La famille Addams

The Addams Family always has been one of my favourites. The costumes and sets look sumptuous and the photography to me hasn't dated. The music was iconic when I first was familiar to the series and it still is. The stories are always interesting, and I have never found the laughter track inappropriate or annoying. The cast are superb and perfectly suited to their characters, you won't find a better Gomez or Morticia than John Astin and Carolyn Jones, and Jackie Coogan is born for Fester. Wednesday and Pugsley are adorable and genuinely look as though they care for one another, and Lurch is a character you are amused by and feel sympathy for. The humour also works wonderfully, the writing is superb and the slapstick is subtle and appropriately weird and surreal. All in all, this series is a classic and always will be. 10/10 Bethany Cox

The Addams Family was, in its own strange way, the healthiest TV family ever presented. The mother and father are utterly smitten with one another. They dote on their children and pay meticulous attention to their upbringing. The children, for their part, are respectful of their elders but brim-full of curiosity and mischief. The grandmother and uncle are loved and respected. Extended family members are admired and included. The butler shows great devotion to his employers, who repay him by providing a loving family. Thing (whatever it is) is appreciated for his omnipresent helpfulness. And visitors are always welcome and treated with the utmost courtesy.

The macabre touches are fun, and provide the fish-out-of-water running gag of outsiders trying to cope with the Addams' ghoulish world, but it's the relationships that make The Addams Family tick. Current sit-coms, with their focus on deception and underhanded tricks, would do well to emulate the Addamses.

One of the funnier and more enjoyable series of the period about a ghoulish family that just seems to be totally unaware of their strangeness. Led by John Astin and Carolyn Jones, the group included the two aforementioned performers as the parents to two creepy youngsters and the odd voices of reason to various other family members. Jackie Coogan definitely stole the show as the creepy Uncle Fester. A short run of success for three seasons ended in 1966 with only 64 episodes being made. Used to have a home in syndication, but is harder to find on television these days. The series had a renaissance in the early-1990s with two theatrical installments starring Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd and Anjelica Huston. The movies are not on par with the series, the main reason for this is the fact that the situations and characters play out so much better on the boob tube. 4 stars out of 5.

The Addamses are a delightfully ghoulish family. Father Gomez (John Astin) clears his throat with a sword, mother Morticia (Carolyn Jones) owns several carnivorous plants, and servant Lurch (Ted Cassidy) somberly replies "You rang?" whenever someone rings the bell. And of course, there's their pet, a severed hand named Thing. The family spends their days engaging in activities that most would find weird (to be certain, everything that's normal to us is weird to them). For example, Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) likes to rest on a bed on nails. They go through their everyday lives (uh, lives?) doing the sorts of things that most people do, just differently (to say the least).

Among other things, "The Addams Family" was actually better than "The Munsters" (it was cleverer and not so silly). This truly represented a break from the "ideal American family" mold that had previously dominated TV, especially since Gomez and Morticia often got slinky with each other. Definitely watch it whenever it's on (TV Land is currently rerunning it).

'The Addams Family' was one of my favourite TV shows growing up because of it's overall weirdness, which appealed to my sick sensibilities having been raised on a diet of Mad magazine and Hammer horror movies, and because it was genuinely funny. And all these years later it still is. As an adult I appreciate it on even more levels. With hindsight it manages to look like one of the most subversive shows ever shown on TV, while simultaneously showing one of the most loving, and well adjusted families in TV history! How ironic is that?

John Astin as Gomez Addams shows outstanding comic flair, and is still a delight to watch. (Try and track down the ahead of its time comic western 'Evil Roy Slade' for another wonderful Astin performance.) The chemistry between Astin and on-screen wife Morticia (the lovely Carolyn Jones) is smoldering AND hilarious, and the two are backed up by a fine supporting cast, especially former child star Jackie Coogan as the bizarre but lovable Uncle Fester.

Forget the hit and miss movies, these are the original and still the best Addams family. Wonderful fun!