"You rang...?" - Ted Cassidy as the Addams family's laconic butler Lurch
The Addams Family: Volume One DVD Review
By Jude Clement
At first glance, the Addams family seems creepy and kooky. Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones, Wonder Woman) wears skin-tight, black Vampira gowns with octopus-like tentacles on the bottom hems. Some people trim the thorns from their roses. Morticia trims the roses from her thorns. Her husband, Gomez (John Astin, Eerie, Indiana), likes to play the stock market. He especially enjoys selling low and watching his former shares rise in value. Eight year-old Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax) and six year-old Wednesday (Lisa Loring, As the World Turns) have fun blowing things up and caring for their exotic pets (Pugsley has an octopus while Wednesday has a salamander). Cue ball-headed Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan, The Kid) spends hours relaxing on a bed of nails and can illuminate a light bulb by simply placing it in his mouth. Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock) is a white-haired crone who can often be found casting magic spells. Lurch (Ted Cassidy) is the family's monotone, Frankenstein-esque butler. Also pitching in is Thing, a disembodied hand that appears in various decorative boxes around the home. Cousin Itt (Felix Silla, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) is a half-pint hairball who speaks gibberish. Yes, they're mysterious and spooky all right. But look closer. Deep down, the Addams are so supportive, kind, and civic minded that they make The Cosby Show's Huxtables look like Married with Children's Bundys.
This is a family that obviously loves and respects each other...and they aren't afraid to show it. Gomez constantly lavishes Morticia with kisses, calling her "Querida mía" ("My dear one"). Celebrating their favorite holiday - Halloween - Gomez lovingly proclaims that "when we're together darling, every night is Halloween." Then they bob for crabs. Even though he is technically their employee, Lurch is also considered part of the family. They team up to teach him to dance so that he won't be a wallflower at the annual Butler's Ball ("Lurch Learns to Dance"). They even pretend to be his servants in order to impress his visiting mother ("Mother Lurch Visits the Addams Family"). When she decides to run away from home after being scolded, little Wednesday even writes her family a polite note: "Dear Mother and Father: I hate you. Love, Wednesday. P.S. Don't bother looking for me because I'm not anywhere. Goodbye." ("Wednesday Leaves Home").
To the Addams, the rest of the world is strange, yet they want to be a part of it. They are constantly reaching out to members of their community. The family is actively involved in politics, but they always have a knack for picking the losing candidate ("Gomez, the Politician"). Morticia tries to join the Ladies League, but her campaign is foiled when Pugsley befriends Gorgo the Killer Gorilla ("Morticia Joins the Ladies League"). Morticia and Gomez are delighted when newlyweds move in next door, but the newlyweds are less than thrilled when they meet their new neighbors ("New Neighbors Meet the Addams Family"). The family teams up to reunite a way-out motorcyclist and his estranged father ("The Addams Family Meets a Beatnik").
Through it all, the Addams remain blissfully unaware that they are weird. Very weird. Giving an octopus a bubble bath in the backyard is perfectly normal to them. Cleopatra, the African Strangler plant to which Morticia feeds hamburgers, might occasionally wrap her vines around the necks of unwitting visitors, but no one is perfect. Pugsley's piggy bank is an actual pig. Luckily, we don't see him making a withdrawal.
Their home - a combo of Gothic and Victorian - also pegs them as odd. Their front gate has a tendency to let visitors in on its own, slamming shut behind them. The doorbell (a foghorn, actually) rings itself. Their unusual décor includes a two-headed tortoise, a stuffed swordfish with a leg in its mouth, a bearskin rug that growls when stepped on, and a yard filled with poison oak bushes. The playroom is a torture chamber complete with Uncle Fester's bed of nails, a rack, and stockades.
Truth be told, the scripts for The Addams Family aren't always fresh. Many of the plotlines are slight twists on things we've already seen on countless other family sitcoms. Others are similar to The Munsters, another creepy, kooky sitcom that ran concurrently with The Addams Family. Where the show succeeds, however, is in the committed performances by its cast. Jones, Astin, Cassidy, and the rest of the cast are a delight to watch.
The Addams Family also features another excellent theme song from Vic Mizzy (Green Acres). The opening credits, with its deadpan imagery of the cast and those instantly recognizable finger snaps, are as entertaining as the show itself.
The twenty-two episodes that make up The Addams Family: Volume One (the first season actually contained thirty-four episodes) are divided onto three double-sided discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear plastic keepcases, one of which holds two discs. The fronts of the cases are adorned with strikingly moody photos of the series' stars - Astin on the first case and Jones on the second. The backs of the cases include titles, original airdates, and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases are decorated with the same wallpaper that graces the walls of the Addams house. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which features a family portrait of everyone except poor Grandmama. She must have been busy rustling up some eye of newt.
The DVD menus are simple and easy to navigate. A full-motion, animated intro leads to static menus spotlighting various cast members. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose them individually. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
It should be noted that the packaging clearly states that two episodes - "Halloween with the Addams Family" and "The Addams Family Meets the Undercover Man" - contain slight edits. Apparently the producers of this DVD set were unable to secure the rights to the song "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House," so it was snipped out.
) teams up with various cast members (including Lisa Loring, Ken Weatherwax, and Felix Silla) for commentary tracks on several episodes: "The Addams Family Goes to School," "Morticia, the Matchmaker," and "Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family."
