They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky...
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.
("We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.")
— Addams family motto
Series based on the ghoulish cartoons published by Charles Addams in
The New Yorker magazine starting in the 1930s, broadcast on ABC from 1964 to 1966. It was one of the last network series filmed entirely in black and white, which may have been a stylistic decision given the subject matter. While not very successful in the two years of its original run, it became a cult favorite once it entered syndication.
A deliberate subversion of the ideal American
Nuclear Family, the Addamses are an obscenely wealthy clan of borderline supernatural beings with a taste for the grotesque and macabre, possessing opinions and preferences that are mirror images or inversions of more conventional attitudes. Although very visibly different from virtually everyone they meet, they still perceive themselves as a "perfectly normal family"; in fact, they seem somewhat incapable of even noticing that their lifestyle varies widely from that of their neighbors. Despite their tastes and the apparent trappings of pain and horror amidst which they live, though, the Addamses are clearly not evil — they are compassionate and loving, friendly to all they meet, eager to help strangers in times of need, and tolerant to a fault. In fact, they are probably more so than most families! The end result is more delightfully eccentric and endearing than disturbing.
The family is composed of:
- Gomez Alonzo Addams, the clan patriarch (John Astin). Ostensibly a lawyer, though the family's vast independent wealth eliminates any need for him to actually work; when he does, though, he takes great pride in the cases he's lost.
- Morticia Frump Addams, his wife (Carolyn Jones). Tall, elegant, ivory-skinned and black-tressed, and always clad in a tight, slinky black dress. Morticia is calm reason to Gomez's maniacal exuberance. Popular opinion is that she is a vampire - she never actually smiles with her teeth.
- Pugsley Addams, their son (Ken Weatherwax). A young Mad Scientist in the making who once demonstrated a home-made disintegration rifle to a visiting Soviet diplomat.
- Wednesday Addams, their youngest (Lisa Loring). A sweet, happy child who loves her family, her octopus, and her headless doll Marie Antoinette. She is also quite sensitive and easily disturbed by strange and upsetting things like stories of vicious knights slaying innocent dragons.
- Grandmama, Morticia's mother (Blossom Rock). More than just an old lady but not quite a witch, Grandmama takes a delight in doing a lot of the family's cooking and gladly acts as a secondary parental figure to the children.
- Uncle Fester, Morticia's uncle (Jackie Coogan). Blend a Mad Scientist and his Igor together, and filter them through Curly Howard of The Three Stooges, and you get Uncle Fester.
- Lurch, their Frankensteinian butler (Ted Cassidy). A man(?) of few words but many groans, Lurch may be their all-purpose servant, but he is treated as one of the family, receiving care and devotion from everyone when he needs it.
- Thing, their... thing (Credited as "Itself" but usually performed by Ted Cassidy; associate producer Jack Voglin performed in scenes with Lurch). A hand in a box — many boxes, actually, as there's at least one in every room. Fetches mail, plays charades, performs mime. Clearly sentient, and like Lurch treated as a family member rather than a servant or pet. Got its very own romantic subplot in one episode.
Together they live an a crumbling Second Empire-style home which looks much like a stereotypical "haunted house" and which seems at times to be animate and sentient, with a playful attitude toward most visitors. Inside is a museum — or a Ripley's Odditorium: strange and bizarre decorations and furnishings fill the house to the brim, and invariably shock first-time visitors.
And
do they have visitors. The primary theme of
The Addams Family was culture clash — that of an America still in the 1950s in some ways with something profoundly and grotesquely
other. All manner of
ordinary folk encountered the Addamses — sometimes to their benefit, sometimes to their dismay — but never without challenging their notions of normality and reality.
A secondary theme was tolerance — as strange as they are, the Addamses are the
heroes, and the viewer is encouraged to understand, empathize and identify with them regardless of their macabre ways. Once the Addamses are familiar, delight comes from anticipating the reaction of the next unsuspecting
mundane to cross their path. The show was so exquisitely crafted that this appeal to tolerance was never
blatant, save for one memorable episode where a
Rebel Without A Cause-style biker crashes into the Addams home; he is so astounded by and grateful for their casual acceptance of his unconventional ways that he holds them up as an example of a true family to his rigid, unyielding father.
In short, a classic series, groundbreaking in many ways, that entertains and challenges the viewer. Among its many "firsts" was the relationship between Gomez and Morticia — one of the most
singularly passionate marriages on television in that or any other era, it was perhaps the first time a married couple had been shown to be so fiercely and intensely in love with each other. In fact, it's been half-joked that the couple appear to be the only 1960s TV parents
capable of having children. Interestingly, the Addamses are widely considered to be the most mentally healthy 60s
Sit Com family out there, and with some good reason.
