Sunday, March 18, 2007

Addams Family [Volume 2]


Da-da-da-dum (snap snap) da-da-da-DUM (snap snap)
Da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-dum (snap snap)
"They're creepy and they're kooky,
mysterious and spooky,
they're altogether ooky,
The Addams Family.

"The Addams Family" debuted a week before "The Munsters" in the fall of 1964, and both shows finished in the Nielsen Top-25 at the end of their first year. Just as quickly, the fad and fascination with monster families ended. "The Addams Family's" final broadcast came only a day before Fred Gwynne donned his Frankenstein make-up for the last time in the fall of 1966, when both shows were abruptly cancelled. What a fickle public we are when it comes to entertainment.

It wasn't exactly a Ginger vs. Mary Ann thing, but people tended to favor one monster family sitcom over the other. "The Munsters" were a little more over-the-top than their ghoulish cousins, while "The Addams Family" came closer to the New Yorker cartoons created by namesake Charles Addams. His gags weren't exactly highbrow, but the humor was certainly more tongue-in-cheek.

Gomez Addams (John Astin) was a rich lawyer who did most of his work by phone at home and had big eyes rimmed with black that made him look slightly insane. His wife, Morticia (Carolyn Jones), dressed in floor-length tight black gowns with strips of cloth that hung from her forearms like Spanish moss and cloth tendrils that spread from the bottom of her dress like roots or octopus limbs. Morticia loved gardening, though being an Addams, her aesthetic was such that she loved deadly plants and thought roses looked their best with the flowers clipped off. Everything dank and dark and misty and shrouded was a joy to behold for the Addams, whose house was as bizarre as any museum of oddities. Amid the Victorian clutter in this old mansion rimmed by a spiked wrought iron fence were all sorts of oversized knick-knacks, like a suit of armor, a stuffed billfish with a leg sticking out of its mouth, a great stuffed Kodiak bear, a cage full of live crows, a live buzzard on a perch, a harpsichord (played by their butler), and a gigantic stuffed two-headed turtle.

And the basement? Forget the rec room. This was a wreck room, with all sorts of torture devices and weaponry. What a place to grow up in! No wonder Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their always sullen little girl, was prone to moroseness and the older boy, Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), a chubby and equally dour little boy, was into blowing things up-especially model trains, with dad. Oh, and this kid loved building miniature fuctional Guillotines, too. Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock), meanwhile, looked like one of Shakespeare's witches and had a propensity for cooking up kettles of strange composition, while Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) wore all black with a tight fur collar. That, combined with his bald head, made him look like Darth Vader after the mask came off. Uncle Fester could was the kind of person who could light up a room-literally.

Occasionally Cousin Itt (Felix Silla) came to visit, though Itt had no features, only long hair that covered both front and back. And every time the family needed something-like mail-a disembodied hand named Thing (Ted Cassidy) came out of various boxes and tree holes to hand it to them. But without a doubt, the family member that brought "The Addams Family" to the same monster-level as the competition was a scary-looking butler named Lurch (Cassidy again). Lurch moved at a snail's pace, talked sparingly in a deep, deep growl, and said, whenever the master called, "You rang?" That became a catch-phrase during the Sixties, and Lurch became one of the most popular elements of the show.

As with "The Addams Family: Volume 1," these episodes were transferred to double-sided discs-something that all serious collectors hate. It's just too easy to fumble or damage one side. Volume 1 contained the first 22 episodes from Season 1. Volume 2 includes the last 12 episodes from Season 1 and the first nine episodes from Season 2 (the series' last). That leaves the last 21 episodes from Season 2 for a Volume 3 collection.

Most of the episodes had to do with the family's warped ideas of normalcy, and visitors' reaction to them. Everyone will have a favorite episode or two, but I find that most of mine are on this volume. In fact, the first episode on this collection is one of my favorites. In it, Thing leaves after Gomez unintentionally insults him, and Gomez turns detective . . . assuming, of course, that the butler did it. When Lurch doesn't pan out as a suspect, Gomez brings in outside help, and it's Sam Diamond to the mystery.

