Charles Addams was born in Jan. 6, 1912 and died Sept. 29, 1988. He passed away in an appropriately strange way. He was an enthusiast of fast sports cars. After coming back from a trip to visit some friends in Connecticut, he parked his Audi 4000 in front of his Manhattan apt. building and died of a fatal heart attack while sitting behind the wheel of the car. A wake was held as was his request where he wished to be remembered as a "good cartoonist".

John Astin and Carolyn Jones starred in the TV show,The Addams Family, based on the cartoons of Charles Addams. Unlike The Munsters, essentially a straight-forward 'Stupid Dad comedy', which also premiered in the same year.

Later numerous cartoons featuring the trappings of horror that would follow the theme established by these series.
This offbeat and macabre situation comedy debuted on ABC on September 18, 1964, and ran two seasons through September 2, 1966. The series was based on a series of bizarre, dark comedy drawings that cartoonist Charles Addams created for the "New Yorker" magazine starting in the late 1940s.
The cartoons featured a ghoulish family in a gothic mansion who lives were in opposition to the cheerful and upbeat values which were suggested by the mainstream media.

When Addams agreed to the TV series, his only obligation was to create names for the characters. After that, writing duties fell on veteran humorist Nat Perrin who had previously penned several Marx Brothers film classics.

Situations on the program inevitably involved outsiders from the so-called "normal world" making contact with the strange family, which featured Gomez (John Astin), a cigar-smoking tycoon with an adolescent appetite for destruction, Morticia (Carolyn Jones), a sexy, black widow figure who revels in gloom and solemnity, Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), a bald lunatic who takes pleasure in relaxing on a bed of nails and firing cannons in the house, Lurch (Ted Cassidy), the seven-foot-tall butler who tends to groan rather than speak, and a pair of odd children, Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax) and Wednesday (Lisa Loring), each with a distinctly morbid sensibility.
Also on hand was Thing -- a friendly hand who traveled from box-to-box in the vast house, and Cousin Itt, a little person covered in long hair who spoke in unintelligible gibberish (body by Felix Silla, voice by the program's sound engineer Tony Magro).

The Addams Family was a truly macabre program, maintaining the essential dignity of its characters in their interactions with the outside world. It contained sixty-four episodes, running in American prime-time from 1964 until September 1966.

A made for TV movie, "Halloween with the New Addams Family." was broadcast Oct. 30, 1977. The TV movie reunited John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy, Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax.

The Addams Family house also appeared in the horror film "Ben".
A guest appearance on Scooby-Doo lead to an animated series between 1973 and 1975. The series featured the voices of Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy and a young Jodie Foster as Pugsley.

The characters were revived in 1991 and 1993 with the movies "The Addams Family" and "Addams Family Values". Both films starred Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston. The films were directed by Barry Sonnenfield. They were purportedly based on the original cartoons and not the TV show, but there is some disagreement.

Thanks to the magic of television and networks like TV Land we can still visit the Addams Family today so don't forget to stop by and say hello to these old friends.... especially on Halloween!

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