User reviews

The Addams Family comes from a very cultured place: the nimble mind and pen of Charles Addams, a cartoonist whose work appeared in the entertainingly droll "The New Yorker" magazine. Charles' "family" were a macabre and quaint set of well to do people who just happened to take pleasure in pain and who dressed in dark colors. This means that the cartoonist was the unofficial Grandaddy of Goth! When the concept of converting these ink doodles into a live action television program took place, the timing coincided with another "odd" family who also arrived on our Television doorsteps that same season: "The Munsters." In a way, that was a disservice to both programs, since the common traits they shared made them a constant comparison. Personally, though I don't believe they are in the same league.

Where "The Munsters" went for the slapstick schtick nearly every time, "The Addams Family" used more wordplay and more clever, witty attempts to bring a laugh. But even that wasn't the main difference between the programs.

The secret ingredient that The Addams Family had over their Mockingbird Lane counterparts was a single word: PASSION. Yes this was a family with a creepy home, kooky hobbies, mysterious eating habits, and spooky pets. But at the root, at the heart, at the altogether ooky core of the story was this one, great, huge love between Gomez and Morticia and the love they shared for all of the people in their lives. John Astin and Carolyn Jones were incredible, and for my money, are still the sexiest couple in TV history.

Though it was often played for laughs, as when the matriarch uttered a word in French and Gomez couldn't resist kissing up her arm, it was very palpable, in the pet names they called each other, in the way they tangoed or in how the pair chatted in each other's company. This was a family that cared about all of its members deeply, and that read as clear as a full moon over a cemetery.

The laughs of the program were just the spider on the web, and the laughs were plentiful and great. A stellar cast, very good special effects and smart story lines, plus a great set of music cues from Vic Mizzy that added just the right finish to a fantastic program. Next time you have a chance to view an episode, keep that love story in mind as the show's centerpiece and see if you don't appreciate it in a new and deeper way.

It's funny, but when I ask friends my age who was the best TV dad of the 1960s, I often get the answer 'Gomez Addams' or if I mention him, they then agree with me wholeheartedly. He was a radical and wonderful husband--and the Addams', believe it or not, were a very healthy family that could be emulated. Now I am NOT recommending folks have pet lions, eat eye of newt, have model trains that blow up, sleep on beds of nails and the like. I AM recommending you look at the relationships between the characters. Mr. Addams truly loves his family. But, more importantly, he was the first husband who loved his wife sexually. He adored her--setting a wonderful example for the kids. The same can be said for Mrs. Addams. While her libido didn't seem quite as strong, it was VERY strong for a 1960s woman--and she was a loving and gentle mother. As for the kids, despite being total weirdos, they were really decent kids. All in all, the show wasn't just comedy and weirdness but a fantastic prototype for how the American family could or should be. This is why I adore this show. Sure, it makes me laugh but it also influenced how I later became a husband and father--and often makes me ask myself WWGD--what would Gomez do? Well written, funny and fun.

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.

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 original Addams Family were the macabre cartoons Charles Addams made for "The New Yorker" magazine. And, these single panel cartoons really only created a bare framework for the TV show and movies...there just wasn't enough to base these just on the panels. So, over the years, writers have filled in the blanks...but in very different ways. The first iteration of the Addams creations was the 1960s TV series...which was what I grew up watching. The family was creepy and demented...but also very decent and lovable. I liked this version. Later, various other versions came out--cartoons, a couple reunion episodes and the films. As for the films, they were popular but also decidedly unlike the original TV show. Gone were the loving and nice Addams family...in were the violent and murderous Addams family. Some folks loved it, I certainly didn't...though some aspects of the films were cute and enjoyable. But I didn't enjoy seeing the Addams children trying to murder their new brother and the like...it just crossed the line for me. And, for me, give me the 1960s version...a loving, caring but very strange group of rogues...all thanks to clever writing and acting. Fun for the whole family...and a show you could let kids watch without worrying about warping them!

I don't think I've ever seen an inferior product regarding the family Addams, but this original TV sitcom tops them all. After all, who but Carolyn Jones could offer her visitors (for their tea) saccharine in a ring she wore? And who but John Astin could capture the multifaceted personality of Gomez Addams, and actually show all facets equally?

A huge mistake I made was going into this show (which only happened recently, as a matter of fact) expecting some semblance of the '90s Anjelica Huston/Raul Julia movies. The two families, while both Addams, are totally different. The family in the films acts like they know they're unusual, while these Addamses are convinced that the world is full of nuts... a category in which they're not included. And in the TV show, Pugsley is nearly invisible, and Wednesday is more like Cindy Lou Who than Elvira's love child with Charles Manson.

Somehow, there's so much of this show that you never get over. Like the mystery of Thing, who never leaves the box. Or Lurch always ready to answer with a greeting of, "You rang?" Or Mama inflicting torture like a regular chiropractor.

Too soon ended and too long obscure, this classic is one of ABC's two best series ever. Duh-duh-duh-duh, snap snap!

This was the Best show of the best era for American situation comedies, the 1960s. John Astin was incredibly zany as the good natured, yet macabrely devoted husband Gomez, and the lovely Carolyn Jones played the sexily Gothic Morticia. I find it almost obscene that the show was cancelled after only two seasons, as along with the Munsters, it was still very popular with the masses.Was there an agreement by fundamentalists at both CBS and ABC TV networks to end both these shows? We'll never know! I only know that I much preferred the Addams's as it was just a little more sinister, and like most other teenage boys I was completely in love with Morticia.Jackie Coogan was great as the irrepressible Uncle Fester, causing massive explosions and coming up with weird, inconceivable experiments week after week.Then there were the children of the union, Wednesday and Pugsley. Wednesday was a cute little bag of nuts, her mother in the making, but Pugsley was a reminder to me of the boy who used to chase me home from school when I was about six!Then there was Ted Cassidy as Lurch with his darkly deep "You Rang?" voice, who also had his hand play the part of "Thing" when he was not on camera. Then there was of course, cousin Itt, that hairy little mischief maker that turned up from time to time. Gomez was very musical and of course full of energy, as demonstrated by his working out on the trampoline, and his constant overtures to the Beautiful Morticia. I could only ever give this show a conservative ten out of ten.There will never be another one like it!

Like The Munsters though it only ran two seasons The Addams Family stayed forever in syndication. Unlike The Munsters there was no 'normal' character in there like Marilyn. Everybody in this family would have trouble fitting in.

The nuclear family unit was Gomez Addams wife Morticia aka Tish, and their children Pugsley and Wednesday. John Astin and Carolyn Jones as the parents got a chance to overact outrageously. Astin looked like he was having one great old time as Gomez, the most charmingly ghoulish man you'll ever meet. In that slinky black outfit Carolyn Jones wore, more than folks from the dark side were left drooling. Nothing like seeing Gomez courting Morticia especially when Carolyn Jones spoke French at him.

Jones had that titter whenever she walked. In the history of the show we never saw her feet.

Uncle Fester who lived with them was played by Jackie Coogan who was forever puttering away in his workshop inventing things he thought that every family of ghouls should have. His inventions were usually central to the plot of every episode.

Blossom Rock who was Jeanette MacDonald's sister played Grandma. She was about as helpless as Ruth Gordon in Every Which Way But Loose. No doubt this one sped through Pasadena regularly.

Finally the large ghoulish mansion the Addamses resided in had to have a butler that everyone looked up to. In this case it would be Lurch played by a 7' Ted Cassidy. Before he died, Cassidy and Richard Kiel competed for the same roles. Cassidy's "you rang" would send shivers up anyone's spine.

The Addams family seemed to be in syndication forever. And eventually a feature film was made with a new cast.

But it wasn't a patch on the television series.

The Addams Family TV show was based on a series of cartoons started back in the 1930's and authored by Charles Addams for the New Yorker. Whether or not Addams intended for there to be some kind of Depression-era message on the idle rich being scary in more ways than one I do not know, but it does seem like that is one of the messages trying to come through all the dark humor. What I do know is that a show this offbeat and creative would never get aired on network TV today, and even if it did, the minute it got successful the network suits would start tinkering with it and ruin it.

The Addams' are portrayed as a close knit and happy family - in fact they rarely have contact with outsiders other than the children attending school. They appear completely human, but they eat food that seems completely inedible by any normal human being and they each have their own peculiar qualities that seem beyond those of normal humans such as Uncle Fester's ability to generate electricity. If they do have visitors, they are usually other family members from some remote area who display these same characteristics. The show never explains the origin of the Addams' or their great wealth - that's just part of their intrigue. There are a few episodes here and there that reference popular culture as it existed then such as "Lurch the Teenage Idol" which pokes fun of the early Beatles and similar rock bands of the time. For the most part, though, the show is pretty much timeless and thus is still funny today.

It's easy to look back on an idealized childhood but the fact is it was never 'what it used to be' for the most part. One of the things that WAS as good as it used to be was the wonderfully funny and intelligent television series 'The Addams Family'. You may recognize your neighbors, friends and relations in this family.

Charles Addams simply dressed ordinary people up in outlandish clothing and let their natural personalities, long hidden from the public, bloom in all their weird gloriousness. The best comedy is always based on the truth and this show hits the bull's eye over and over again.