Once the program's cult status was well-established, it became the subject of several revivals, remakes and
Animated Adaptations:
- The Addamses crossed over with Scooby Doo in the third episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family" in September 1972
- An animated series that ran on NBC Saturday mornings from 1973–1975, which featured an eight-year-old Jodie Foster as Pugsley.
- A Reunion Show, Halloween With The New Addams Family, which aired on CBS in October 1977.
- The 1991 feature film starring Raul Julia as Gomez, Angelica Houston as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd as Fester, and Christina Ricci as Wednesday (who here was more of a Deadpan Snarker, rather than the pre-teen Perky Goth from the original series).
- A 1992–1995 animated series on ABC spawned by the success of the 1991 movie.
- Addams Family Values, 1993, the sequel to the 1991 feature film.
- Addams Family Reunion, sometimes called Addams Family 3, 1998 direct-to-video sequel with Darryl Hannah as Morticia and Tim Curry as Gomez.
- The New Addams Family on Fox Family, 1998-1999 was mostly new only in terms of title and cast; most of its episodes were recycled versions of scripts from the original series.
This show provides examples of:
- Adaptation Decay (The original The New Yorker cartoon that debuted Thing (The World of Chas Addams, pg. 125) features him as the punchline. He is clearly a man in a (human-sized) box (in this case, a record player); not only is this the only way the joke can work, but the record player has two holes: one with a left hand holding the needle, the other with an entire right arm changing records. See my contributor's page for further details.)
- Adaptation Distillation (The series refined and perfected Charles Addams' cartoon characters, though Charles Addams himself would violently disagree with this assessment, and considered the series a travesty)
- Also, the 90's Cartoon was acclaimed for adding many 90's Cartoonish zany elements, yet meshing them perfectly with the feel of the series.
- Animated Adaptation (at least three)
- Brother Chuck (1977's Halloween With The New Addams Family introduced two new children, Wednesday Jr. and Pugsley Jr., who were never heard from again afterwards.)
- Catch Phrase ("You rang?" "Tish! That's French!")
- The Chazz (Gomez)
- Closer To Earth (Morticia vs. Gomez)
- Crossdressing Voices (A very young Jodie Foster as Pugsley in the first animated series)
- Cross Over (with Scooby Doo in the third episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family", 1972)
- Day Of The Week Name (Wednesday Friday Addams)
- Expository Theme Tune
- The Faceless (Cousin Itt, hidden by all that hair; in fact, Itt's hands were possibly the only part of his body ever seen, and those rarely — and even then only wearing gloves.)
- The Film Of The Series (The Addams Family and Addams Family Values)
- Helping Hands
- Homage (On Histeria!)
- Identical Grandson (John Astin as "Grandpa Addams" on The New Addams Family)
- Laugh Track
- Limited Wardrobe (With only a few very rare exceptions, the family always wears the same outfits.)
- Made For TV Movie (Halloween With The New Addams Family)
- Maintain The Lie
- Muggles (Most everyone else in the series)
- Nuclear Family (Subverted)
- Once An Episode (The inevitable mention of various never-seen relatives, such as Uncle Knick-Knack. Sometimes happened more than once per episode, but who's counting?)
- Pale Skinned Brunette (Morticia)
- Quirky Household
- Reactionary Fantasy (The ultimate subversion!)
- Real Life Writes The Plot (Ted "Lurch" Cassidy's brief, unexpected teen idol status became the basis for an episode where Lurch's harpsichord playing earns him a similar teenybopper following.)
- Reboot (1998's The New Addams Family)
- Recycled IN SPACE (1973 animated series)
- Recycled Script (Most of the episodes of The New Addams Family were recycled from the original series.)
- Ret Con (Fester was changed from Morticia's uncle to Gomez's brother in the 1973-75 animated series, back to Morticia's uncle in the 1977 Reunion Show, and back again to Gomez's brother for the movies. Grandmama started out as Gomez's mother then switched over to Morticia's starting with the first animated series and stayed put from then on.)
- Reunion Show
- Running Gag (The front gate, the doorbell pull, the roaring bear rug, and others.)
- She Is All Grown Up (Wednesday has her "grownup" moments, wearing a miniature Morticia dress, in both the series and the second movie.)
- Sleeping Single (implied subversion)
- The Speechless (Thing)
- Stock Footage (Whenever a new visitor enters the house, the same footage of its unusual furnishings is used.)
- Throw It In (Ted Cassidy ad libbed "You rang?" in the pilot, and the producers kept it — and changed Lurch from a mute to allow for it.)
- Too Kinky To Torture
- The Unintelligible (Cousin Itt)
- Vanity Plate
