Grandpa Munster RIP

New York lost two greats this weekend first Betty Friedan and now Al Lewis. Lewis played Grandpa Munster and was the Green Candidate against George Pataki for Governor of New York passed away today.

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis."

In dispute is his age. Was he 95 or 83? Even Wikipedia isn't sure.

Well the cigar chomping old guy always looked old even in the days when he played Grandpa Munster. So maybe like the wacko Count Dracula he played he was ageless. The Munsters were perfect TV for their time. A parody on the Adams Family and the Universal/Hmmer Horror film craze going on at the time, the Munsters gave new meaning to family values. Indeed perhaps in more than one way they helped a generation appreciate other kinds of families. The show certainly promoted, as did Bewitched, tolerance and understanding. Which is the underpining of most monster pictures be it King Kong or Frankenstien. I won't go into a detailed discussion of the role of the 'other' in popular culture, and deconstruct these TV dramas, suffice it to say they had a major influence on an entire generation making us more liberal. Shudder, see blame it on the Munsters.

I still remember his younger self from the hit series Car 54 Where Are You. He and Fred Gwynne were always a great team on both Car and the Munsters. They were the Lewis and Martin of their day or maybe Rowan and Martin.

Lewis, sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, became a pop culture icon playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on Car 54, Where Are You?

His run for Govenor was not a joke. It was a serious call for Third Party politics in the U.S. something we are blessed with in Canada. And something that is seriously lacking in the U.S. thus undermining democracy.

Green reflects on the death of Al Lewis

But in 1998 Lewis re-emerged into the spotlight as a maverick New York political candidate. He ran for New York State Governor on the Green Party Ticket, along with Albany native Alice Green, who ran for Albany Mayor this past year.

Green said, "I think most people thought of him as a funny man, but I knew him as this really serious, compassionate person who was committed to doing what he could for social justice."

Green said Lewis was loved by many, and people would just flock to him while they were campaigning together. She said he was known by everyone as 'Grandpa Al Lewis."

And while he played the Grandfatherly type he could still make even Howard Stern blush when he defended civil liberties against the censorship minded grundy's in the FCC.

Lewis rarely slowed down, opening his restaurant and hosting his WBAI radio program. At one point during the '90s, he was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, once sending the shock jock diving for the delay button by leading an undeniably obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission.

Good Night and Goodbye Grandpa Munster.

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Grandpa Munster