The Addams Family

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).

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 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.

John Astin and Carolyn Jones brought the Charles Addams cartoons to life in this excellent counter-cultural '60s show. They each brought their own qualities to the characters, Astin his Zen Yogi Buddhism and his Shakespeare, Jones, her knitting and great looks. If you pay attention to the dialogue it's subversive on many levels which may be why ABC cancelled it after 2 years of great success.

Carolyn Jones is gothically georgeous with a great sing-songy voice that brings the dialogue to life, and a figure perfect enough to fit into that black widow dress. I always love how she says "Mail's In...Thank You Thing" when the foghorn sounds. Lurch is great when he moans all the time, and Fester with his gun "I'll shoot 'im in the back!".

I think the most poignant episode was when Rocky, a biker beatnik comes and the Addams' accept him as he is and teach his staunch father a lesson. His father tells them, "If there's a kook here, it's probably me". And at the end after everyone says "right", Morticia says, "reet"...a subtle message that she learned to be different from Rocky.

This hinted at the explosion of youth rebellion that was to come...and this series may have precipitated it on some level. The '60s had counter-culture all of a sudden injected into popular culture and it had an impact on the development of the actual counter culture of the late 60s...and even present day the "gothic" look can be traced directly to here.

Another memorable thing is Cousin Itt's tiny room everyone else had to crouch in and they hit their heads on the ceiling (now you know what Being John Malkovich was a rip-off of). And the moonbathing is great. But most important is the sexual chemistry between Morticia and Gomez: "Querida, that's French!" as he kisses his way up her arm. They never fought and prompted a psychologist to comment, "This is the healthiest show on TV". I myself grew up in an abusive disfunctional environment like many Americans, and this show was one of my respites as a kid because I knew Gomez and Morticia would never get mad at me or each other.

This show carried that je-ne-sais-quoi that a lot of '60s culture did, and there's nothing today that even comes close. There were alot of subtle things in the script you had to look for, like when Lurch always has whatever is requested on hand, Gomez' numerous Shakespeare references, and how they have to turn off the cave echo with a switch.

I finally saw the Addams' Family movie and it doesn't measure up to the original in any way. If you've never seen this show, you're in for some first class high level satire and memorable characters. Carolyn Jones' epitaph reads, "She gave joy to the world"...that cannot be denied.