MOCKINGBIRD LANE — Pilot — Pictured: (l-r) Charity Wakefield as Marilyn, Eddie Izzard as Grandpa, Mason Cook as Eddie Munster, Portia De Rossi as Lily Munster, Jerry O’Connell as Herman Munster.

“Mockingbird Lane,” Bryan Fuller’s long-planned reboot of classic 60’s series “The Munsters,” is finally becoming true reality and has more than a twist on its original. NBC will air the pilot as a special Halloween show on Friday, October 26 in hopes to catch audiences for a real series run if it can pull in the numbers of viewers it needs.

Writer Bryan Fuller (“Pushing Daisy’s”, “Hannibal”) wrote the script for the pilot show with Bryan Singer (“Superman Returns”, “X-men”) as director and executive producer of the project. The critics and concern are what the series might be with Singer at the helm. An hour long format and billed as a drama with comedy ‘sprinkled in’ – but will it work?

Talk about odd casting, “Mockingbird Lane” stars Jerry O’Connell (Jerry McGuire, Sliders) as Herman Munster, Portia de Rossi (“Alley McBeal”, “Arrested Development”) as his wife Lily, Eddie Izzard (“The Good Wife”, “Riches”) as Grandpa, Mason Cook (“The Lone Ranger”, “The Middle”) as Eddie and Charity Wakefield (“The Raven”, “Sense & Sensibility”) as Marilyn.

As you can see they decided to go with both contemporary make-up, with a few tweaks here and there, and there will be the state-of-the-art special effects thanks to Singer. Robert Blackman (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Voyager”) designed the unique but contemporary costumes as well which address some of the characters quirks.

Jerry O’Connell as Herman Munster, Mason Cook as Eddie Munster and Portia De Rossi as Lily Munster,

What’s the show actually about? If you understand the current housing market, NBC says, “Buying a house these days is a nightmare, so Herman and Lily are shocked that no one has scooped up the rambling Victorian mansion at 1313 Mockingbird Lane that was the site of a series of grisly hobo murders. Settling into their new place, they’re quickly onto the mission at hand: to gently ease Eddie into the reality of his werewolf adolescence. But it’s not always so easy to accept that your child is a little “different” from the rest of the kids.”

“ Meanwhile, Herman, who works as a funeral director, is suffering from a heart condition. Since he’s made up mostly of spare parts, he knew his makeshift heart would eventually give out., “An NBC executive says, “No worries though, because Grandpa, who is pretty good at procuring body parts, is on the case. All Herman cares about is finding a new heart with the same capacity to love Lily as much as he has for so many decades.”

As you may have heard this pilot cost a little over $10 million and the hopes are it pulls the numbers so that NBC orders the series up for real. What does that mean? Usually it means 13 episodes more are ordered to complete the series mid-season replacement for a next January airing. We’ll see if Herman, Lilly, Eddie, Marilyn and Grandma will be permanent residents of Mocking Bird Lane – or not – this Halloween! I hope it’s fun!