The Addams Family - The Complete Series
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Actor: Jackie Coogan, John Astin, Ken Weatherwax, Ted CassidyBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1638 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-13
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Addams Family - The Complete Series
DVD Review: Snap, Snap!
Summary: 5 Stars
Note: I meant to put this with my Wonder Woman review but I forgot (regarding if this one posts before that). Instead of reviewing each season of a particular series and feel like I'm repeating myself in terms of praise or criticism, I'll just be reviewing the complete collection and give my thoughts on the series as a whole instead of the individual season releases.
The Addams Family has always been one of my favorites, whether it be the movies (except Reunion, I only saw that once and can't really remember much about it), animated incarnations (except the 1973 series which I never saw) or television remakes. And since I was exposed to them first, I prefer them to The Munsters (expect me to make comparisons but remember its only my opinion so don't hate me for it). I'm sure there's people who saw the Addams first and still like the other or vice versa but that's just the way I am (much like my view on Bewitched and Jeannie though both are good).
First off, the actors. While there are quite a few episodes that feature the entire family, most episodes feature Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Thing and later Cousin Itt. John Astin, though not Spanish like Raul Julia in the film, plays Gomez with a thirst for life. He's energetic, passionate to his wife (rarely, if never, seen between spouses on television. The only examples of husbands and wives showing emotion to eachother are Lucy & Ricky and Samantha & Darrin [mainly when Dick York played the role]) and loves his family. Carolyn Jones as Morticia, again displays many of the qualities I see in Astin. Though Morticia is clearly the head of the family and adores her husband (the way she turns Gomez on at the drop of a hat whenever she speaks French astounds me). Jones and Astin had a chemistry that you don't see nowadays. Like York and Montgomery from Bewitched, this is a rare chemistry that is displayed by actors, mainly by actors who aren't married or in a relationship with actor that's playing the significant other is when its most believable. Rarely has it been displayed by actors who were married, such as Lucy and Desi. They were also a more believable couple than Lily and Herman (not saying the actors who played were bad), who suffered from the same thing that other sitcoms with married couples had. I also don't get why the general public feared the Addams family though they looked normal, while the Munsters were at least accepted but people were still scared of them yet were technically the Universal Monsters domesticated. Anyway back to the Addams. Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax play Wednesday and Pugsley, not as how they're done nowadays in the films and cartoons, but more or less as a brother and sister who have macabre tastes. A shame that more episodes weren't devoted to them as they're good actors (wow, I can't believe I found child actors that're...good!) but thems the brakes with the labor laws. Jackie Coogan is hilarious as Uncle Fester, making me crack up everytime he says "I'll shoot 'im in the back!". Blossom Rock as Grandmama is good in her own right, but like the children, most episodes don't feature her by having the character off-screen doing stuff with the children. Ted Cassidy is funny as Lurch, with his classic line "You Rang" along with some great facial expressions. Thing (played by Cassidy or, if Lurch and Thing featured in the same scene, by a production assistant), can equally be funny and surprisingly (for a hand) has more episodes given to him over the children or Mama. And last there's Cousin Itt. He's a walking pile of hair that makes high-pitched sounds more pleasing to the ear than the actual dialog from the Chipmunks. There are a few other relatives or recurring characters (Jones as Morticia's sister Ophelia, Margaret Hamilton as Morticia's mother), Sam Hilliard (who goes from one occupation to another thanks to the family) but they're really not worth mentioning as they rarely show up.
The dialog and writing is witty, thanks mainly to Nat Perrin, who had worked with the Marx Bros., making the humor in this a little more sophisticated than The Munsters, in which the comedy always felt forced. Both seasons were consistent in the quality of writing, direction and acting, never straining from what they established with their first episode. Favorite episodes would be the two-part Morticia's Romance (which includes my favorite exchange between Morticia and Gomez), Amnesia in the Addams Family, The Addams Family Meets the Spacemen/VIPS, Happy Birthday Granny Frump and many others. The effects were decent but I don't think there was a big budget in that department. The shot of Gomez's wrecked trains was shot for the first episode then used when needed. A couple other shots might be stock as well but aren't as noticeable. A great series that was canceled before its time. Granted it would've been weird to see it in color but at least they would've been regularly colored when compared to the Munsters' movie(s) (not sure if there were two or not) where everybody was green. But to the show's defense, it and the Addams Family had good ratings before they were yanked off the air and I don't think there's every been a good reason for it either.