The Addams family is a shining beacon of sophistication, good manners, humorous tolerance, hospitality and love.

Cancel the cable and buy these dvds, you'll be much happier.

It's not my most favorite show of the 60s but close. The Addams Family got everything the connoisseur of the macabre and grotesque can crave and hope for: dark and twisted humor, crazy and unique characters, a fine Gothic setting, original stories. Thumbs up.

"The Addams Family" is beloved by many for the place it holds in their hearts because they enjoyed it during its original run. That is understandable, but it should be judged for its quality in an objective way. As a fan of "Mad" magazine, I liked humor to be clever and subversive. "The Addams Family" (TAF) tries to be both, but comes up short.

Much of the humor is sophomoric. The same can be said of some "Mad" pieces, but the magazine routinely offered very sophisticated jokes. TAF, via Gomez,sometimes tries for a higher plane of comedy, as when he speaks in Latin (which consisted of stringing together Latin phrases that were unrelated).

The characters are adaptations from Charles Addams' series of cartoons. The television show tries to breathe live into these (and other) characters by introducing goofiness. But the basis for much of the humor is incongruity, as when a ghoulish figure behaves in a mundane manner. Most of the other humor is derived from the unexpected. For example, their doorbell is a foghorn; they generally like things that most people dislike; their family physician is a witch doctor. Also, they seem to be unaware of how different they are from average citizens.

Many comedy shows from the 60s era were rooted in juvenile humor. That is no surprise. Consider "F Troop", "McHale's Navy" or "Get Smart". Goofy ruled the day. Some comedy shows, however, were more original than others. And some had extraordinary talent in their casts.

John Astin and Carolyn Jones are certainly talented, but their performances were as limited by concept as Morticia's gait.

In the end, TAF was an average comedy show for its time. It's level of humor was average. Viewed from a vantage of about fifty years later, it pales in comparison with "Frasier", "Modern Family" or even "Roseanne". No doubt it will remain a cult favorite for some. It certainly is an effective example of camp. And that is, probably, its main strength.

Believe it or not, as I watched this show in syndication when I was a tyke, I wanted to be Gomez Addams. Gomez was rich, happily married, dripping with Old World charm, had loving children, kind relatives, a devoted butler, lived in a great house, and the whole family did everything THEIR way, convention be damned!

He made wild, passionate love to his wife (and could turn his libido on and off like a light...yet all Morticia had to do was speak French!), and instead of drinking with the boys, he'd unwind with either yoga, juggling Indian clubs, bouncing on his trampoline, or blowing up his train set. His only vices were smoking cigars and drinking brandy, yet he seemed to do both in moderation.

I loved the little touches the show had. The coffee table with bundles of $100 bills in the drawer ("Petty cash, my good man!"), Lurch's Basso Profundo groan, the Butler's Chime that shook the entire house (with the pull cord a full-sized hangman's noose), the torture chamber turned into a "play room", the quirky decor of the house and the family taking in the moon while others took in the sun.

Gomez and Morticia were the first TV sitcom couple to have an implied sex life (a rather kinky one at that!), and the whole family was healthy and happy...if rather detached from established norms. It was a cleverly subversive program that shows one could be happy without fitting into society's standards. It was so touching to have the family thinking of OTHERS as being troubled and confused, while their own world was so blissful and joyous...even if everything around them was either Gothic or draped in black.

A show like this deserves to be re-issued onto DVD...and if possible, with the laughtrack removed (That would make it even MORE surreal!).

They are creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, and altogether...splendid! This is the Addams Family, a clever and very funny show about a close-knit family of affluent oddballs(according to the "normal" people who visit their home!)who just want to be happy and do their thing(so to speak!) whether that be moon bathing, bobbing for crabs on their favorite holiday(Halloween of course!) or romps in the swamps(backyard variety)this series is one that can be viewed as a clever satire about what is considered normal versus weird, sane versus insane, scary versus comedic, all in a very funny package of two seasons and 64 episodes.

A shame this was canceled after only two years, but then it would have gone to color, and perhaps some of the atmosphere that the beautiful black & white filming gave us would have been lost.

Fans would not mind paying a personal visit to this wonderful home on 000 Cemetery Ridge!

... Actually, one should compose all this when in a very Gothic mood or life phases. To all Goths: be thee greeted.

... Where should one begin? With the everlasting Elk's Head over their fire-place or with the gorgeously Elvira-like looks of Morticia, the house's lady, or with any other creepy, individual, Gothic or eery detail in their house?

