Pike's Pique - S1-E5
Revealing mistake: As Herman goes to lift the couch, if you look at the fireplace mantel, you see the shadow of the mechanical hoist used to complete the gag.
Pike's Pique - S1-E5
Revealing mistake: After Grandpa says good night, there is a huge cloud of smoke, signifying his change to a bat. As the smoke clears, in the lower right corner of the screen, Grandpa can be seen ducking out of the shot.
Answer: The comedic gimmick of both "The Munsters" and "The Addams Family" television shows in the 1960s was that both families were convinced they were normal and everyone else they encountered was odd. The Addams Family, for example, thought their "normal" visitors were mentally unbalanced because they always fled the Addams' weird home in panic. That was a running gag throughout the entire Addams Family series, so much so that easily half of nearly every episode was devoted to the predictably terrified reactions of their visitors (always accompanied by identical canned laughter). Meanwhile, in the Munsters' universe, the family thought "normal" people were physically deformed and even quite hideous. For example, the Munsters believed that their beautiful niece, Marilyn, was socially handicapped by her ugliness (the exact opposite of the truth); and, in the episode "Just Another Pretty Face" (S2E17), when Herman Munster was temporarily transformed into a "normal" person, his entire family found him utterly repulsive. The family's hidden revulsion to "normal" people was the running gag of The Munsters.
Charles Austin Miller