It's a hilarious episode, but so is "My Son the Chimp." In this one, Uncle Fester thinks that an experiment gone awry turned Pugsley into a chimp. Same with "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor," in which Richard Deacon ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") guests. But my all-time favorite episode might be "Lurch the Teenage Idol," simply because the character and premise are so deliciously outrageous.

ere's a rundown on the 21 episodes contained in this volume:

Disc One features "Thing is Missing," that Sam Diamond episode; "Crisis in the Addams Family," a weaker entry which has Uncle Fester breaking the water main and Gomez wrangling with the insurance company; "Lurch and His Harpsichord," a strong episode in which the butler grows melancholy after Gomez donates the family instrument to a museum; "Morticia, the Breadwinner," another funny episode about the family's attempts to put food on the table after a stock market crash puts Gomez temporarily in the dumpster; "The Addams Family and the Spaceman," in which Cousin Itt and Lurch are mistaken for aliens (sounds funnier than it is); "My Son the Chimp," about confusion that results when a runaway chimp ends up at the Addams house; "Morticia's Favorite Charity," a funny one about donation vexation; and "Progress and the Addams Family," a weaker episode that applies the cliché of a condemned house and freeway construction to the Addams.

Disc Two includes "Uncle Fester's Toupee," in which Fester spruces up for pen pal Madelyn; "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Coiunselor," which finds the hairy one trying to be a marriage counselor; "Lurch the Teenage Idol," with the butler becoming a pop star; "The Winning of Morticia Addams," in which Fester decides there isn't enough friction in the Addams marriage to make it interesting enough to last; "My Fair Cousin Itt," which has everyone fighting over who gets to be the hero after Gomez writes a play; "Morticia's Romance" Parts 1&2, two weak flashback episodes involving Ophelia, Morticia's twin sister (also played by Jones); and "Morticia Meets Royalty," which finds a snobbish relative visiting.

Disc Three features "Gomez, the People's Choice," about Mr. Addams' run for mayor on a strange platform; "Cousin Itt's Problem," a funny episode about Itt losing his hair and bald-headed Fester trying to come up with something in the laboratory to solve the problem; "Halloween--Addams Style," a wonderful episode which has Wednesday devastated when she's told by a normal person that there's no such thing as witches; "Morticia, the Writer," a kind of follow-up which has Morticia writing "true" fairy tales for children; and "Morticia, the Sculptress," a weaker entry that has Morticia taking up another creative pursuit.

Da-da-da-dum (snap snap) da-da-da-DUM (snap snap)
Da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-dum (snap snap)
"They're creepy and they're kooky,
mysterious and spooky,
they're altogether ooky,
The Addams Family.

"The Addams Family" debuted a week before "The Munsters" in the fall of 1964, and both shows finished in the Nielsen Top-25 at the end of their first year. Just as quickly, the fad and fascination with monster families ended. "The Addams Family's" final broadcast came only a day before Fred Gwynne donned his Frankenstein make-up for the last time in the fall of 1966, when both shows were abruptly cancelled. What a fickle public we are when it comes to entertainment.

It wasn't exactly a Ginger vs. Mary Ann thing, but people tended to favor one monster family sitcom over the other. "The Munsters" were a little more over-the-top than their ghoulish cousins, while "The Addams Family" came closer to the New Yorker cartoons created by namesake Charles Addams. His gags weren't exactly highbrow, but the humor was certainly more tongue-in-cheek.

Gomez Addams (John Astin) was a rich lawyer who did most of his work by phone at home and had big eyes rimmed with black that made him look slightly insane. His wife, Morticia (Carolyn Jones), dressed in floor-length tight black gowns with strips of cloth that hung from her forearms like Spanish moss and cloth tendrils that spread from the bottom of her dress like roots or octopus limbs. Morticia loved gardening, though being an Addams, her aesthetic was such that she loved deadly plants and thought roses looked their best with the flowers clipped off. Everything dank and dark and misty and shrouded was a joy to behold for the Addams, whose house was as bizarre as any museum of oddities. Amid the Victorian clutter in this old mansion rimmed by a spiked wrought iron fence were all sorts of oversized knick-knacks, like a suit of armor, a stuffed billfish with a leg sticking out of its mouth, a great stuffed Kodiak bear, a cage full of live crows, a live buzzard on a perch, a harpsichord (played by their butler), and a gigantic stuffed two-headed turtle.

