The Addams Family - The Complete Series
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Addams FamilyDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1638 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-13
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Addams Family - The Complete Series
Movie Review: Next Exhibit in Line to Prove Television was Once Great
Summary: 5 Stars
I ordered this during the 2008 Christmas season so my young daughters could watch it during their time off during the holidays. We put in the first disc and watched the fist episode. From that point forward is was basically two months of a chant in chorus: "Addams Family! Addams Family!" They watched it straight through and then went through it again and again, perhaps a total of five times. They still won't let me pack it away, they want it readily available.
I didn't complain too much, because to my delight I found that this show, like so many from the era, is simple astonishingly good television. I had enjoyed it as a kid, but I didn't remember it as well as the Munsters (which is also, obviously, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). The creativity of this production is just fabulous, and the acting superb. Lurch is fascinating, with his dead-pan visage, spontaneous appearances and harpsichord playing (backed by the genius Vic Mizzy). The same actor plays "Thing"--and he says so much with his animated hand movements. You can't overstate the fundamental brilliance of Thing. Morticia is as glamourous as the living-dead (or whatever she is) can be. She is gorgeous, and quite the botanist with her collection of highly cognizant plants. The Addams' life of leisure is quite enviable, as they always use their infinite time at home to fine-tune their various blue-blooded skills, and they prove themselves to be true Renassaince folk. Jackie Coogan's Uncle Fester is out of control. Illuminating light bulbs in his mouth, getting stretched on the rack, he's always up for a good time, and apparently oblivious to pain. Aleister Crowley, I suspect, would consider this zany character his most cherished legacy. And "Cousin It"? Wow, that character almost scares me. He, or It, I should say, is truly a psychedelic and sophisticated flourish which takes the show into a different realm of bizarre surreality.
The real show-stealer is Gomez, played by John Astin. Good grief, the character he created here is just insanely funny. He is dynamic, eccentric, suave, outrageous, gallant, compassionate, dapper, forgiving, generous...I could go on with descriptors for an hour. I've told my wife I really need to become a lot more like Gomez. He is truly one of the all-time great television characters. I read somewhere that Groucho Marx was used as a reference point for the character, and it makes sense. John, if you by chance read this, my deepest thanks for all the happiness you have brought to the world. It must be immensely satisfying knowing that you have brought so many smiles to this planet.
The scripts are extremely clever, with both an adult level and a kid's level. I'm surprised how many of the issues the family deals with are relevant to today's world: turbulance in the stock market; issues with school officials (who disapprove of the kids bringing weapons and dynamite to campus, etc.), taxes, dysfunction in government, etc.
In the extras, there is an effort to remind everyone that this show was derived from the comic strip. That is generous, but I personally think this this show transcends and betters the comic strip in a multitude of ways. The debt of gratitiude should run to the show, not the other way around.
What has happened to our world? Yeah, global warming, over-population, the economy...but also look at television as a micro-paradigm of societal decay. I know you will say there have been good shows recently, and there have been (some). But if you do a side-by-side comparison of, say, some good shows like The Sopranos, Frazier, Seinfield, and Friends and you compare them with The Wild, Wild West, The Munsters, Addams Family, Batman, Mission Impossible, The Night Gallery, Benny Hill, Leave it to Beaver...one gets the strong impression that creativity is really in decline. The sheer level of elaboration in the production values alone distinguishes the eras: the sets themselves were works of art. Television used to go full-out, now it is so frequently about compromise and cost-cutting. Are "reality shows" going to implant the wonderful visions into the minds of kids that these shows did? Instead, I get a migraine from "Survivor" and the like--and even "American Idol" has a chaotic, campy aspect which certainly doesn't enrich the world much.
But I digress. The Addams Family is one of life's really good things. For the ten times the price, you would be well rewarded by what you get here. The pictures look great, and the fun is non-stop. Buy this for yourself and revive your own memories, or buy this for your kids or grand kids and create a whole new generation of memories. I am convinced: 200 years from now people will be watching this show, laughing until their sides split. This is television for the post-television age, televison for eternity. It will hold up for for as long as there are people, or ghouls.
Summary of The Addams Family - The Complete Series
Disc 1: Addams Family - Volume 1 - Disc 1 Disc 2: Addams Family - Volume 1 - Disc 2 Disc 3: Addams Family - Volume 1 - Disc 3 Disc 4: Addams Family - Volume 2 - Disc 1 Disc 5: Addams Family - Volume 2 - Disc 2 Disc 6: Addams Family - Volume 2 - Disc 3 Disc 7: Addams Family - Volume 3 - Disc 1 Disc 8: Addams Family - Volume 3 - Disc 2 Disc 9: Addams Family - Volume 3 - Disc 3The 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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