The Addams Family
Created by David Levy
Based on The Addams Family by Charles Addams Starring Carolyn Jones John Astin Jackie Coogan Ted Cassidy Blossom Rock Ken Weatherwax Lisa Loring Felix Silla Opening theme Vic Mizzy Country of origin United States.
The Addams Family is an American black sitcom based on the characters from Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute television series was created by David Levy and Donald Saltzman and shot in black-and-white, airing for two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966, for a total of 64 episodes. It is often compared to its CBS rival, The Munsters, which ran for the same two seasons and achieved somewhat higher Nielsen ratings.The show is also notable for its opening theme that was composed and sung by Vic Mizzy. The show was originally produced by head writer Nat Perrin for Filmways, Inc. at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California. Successor company MGM Television now owns the rights to the show.
The Addams are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests and supernatural abilities, though no explanation for their powers is explicitly given in the series. The wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams (John Astin) is madly in love with his refined wife, Morticia (Carolyn Jones). Along with their daughter Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their son Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), and Grandmama (Blossom Rock), they reside at 0001 Cemetery Lane in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire-style mansion, attended by their servants: Lurch (Ted Cassidy), the towering butler, and Thing, a disembodied hand that appears from within a small wooden box. Other relatives who made recurring appearances included Cousin Itt (Felix Silla), Morticia’s older sister Ophelia (also portrayed by Jones), and Morticia’s mother Grandma Frump (Margaret Hamilton). Many guest stars mainly famous during the era came in the show playing a cameo part, as the script permitted (example, a truant officer, insurance man etc.)
Much of the humor derives from the Addamses’ culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, unaware that some of their guests often have bad intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their own good-natured and normal behavior, since the family is under the impression that their tastes are shared by most of society. Accordingly, they view “conventional” tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. Invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, a visitor would be institutionalized, change professions, move out of the country or suffer some other negative life-changing event.
Addams Family
Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) – A cultivated and beautiful woman who knits, dabbles in art, plays the shamisen, raises carnivorous plants and trims roses by clipping off the buds and arranging the thorny stems in a vase. With long, straight ebony-black hair, she is always attired in a long, floor-length tight black dress, and with her aristocratic bearing and detachment, she is often the calm center of the chaotic events of the household.
Gomez Addams (John Astin) – A retired lawyer, of Castillian descent, who is passionately in love with his wife, often referring to her in Spanish pet names such as “Querida” and “Cara Mía”. His ardor is greatly intensified when she speaks French. Gomez is very wealthy as a result of owning numerous companies and stocks, and squanders money in a cavalier manner while remaining wealthy, while his hobby consists of gleefully detonating model trains. He refers to Spain as his “ancestral home” with his family background referenced as “Castilian”. Regularly dressed in a double-breasted, chalk pinstriped suit with a black tie, Gomez is almost always seen smoking a cigar. Astin added this trait to the character as he had already been a cigar smoker prior to the show’s debut, but then quit after the series ended.
Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) – Morticia’s exuberant uncle, who is completely bald and dressed in a floor-length, fur-collared coat. Fester is quite fond of dynamite and blasting caps. He often relaxes on a bed of nails, by inserting his head into a book press or by being stretched on a wooden torture rack, while he powers light bulbs by placing them into his mouth.
Lurch (Ted Cassidy) – The Addams’ loyal butler, who mainly speaks in grunts or groans. Morticia and Gomez summon him with a hangman’s-noose bell pull, to which he immediately appears on screen and replies, “You rang?” He is physically imposing and plays the harpsichord. Cassidy made a cameo appearance as Lurch on an episode of the Batman TV series, and on TV music shows while promoting the pop song of the era “The Lurch” (and the dance which it accompanied).
Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock) – Gomez’s mother, a witch who conjures potions and spells, and dabbles in fortune telling and knife throwing.
Wednesday Addams (Lisa Loring) – Gomez’s and Morticia’s daughter and the youngest member of the family, Wednesday is a strange yet sweet-natured little girl who enjoys keeping bizarre pets such as a black widow spider named Homer and a lizard named Lucifer, in addition to playing with a beheaded doll named Marie Antoinette.
Pugsley Addams (Ken Weatherwax) – Gomez’s and Morticia’s son, and Wednesday’s older brother. Kind-hearted and smart, he occasionally conforms to conventional standards contrary to his family, such as joining the Boy Scouts. He also enjoys engineering various machines, playing with blasting caps, and playing with his pet octopus Aristotle. Thing – A disembodied hand that appears out of boxes and other conveniently placed containers. Gomez’s constant “companion” since childhood, Thing is always ready to assist family members with minor daily services and diversions, such as lifting the receiver on telephones, retrieving the mail, lighting cigars, pouring tea and playing chess. Thing apparently has the ability to teleport from container to container, almost instantly: Thing sometimes appears from different containers at opposite ends of the room within seconds of each other. Though Ted Cassidy would often portray Thing, assistant director Jack Voglin would sometimes portray Thing in scenes where Lurch and Thing appear together. However, Thing was regularly billed as “Itself” in the closing credits
Recurring characters
Family members Cousin Itt (Felix Silla; voiced by Tony Magro) – Gomez’s cousin, Itt is a diminutive character composed entirely of floor-length hair accompanied by a bowler hat and sunglasses. He speaks in rapid, unintelligible gibberish that only the family can understand. The character was created specifically for the television series.
Ophelia Frump (Carolyn Jones) – Morticia’s flighty flower-child sister who is the “white sheep of the family.” In the two-part, second-season episode “Morticia’s Romance”, Gomez is originally engaged to Ophelia in an arranged marriage, but when he sees the then-22-year-old Morticia (dressed in a grown-up version of Wednesday’s clothing), they fall in love with each other. The flowers entwined in Ophelia’s hair actually have roots that travel down into her foot, and the foot raises when one of the flowers are tugged on. She sings in three-part harmony and has a love of judo that enables her to flip men (usually Gomez) onto their backs.
Ophelia was played by Carolyn Jones in a blonde wig, and, along with Cousin Itt, was created specifically for the television series, appearing in family portrait artwork by Charles Addams after the show’s debut.
Hester Frump (Margaret Hamilton) – The mother of Morticia and Ophelia. Minor characters Arthur J. Henson (Parley Baer) – An insurance executive in the town where the family resides.
Joe Digby (Eddie Quillan) – An insurance clerk who works for Arthur Henson. Sam L. Hilliard (Allyn Joslyn) – A truant officer who is scared to death of the family.
In one episode, his middle name is given as “Lucifer”, much to the family’s delight (“Sam Hill” is an older American euphemism for Satan).
Mr. Briggs (Rolfe Sedan) – The neighborhood postman who delivers the mail to the Addams house. Sam Picasso (Vito Scotti) – A scheming Spanish artist upon whom family members rely for artistic advice.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia