The Addams Family -- Morticia's Favorite Charity

Originally aired 4/16/1965, has aired several times since then, including last night on my very TV, via the medium of DVD, thanks to the current availability of numerous old TV series for personal viewing. I really like the idea. O, for money and time!

This episode I viewed while terribly sick, a spring cold, something that started in the throat and went then all the other places. Feeling like death warmed-over and alternately chilled what could be better for such a spirit than an episode of The Addams Family. Meaning, of course, that for one who doesn't laugh out loud at such things that often anyway, it was going to come across even less funny in this state.

I would call this episode something like a presentation episode. The characters, except for Mama, are presented as a whole. They are distinguished from one another without a focus on any one, then distinguished, as is common in the Addams' life, from the outside world. So what would that be, a tour de force or ensemble show?

There's not much to say about it except there's lots of great sight gags. They want to give items to the charity auction, which is headed up by our old insurance friend, Mr. Henson. The funniest thing in the show this time was him saying to another guy concerning Lurch that 'He's really a nice guy.' I thought that was a good touch, very humane in the place of all the usual wild-eyed revulsion you get when conventional meets freak on old shows. A great thing about the Addams, in the ideal world, would be that you really could get to know them, and go over for some hemlock tea and maybe turn them on to ordinary drinks as well.

Being sick, it was a joy seeing Lurch, who got to speak a punchline in this episode pertaining to the reprocurement of Pugsley's precious roaring clock, which was "Paid me $5 to take it." A punchy line, about all you could expect from Lurch with his real slow delivery. I really like the looks of Lurch, tons of make-up, apparently, a very beautiful guy. It made me wonder what he would've looked like if the show had gone on for a number of years, since I can't remember when he died; I think it was a number of years later.

Pugsley being up the chimney was not terribly funny. The bidding on the items, that the Addams would get back, was not very funny, but necessary for the plot. It didn't make any sense that Henson wouldn't recognize the bidders as Morticia and Gomez. Hello! Wednesday's speaking parts are so carefully enunciated, it makes me wonder about her as an actress. And Fester, beautiful Fester, is something of a Houdini, getting in and out of a suit of armor without so much as a creak. I liked him with his head in the bookpress, something that might've done me some good, although my sickness wasn't primarily a headache as he had.

Gomez was as great and dapper as always, very confident. Morticia as charming and beautiful as always. But no Mama, except a picture of her in the background. The moose clock and the other clock, the make of which has slipped my mind, was funny, as Gomez synchronized them. But that was toward the end and I was begging the episode to hurry up and be over so I could get to bed.

The Addams Family - Lurch and His Harpsichord

The third episode on the DVD, vol. 2, collected episodes of The Addams Family, a fine collection of crisp, nice, black and white old TV shows (nice so far, anyway)...

This episode focuses in on Lurch's love for music, especially as it is comes forth from a beautiful old Krupnik harpsichord. I couldn't tell exactly which Krupnik model it was, but they're all good.

Lurch is playing, conducted by gloved Thing with baton; Gomez and Morticia are dancing and romancing; Fester is there. The rest of the family is away for the episode. A nice old gentleman comes by, recognizes the beauty of the playing, recognizes the Krupnik, and wants it for the museum. Gomez immediately gives it away, leaving Lurch feeling blue, which is very justified under the circumstances.

So we have the sad sight of Lurch crying, quitting, about to go home to his mother. The others decide to build another Krupnik, which, considering their lack of skill and the constant references to Gomez' and other Addams' failures, comes out as a nice instrument. No one ever complains, like I was expecting, that this is a faux Krupnik, and there aren't any clinkers in the playing.

Of course it all ends well, and Lurch can go on playing, doesn't have to quit, none of that.

In this episode I was thinking about the Addams, exactly what they're supposed to be. I always associated them with being haunted, or monstrous in certain ways. They have Itt and Thing and various other relatives they refer to, and Morticia's in her Vampira dress, and on and on. But in other ways they're nearly so conventional as to be bland. The music is nothing freaky. The artwork around the main room -- guy's leg sticking out of a big fish, a giraffe with clothes on -- seems more surreal than monstrous. No, they're not the Munsters, but just more or less eccentric, yet not so eccentric in other ways. As for all of Gomez's failures - such as being an attorney who wouldn't be able to adequately defend the old guy supposedly from the museum - how did he get to be an attorney in the first place? He seems pretty successful, so it doesn't all fit. The show is about suspending belief, yet what is put before us is not really all that radical. It makes me wonder about what kind of specifications the writers got, what kind of discussions they had to have, about how weird it should be, and how the various pieces of background - relatives, the Addams' psychology, etc. - where supposed to fit. The possibilities for the show, with the sit-com format and all the rest, seem so finite.

But it's a good show, especially for the appearance of it all. Just looking them, they're iconic.

I liked how Lurch was able to go from classical, minuet music almost involuntarily into a rock riff, just with a few flicks of Thing's hand.

And as for his crying, good thing they had the laugh track, because with a studio audience, there would've been those sickening, "Ahhhhs," you hear in a few more recent shows.