The Addams Family
The Addams Family is an American television series based on
the characters in Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30 minute
series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 installments on ABC from September 18, 1964 to April 8, 1966. It
is often compared to its rival, The Munsters, which ran for the same two seasons and achieved somewhat higher Nielsen Ratings.
It was originally produced by Filmways, Inc. at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California. Successor company MGM Television
(via The Program Exchange for broadcast syndication, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for home video/DVD) owns the rights to the
show.
The Addamses are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests. They all have supernatural abilities, although no
rationale for their powers is ever explicitly given.
The very wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams is madly in love with his refined wife Morticia. Along with their two children,
Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester and Grandmama, they reside in an ornate, gloomy mansion, attended by their servants, Lurch, the
towering butler, and Thing, a hand that usually appears out of a small wooden box. Occasionally, episodes would feature relatives or
other members of their weird subculture, such as Cousin Itt or Morticia's older sister Ophelia.
Much of the humor derives from their "culture clash" with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great
warmth and courtesy, even though their guests often have evil intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their
good-natured, if extremely bizarre behavior. Contrarily, they view the tastes of the normal world with generally tolerant suspicion.
For example, Fester once cites a neighboring family's meticulously maintained petunia patches as evidence that they are "nothing but
riff-raff."
|