finally got up to the order window, the young bitch in the car behind me must have been in a hurry, because she was leaning on her horn, flipping me a bird and started mouthing something because I was taking too long to place my order. When I got finished with my order, I gave the order-taker $ 20.00, said I wanted to pay for my daughter’s breakfast in the car behind me, and told her to keep the change. I paid for her order along with my own.

    The cashier must have told her what I’d done because as we moved up she leaned out her window and waved to me and mouthed “Thank you,” obviously embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with kindness. When I got to the second window I showed the gal both receipts and took her food too. Now she has to go back to the end of the line and start all over again.

    Moral of this story? Don’t blow your horn at old people, bitch. We’ve been around a long time – we know more ways to fuck with you than you’ll ever dream of.”

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Priceless, eh? I laughed and laughed and laughed! Just the kind of thing I would have done to my daughter had she ever dared to do such a thing!!!

        Liked by 1 person

  6. why are we allowing a foreign company to suck up OUR resources? they should ban all foreign ownership of land. if they need alfalfa grass in Saudi Arabia–they can PAY America’s farmers a decent price to grow it. Instead the foreign company is renting land and sucking precious water from Arizona –and the residents there are supposed to cut back–not plant grass in their yards–so some foreigners can steal from us!
    FTA
    Fondomonte’s land lease for state trust land in Butler Valley, located in La Paz County, is $25/acre for 3,500 acres, considered “well below market rates” according to Attorney General Kris Mayes. The company grew alfalfa hay to ship back to Saudi Arabia to feed cows. Growing alfalfa hay is illegal there due to the vast amount of water it consumes. There are no requirements for Fondomonte to report how much water it pumps.

    Charlie Havranek, a Realtor at Southwest Land Associates, told Arizona PBS that the $25 per acre price is only about one-sixth of the market price for unimproved farmland with flood irrigation today.

    According to Holly Irwin, a member of the La Paz County Board of Supervisors, residents have complained to her for years that it’s getting harder to pump water in nearby wells.

    https://tennesseestar.com/policy/saudi-company-draining-arizonas-water-hires-business-partner-of-hobbs-top-campaign-advisor-as-lobbyist-who-quits-after-uproar/rachel-alexander/2023/08/01/

    Liked by 1 person

  8. dropping down…i was making out my shopping list for tonight’s big banana run and went into the pantry closet to check on the canned goods…found a can of peas nearing it’s expiration date, which triggered an overhaul of the entire pantry…LOL

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Oh, my – I know how that goes well! Happens to me every fricking day! Distractions on top of distractions….oooh, I heard a new bird….and I’m off, binoculars in hand!

      Like

  12. zephyrbreeze
    zephyrbreeze
    August 2, 2023 2:07 pm

    Hillary claimed that her entire staff were her lawyers to keep them from having to testify. pic.twitter.com/lAvfM2LyjI

    — Burisma, Ballots & Bullshit (@BaltimoreGina) August 2, 2023

    Liked by 1 person

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