And the basement? Forget the rec room. This was a wreck room, with all sorts of torture devices and weaponry. What a place to grow up in! No wonder Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their always sullen little girl, was prone to moroseness and the older boy, Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), a chubby and equally dour little boy, was into blowing things up-especially model trains, with dad. Oh, and this kid loved building miniature fuctional Guillotines, too. Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock), meanwhile, looked like one of Shakespeare's witches and had a propensity for cooking up kettles of strange composition, while Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) wore all black with a tight fur collar. That, combined with his bald head, made him look like Darth Vader after the mask came off. Uncle Fester could was the kind of person who could light up a room-literally.

Occasionally Cousin Itt (Felix Silla) came to visit, though Itt had no features, only long hair that covered both front and back. And every time the family needed something-like mail-a disembodied hand named Thing (Ted Cassidy) came out of various boxes and tree holes to hand it to them. But without a doubt, the family member that brought "The Addams Family" to the same monster-level as the competition was a scary-looking butler named Lurch (Cassidy again). Lurch moved at a snail's pace, talked sparingly in a deep, deep growl, and said, whenever the master called, "You rang?" That became a catch-phrase during the Sixties, and Lurch became one of the most popular elements of the show.

As with "The Addams Family: Volume 1," these episodes were transferred to double-sided discs-something that all serious collectors hate. It's just too easy to fumble or damage one side. Volume 1 contained the first 22 episodes from Season 1. Volume 2 includes the last 12 episodes from Season 1 and the first nine episodes from Season 2 (the series' last). That leaves the last 21 episodes from Season 2 for a Volume 3 collection.

Most of the episodes had to do with the family's warped ideas of normalcy, and visitors' reaction to them. Everyone will have a favorite episode or two, but I find that most of mine are on this volume. In fact, the first episode on this collection is one of my favorites. In it, Thing leaves after Gomez unintentionally insults him, and Gomez turns detective . . . assuming, of course, that the butler did it. When Lurch doesn't pan out as a suspect, Gomez brings in outside help, and it's Sam Diamond to the mystery.

It's a hilarious episode, but so is "My Son the Chimp." In this one, Uncle Fester thinks that an experiment gone awry turned Pugsley into a chimp. Same with "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor," in which Richard Deacon ("The Dick Van Dyke Show") guests. But my all-time favorite episode might be "Lurch the Teenage Idol," simply because the character and premise are so deliciously outrageous.

ere's a rundown on the 21 episodes contained in this volume:

Disc One features "Thing is Missing," that Sam Diamond episode; "Crisis in the Addams Family," a weaker entry which has Uncle Fester breaking the water main and Gomez wrangling with the insurance company; "Lurch and His Harpsichord," a strong episode in which the butler grows melancholy after Gomez donates the family instrument to a museum; "Morticia, the Breadwinner," another funny episode about the family's attempts to put food on the table after a stock market crash puts Gomez temporarily in the dumpster; "The Addams Family and the Spaceman," in which Cousin Itt and Lurch are mistaken for aliens (sounds funnier than it is); "My Son the Chimp," about confusion that results when a runaway chimp ends up at the Addams house; "Morticia's Favorite Charity," a funny one about donation vexation; and "Progress and the Addams Family," a weaker episode that applies the cliché of a condemned house and freeway construction to the Addams.

Disc Two includes "Uncle Fester's Toupee," in which Fester spruces up for pen pal Madelyn; "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Coiunselor," which finds the hairy one trying to be a marriage counselor; "Lurch the Teenage Idol," with the butler becoming a pop star; "The Winning of Morticia Addams," in which Fester decides there isn't enough friction in the Addams marriage to make it interesting enough to last; "My Fair Cousin Itt," which has everyone fighting over who gets to be the hero after Gomez writes a play; "Morticia's Romance" Parts 1&2, two weak flashback episodes involving Ophelia, Morticia's twin sister (also played by Jones); and "Morticia Meets Royalty," which finds a snobbish relative visiting.

Disc Three features "Gomez, the People's Choice," about Mr. Addams' run for mayor on a strange platform; "Cousin Itt's Problem," a funny episode about Itt losing his hair and bald-headed Fester trying to come up with something in the laboratory to solve the problem; "Halloween--Addams Style," a wonderful episode which has Wednesday devastated when she's told by a normal person that there's no such thing as witches; "Morticia, the Writer," a kind of follow-up which has Morticia writing "true" fairy tales for children; and "Morticia, the Sculptress," a weaker entry that has Morticia taking up another creative pursuit.

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