... Or with the fact which is told, not shown, that this family keeps monsters and other things, among them a cut-off, living and moving hand as a servant (which is always shown and a part of the family, for one thing), in their cellar?

An important fact is surely that Gomez, the family's patriarch, has got a lot of money from inheritance, he also dabbles in stocks, but rather unsuccessfully, and prides himself in any financial loss - also a strong sign and mark stone of their spirituality, and big part of the whole Gothic setting and genre. They got money, so they can in fact afford to lose it, which shows also a lot of elitism, an old form even of some kind of aristocratism, but purely carved out in the hooded, dark from the outside, but innerly most goodly shape of a very small part of society, a marginal phenomenon in the sixties as well as again in the late two-thousands, a kind of relic of old intellectuals as depicted somewhat evillish in the eigthies movie "Gothic", also, it's quite important to know that the author of "Frankenstein", Mary Shelly, hung around with Byron and other chaps who were quite outside from normal society, kind of even "above" it, as one could entitle it.

It's a political and social issue, rather a real conflict, that is shown most precisely throughout the whole masterpieces of the episodes of the original sixties bw series. There have been many remakes, some of them rather really bad like the new colored series, some of them too much overly goth-styled, yes: goth-decadently made movies like the one from the early nineties, where Morticia suddenly speaks a superb french when in the original, she is lovingly American, a true good American, unlike maybe the majority of "normal", "civile" people, as well as Gomez is.

This is the only real, true thing. I am a mega goth, a "Grufti", as we call it in German, a "Gruft" being a crypt, some eery cellar where the bones of the ancestors lie. ... .-)

... I am also musician and love Bauhaus and their "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and play and sing it myself. I will also do some rock covers of the Addams' anthem.

Mind always the care put into each character, the love and light inside all darkness as it may seem from outside to people who in fact are a lot darker than the Addams. Each word they say is always a monument to Gothic culture, to good comedy with authentic thought in the background, rendering the show through and through endowed with not only grace, but depth.

Can I possibly give any more commendations and compliments, yes outcries of admiration?

... For me, all this "gothic" is more than some joke. It's my life. When I first read Poe and then Lovecraft... I shan't ever forget the delight in the obscure, my young, now a little older, still burning curiosity towards the unknown, also the supernatural, the mystical, the true field of intellectual activity, as is - at least for me - not, never only the study and book rooms, where its occupants simply and banally dry out in the dusty, life-apart, yes delusional air of pseudo academy. Oh, how this sounds now again as if Poe himself could have written it, of course better than my humble version. The one who strives outside of the normal is the pioneer, the true progressive one.

It's indescribable how progressive the Addams are. All goth put aside, they are a field example for good morals and ethics, even also politically, but lets stick to educational stuff for now. They are so tolerant. They understand all the creatures that just look evil. Shall anyone come right here and tell me they'd be any kinda "evil", the Addams. Not true. Nowhere.

... It's the world that stands upside down. It's the Addams who are in fact really "normal" or "good", SO is it, say what you will. Gothic forever - Bela Lugosi's undead (I really got some Hungarian grand mother, rest in peace, and personally, I am anti-Zionist, BUT still Jewish, and 9 tenths of my family have been gassed in Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen along with the rest of the 6 million Jews who were killed and tortured by Hitler and his followers.

... So, this series is not only for me, but to any good human being more than "just" some kind of style-fulfilling, call it "gothic" or "eery" series. much, unimaginably much more than that. Because the Addams stand for the victims.

Recall that point once where some other visitor says something about Salem, a place where they "burned witches", as he says it? Then, Morticia takes up a really decidedly gloomy posture and just says "Oh, I'm happy they don't do that anymore..."

-- Of course, it's hilarious and I laugh out loud all the time. But:

The witches were no witches. They were pagan or Jewish, harmless plant healer women. It's just an example of how the evil inquisition destroyed the lives of more than many thousands of innocent, hard-working people, as later did the Nazis.

What excellence! No one miscast. And Carolyn Jones. Each plot another chance to stick it to mainstream corporate America. And Carolyn Jones. Normal people revealed for the hypocrites they were and are. And Carolyn Jones. The basso profundo sounds of Lurch. And Carolyn Jones. Model trains used for what they were meant to be. And Carolyn Jones. Zen yogi (only Berra could top that one!). And Carolyn Jones. It's so nice to have a thing around the house. And Carolyn Jones. Wednesday's child and the enthusiasm of Pugsley. And Carolyn Jones. Those Festering wounds (a little less dynamite next time) and Granmama's vulture stew. And Carolyn Jones.

Ah, Tish, when you speak French it drives me wild!

Ah, Tish!

I don't get it. I was a kid of about 10 or so when this was being shown. There was a lot of junk on TV even then with just 3 channels - nothing like the tons of junk on now - but stuff well below the quality of this show. Case in point, the pretty mindless Munsters, which lasted longer than this show. Astin as Gomez, Carolyn as Morticia, Coogan as Fester, I could go on and on about TV's most unusual family and their orchestrated toy train wrecks, odd meals and even odder household pets. So why did it all end so quickly? Were the jokes too sophisticated for the viewers? I don't know, but I know we watched it to the bitter end of its run and well into syndication. This is being shown on This TV locally so keep an eye out for it, one of the top 10 television gems of the 60's.

I could enjoy this show (and many others from the 50s and 60s--maybe the 70s and beyond) if that stupid laugh track was not there. Why did the networks think that we at home would not laugh at funny lines, unless they knew that the writers couldn't write humor? Many of the lines in this show are funny, and should be without a canned laugh track. I think of THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, with a live audience: if a joke fell flat, the cast would try to make it work, but at least the audience's reaction was real and not canned. In particular, I recall Carol's comment in THE LITTLE FOXIES spoof, after Vicki Lawrence's character (Birdie) has just been shot: "Bye bye Birdie." The joke sailed over the audiences' collective heads and Carol made a priceless facial gesture that commented on the audience. All without a laugh track. Canned laughed = boredom. Thank goodness we don't have too much of that today, and more shows are taped or filmed in front of live audiences. (Or are they?)

This is one of those oldies black and white TV shows that I used to watch when I was younger - a fun, whimsical series about the misadventures of an odd, grim and macabre loving but friendly family.

From the toe-tapping theme song to the family's creepy house, this is a series that shows even horror and ghoulish elements can be something to laugh and have fun with. Each character gives off his/her own brand of uniqueness and charm, like Gomez's clearing his throat with a sword to Morticia letting off steam as her way of smoking, and from Uncle Fester's lying in a bed of nails to Lurch's towerly presence.

A fun classic show that is great for the whole family.

Grade B+

When it comes to eccentric and quirky characters - I'd say that TV's "The Addams Family" (from the mid-1960s) certainly does make itself out to be a prime contender for first prize.

Now, I would never say that this little "oddball" television series was great - But, all the same - Its decidedly screwy and morbid perspective on matters does have a unique (and somewhat appealing) charm that is clearly all of its own.

Anyway - I suggest that you give "The Addams Family" a fair viewing and just see if this wacky Sit-Com from yesteryear doesn't work its zany magic on you, too.

The Addams Family was absolutely perfectly cast. I would give it 10 stars but the writers brought it down to an 8. Sadly they kept recycling the same jokes ad infinitum. Gomez and Morticia are such a sweet couple. Uncle Fester and Grandmama bring much appreciated comic elements. The kids are good actors. Lurch is a hoot. Again, just wish the writing and plots were less predictable and cheesy.

(*Lyrics excerpt from "The Addams Family's" original theme song*) - "They're creepy and they're kooky.... Mysterious and spooky..... They're all together ooky.... The Addams Family."

As far as TV Sit-Coms from the mid-1960's go - I'd honestly have to say that "The Addams Family" certainly ranks right up there as being about as "oddball" as you could possibly get.

Now 50 years old - This TV series (which was filmed in b&w) is (in all of its nonsensical silliness and wacky absurdity) definitely not going to appeal the everyone - But, generally speaking, I found that the morbid sense of humour that prevailed amongst the characters, along with the family's cultural clash with the rest of the world, to be fairly entertaining, for the most part.

Initially, I was expecting all of the Addams Family members to be a real evil lot, but, basically, they turned out to be just a harmless clan of kooky eccentrics.

My favourite character in the show was, of course, Lurch (played perfectly by the 6'9" giant, Ted Cassidy) who was the Addams Family's harpsichord-playing butler.

This show was not funny at all. I do not get the high rating. I loved The Munsters from the same era as I thought Herman and Granpa were magic playing off each other. There was never the same connection with these actors. The whole 'You Spoke French' gig that they had every show was tiresome and quite frankly ridiculous. I did not understand that at all. Its a shame too because the actors on this show were accomplished including John Astin, Carolyn Jones and Jackie Coogan. The plot lines did not do it for me nor did the acting chemistry. I felt there was none. It just seemed to me the show was just actors getting by their day of work. No heart and soul went into this . Just picking up paychecks for probably accomplished actors having trouble getting parts . The child actors were very robotic as well, like a scared 4th grader in a school play, particularly Pugsley. I guess that these kids were pushed into this by their parents . Just an awful show with unlikable, annoying characters .