The Munsters - Herman, the Tire Kicker

Frank Gorshin guest stars as the leader of a car thief outfit that sets up makeshift, temporary operations on barren plots to sell their stolen lemons to suckers too trusting or naive to realize their shady organization. Herman is such an endearing sucker, and he's completely duped by Gorshin, who tosses out Cary Grant's name to sweeten the sale. It is a total sham. Unloading a convertible that combusts worse than the exhaling Blues car in The Blues Brothers (1980), to Herman is Gorshin's feather in his cap. The police soon arrest Herman because of the car, one of several stolen, and the family will have to come bail him out. Gorshin, intoxicated, sees the Munsters, and then two of Herman, and cops to the stolen car outfit out of sheer terror!

Sight gags are a specialty of the show, and Herman's disastrous car shopping is the highlight, particularly when he nearly pulls apart one car, kicked the air out of another's tire, and lifts a third car with one hand (!) to test its weight. The convertible's come-apart is a real gas. It all comes out of good intentions...to get Marilyn a car so she wouldn't have to pool everywhere. Herman's sobriety test and trip to jail where merely bending over knocks loose a cell door (!) also are played to the hilt, Fred Gwynne as appealing as expected. Never an episode where he doesn't earn a smile and fail to amuse with his Frankenstein Monster shtick (the "level-headed" pun especially). Gorshin is memorable as a sneaky conman, masterful at depositing junkers to the easily fooled. His drunk act at the end is of the classic over-the-top variety. De Carlo's Lily scolding Herman always amuses, especially angry with him for being so duped, and her persistence in calling the better business bureau gets them nowhere but nonetheless shows what kind of headstrong woman she could be. An officer taking to pretty blond Marilyn, giving her a ride later on offers some irony. As most of the episodes this flies by.