Guess who's playing Herman Munster in Bryan Fuller's new zany Munsters reboot, Mockingbird Lane? Jerry O'Connell. Which... huh. We did not see this one coming. Oh well at least they got Eddie Izzard for Grandpa, and a really good potential Lily Munster.
According to Deadline that kid from Stand By Me has been cast as the lead monster Herman Munster. He'll be joining Eddie Izzard as Grandpa, Charity Wakefield as Marilyn and Mason Cook as Eddie. Mariana Klaveno, better known as the crazy-pants Vampire maker of Bill from True Blood, has allegedly been offered the role of Lily Munster (Herman's wife). But it might not work out, since she would need to get out of her contract in Marc Cherry's new drama Devious Maids. And it doesn't sound like they will let her out of her contract just yet — which is too bad, since she's amazing and could easily do a goth Lily.
Deadline gives us a brand new synopsis of Fuller's remake:
[Jerry O'Connell will] play the family patriarch, the handsome and gangly Herman Munster, a great dad and devoted husband. He is married to Lily, a vampire, with whom he has fathered a 10-year-old boy, Eddie (Mason Cook). Strong but sentimental, Herman works at a funeral home, and worries that Eddie's transformation into a werewolf and burgeoning awareness of his family's origins will crush the boy's spirit.
While we think O'Connell is very handsome and certainly charming, we're having a hard time picturing as the soulful Herman. In fact, it paints Fuller's new show as more of a parody comedy and less of a strange genre busting Pushing Daisies type show. Then again, it's Fuller, and we'd follow him into a fire if he said there was good TV there.