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From the Archives of Entertainment Weekly - July 12th, 2002
NEW THIS WEEK- TELEVISION
Munson Manor (VH1)
It’s not set in a manor, and they’re not Ozzy-level famous (or particularly interesting), but the pilot for VH1’s answer to MTV’s smash hit celebrity-slice-of-life airs this Monday evening at 8 PM EST (7 CST). Frontman of Corroded Coffin, pop culture rabble rouser, and apparent family man Eddie Munson is boisterous, perhaps too much for his Topanga Canyon neighbors — note that this appears to be one of the only points of conflict in the entire show, aside from a subplot concerning whether 5-year-old Dani Munson will have the vocab chops to get into an elite elementary school. Wife Chrissy Munson (and occasional actress – why yes, she was in 1999’s DROP DEAD GORGEOUS!) plays the role of the yoga bimbo, smudging their hillside home with sage after an outburst and breaking the fourth wall by asking the camera crew if they’d like anything to drink. Sure, it’s all very cute — The Munsons are clearly in love! — but the more dysfunctional celebrity family portraits endure not because we want to be assured that the stars are just like us, but because we like to be reminded that they really aren’t. If you like your rockstar-at-home programming with a little more bite (bat heads or not), search elsewhere.
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Chrissy tapped her fingertips against the pages of the magazine, watching Eddie process what she’d just read for him in the middle of their dining room. It was an unusually quiet day in their home as of late, and with Dani off at school and the house to themselves, they kept the sliding glass door open to let the morning air in.
Lately, their home was filled with cameras, and lighting set-ups, and people who didn’t live with them but would find themselves stationed there from anywhere between 8 and 14 hours per day (depending on what had happened between Chrissy and Eddie on non-filming days.) It all made Chrissy start to think her own living room was just another soundstage set piece.
And something she’d learned through this whole ordeal was that a major part of filming a reality show involved reliving conversations with your spouse like they were taken from a script. Which was getting really old, really fast. Especially since production was seemingly invested in sowing discord between the two of them. You try explaining that type of living situation to a precocious five-year-old!
Chrissy cleared her throat and wiggled her toes in anticipation for her husband’s take on one of the first reviews to trickle in after screeners were sent out.
He was unusually quiet.
Eddie sat at their table, wiping a look of confusion from his face before he broke the tension with a question. “What on earth is a yoga bimbo?”
“Would it be too pointed to get that bedazzled on a t-shirt?” Chrissy retorted dryly. It wasn’t a very nice thing to call another person, but Chrissy had to admit, those catty culture writers knew how to leave an impression on their subjects. Besides, it wasn’t like production had made any effort to note that Chrissy had helped edit the script for Drop Dead Gorgeous (or Urban Legend, or CLUELESS, which made Chrissy feel like she was actually losing her mind!)
“So, let me get this right before I get too excited. Entertainment Weekly gave us two stars out of…”
“Five,” Chrissy confirmed with a solemn nod. “They gave us a 40% in celebrity reality television.”
Eddie knocked his rings against the wood of their dining room table before rising to his feet, where he took Chrissy’s face in his hands to draw her into a celebratory kiss. “Best news I’ve heard all damn day!”
“You’re not disappointed?” Chrissy asked with a sigh of relief.
“Disappointed? Baby, I am thrilled to kick these people to the curb,” he said. “I’m calling our agent as soon as I can. Pretty sure the contract said we’d have more creative control over season two. I intend to hold them to that!”
Chrissy could swear she watched him gain a spring in his step as he made his way up the stairs to their bedroom, where the two of them would ultimately fish out all the wireless mics they’d “lost” (read: stashed away) over the initial three weeks of filming in an attempt to have normal conversations without any eavesdroppers.
“Do you think Dani is going to need therapy after this?” She asked as she collected two, three, four wireless mics and tossed them into the cardboard box in the middle of their bed.
“Nah,” Eddie shrugged. “But I might. Feel like I’m starting to see boom mics from the corner of my eye when I’m in the shower…”
Chrissy snorted, thinking back to the time last week when she found herself compelled to put on a full face of makeup before going into the kitchen to grab some yogurt. That was the moment she knew this whole experiment had to come to an end. Reading that someone on the other side agreed? Hell, she should have been sending flowers to the offices of Entertainment Weekly!
Sure, it was the only review published so far, but it soothed all the anxieties that plagued her when they’d agreed (however tentatively!) to give the network’s programming pitch some consideration. Her home life was functional, it was loving, and — most importantly — it was boring.
From the archives of variety.com, August 3rd, 2002 -
Munson Manor Not Returning for a Second Season, VH1 announces
VH1’s venture into the red-hot celebreality genre of television has taken a hit after the network and Munson Manor stars have come to the mutual decision to part ways, citing low ratings and an inability for production and the Munson family’s representation to come to an agreement regarding filming schedules, compensation, and creative control.
The Munsons released a statement via their rep thanking VH1, the production company, and their fans for their support, noting that they are excited for the future and ‘...grateful to not have anymore camera crews in their home…’ and per the release shared with Variety, ‘[they] have found that they prefer to keep their work and home life separate.’
The series will conclude with the season finale in September. After that, Monday’s 8PM time slot will reportedly be filled with reruns of Behind the Music.