“They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re all together ooky, The Addams Family…”

Remarkably enough, The Addams Family lasted less than two years on television, yet the show’s lyrics are seared into the minds of millions of Baby Boomers. They were the antithesis of the Andersons of Father Knows Best. Gomez, played brilliantly by John Astin, presided over a household that seemed to celebrate Halloween every day. The joke was that the members of the Addams Family thought they were normal and everyone else was kooky. And after a while, we had to admit that their way of life did seem like fun. After all, life in their mansion was never boring. Why else would we tune in every week?

In many ways, the family seemed like any other family. Gomez was head over heels in love with Morticia, played with eerie elegance by the talented Carolyn Jones. We wondered how someone so refined and beautiful could be raising flesh-eating plants. But that was the charm of the show, continually setting up contradictions that at first seemed strange and then perfectly acceptable.

If you haven’t watched the shows in a while, you can now find most of the series the on DVD. The first volume contains 22 of the 34 episodes from season one, while volume two, contains the remaining 12 episodes. Volume three has the show’s final 21 episodes. So start snapping those fingers and enjoy.

If you would like to continue the Addams journey, buy the two films on DVD, The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values, starring Raul Julia as Gomez and Anjelica Huston as Morticia. The treat here is Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams, the daughter.

The Addams Family may be gone from TV, but there are many ways to still enjoy the characters Charles Addams created in his cartoons. (For a review of the Broadway play, see Playing Around, and for information on an exhibit of Addams’s cartoons for the New Yorker at the Museum of the City of New York, see Laughing Around).