Description of The Addams Family - The Complete Series
ADDAMS FAMILY COMPLETE SERIES BOX SET - DVD MovieThe Addams Family ? Volume One
If The Munsters was a traditional family sitcom as reimagined by Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, The Addams Family is a macabre twist on Father Knows Best. The Munster and Addams clans made their TV debuts in 1964 and lasted two seasons before the networks buried them. The Addamses are now gloriously resurrected in this three-disc set that digs up the series' first 22 episodes (oddly, 12 shy of the complete first season). Inspired by Charles Addams's New Yorker cartoons, The Addams Family is fiendishly funny, with a dead-on cast that indelibly embodies Addams's characters. John Astin brings a demented glee to eccentric, frighteningly wealthy Gomez Addams. Carolyn Jones is bewitching as his pre-goth wife, Morticia, whom the Beatles might have had in mind when they sang, "Baby's in Black." Jackie Coogan is the electrifying Uncle Fester, with Ted Cassidy (who famously took a kick in the groin from Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is the monstrous butler Lurch, whose "You rang?" entered the pop culture lexicon.
The Munsters was family friendly. The Addams Family is more sophisticated and wickedly funny. As Gomez notes at one point, "There's a touch of madness" in the Addams household, where "every day is Halloween." Bear rugs growl, a disembodied hand, Thing, delivers the mail, and a torture rack is good for what ails you. The children, Wednesday (Lisa Loring) and older brother Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), enjoy such hobbies as playing autopsy or exploding model trains. Gomez and Morticia were one of television's most passionate couples, with Gomez being driven to arm-kissing ecstasy whenever Morticia spoke French. The last episode included in this collection, "Amnesia in the Addams Family," is a classic in which Gomez is rendered "normal" following a conk on the head. The look of disgust on Morticia and Lurch's face when he asks for a glass of milk is priceless. The "altogether ooky" extras include three episode commentaries, a featurette on Charles Addams, reminiscences from cast members Astin, Loring, and Weatherwax, a segment on the creation of the classic snap-snap theme song ("They're creepy and they're kooky...."), and the inevitable theme song sing-along. The Addams Family at last on DVD? As Gomez might exclaim: "Capital!" --Donald Liebenson
The Addams Family ? Volume Two
Based on the original Goth cartoons by Charles "Chas" Addams that ran for decades in the New Yorker magazine, The Addams Family television sitcom portrayed a monster family whose moribund physical appearances were counteracted by each family member's exuberance for passion and adventure. This Volume Two DVD contains twenty-one episodes, including the last of season one and the whole of season two, plus commentaries, and a featurette about the cinematic impact The Addams Family had on American television culture. Premiering the same year as The Munsters, this short-lived series was one of the first two shows to take issue with the Leave It To Beaver aesthetic that dominated television throughout the 50s, in which perfect families narrowly defined normality in the American home. Instead, it starred a family feared by neighbors, who within the boundaries of their haunted Victorian mansion invented their own thriving, not to mention fun, culture. The Addams Family proved that outsiders could be extremely gracious, educated, and interesting, even if eccentricities rendered their looks a threat.
These episodes include the original cast: Gomez (John Astin) and Morticia (Carolyn Jones), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), the two children Wednesday and Pugley, butler Lurch, hairy Cousin Itt, and the enigmatic hand, Thing, who plays castanets for the married couples' cha cha parties, and looks up things in phone books. Macabre humor in each episode reverses average, expected logic. Flower arranging, for Morticia, involves de-budding and stripping roses of all but the thorns. In "Morticia, The Sculptress," Gomez bribes a local art dealer to buy Morticia's hideous art at the Addams Family's own expense, revealing Gomez to be a strange but loving husband. In most episodes, such as "Lurch, The Teenage Idol" and "Cousin Itt and the Vocational Counselor," The Addams' aim to help their loved ones succeed, in these cases Lurch, as a harpsichord-playing pop star, and Itt, on a career search for an unintelligible, hair-covered little person. The Addams Family house interior still looks exquisite forty years later, full of taxidermied animals, antique furniture, carnivorous plants, and medieval charm. One watches this show not only for its sets and costumes, but also for its refreshingly wide take on what successful families can look like. --Trinie Dalton
The Addams Family ? Volume Three
Product description: The Addams Family is not your typical family: they take delight in most of the things that "normal" people would be terrified of. Relive the misadventures of America?s favorite frightfully funny family.
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