Addams Family [, Vol. 1]

Here's a rundown on the episodes:

Disc One features "The Addams Family Goes to School," in which a truant officer visits, but leaves thinking the Addams children are probably better off being home schooled "Morticia and the Psychiatrist," which finds the Addams consulting a psychiatrist to find out where they went wrong after Pugsley becomes a boy scout "Fester's Punctured Romance," which has a door-to-door sales lady getting more than she bargained for "Gomez the Politician," in which Gomez backs a losing candidate for city council "The Addams Family Tree," where a family rivalry sets Gomez in motion tracing his ancestry (with predictably shocking results) "Morticia Joins the Ladies League," when Mrs. Addams' gathering for the neighborhood ladies is sabotaged by Pugsley's new killer gorilla friend "Halloween with the Addams Family," a funny episode where the family takes in two robbers, thinking them trick-or-treaters and "Green-Eyed Gomez," which finds Gomez jealous after an old friend of Morticia's comes to visit.

Disc Two has "New Neighbors Meet the Addams Family," with the normal family wanting to move out quicker than they moved in "Wednesday Leaves Home," in which the family drives the Missing Persons Bureau nuts after Wednesday runs away "The Addams Family Meets the V.I.P.s," about Iron Curtain dignitaries who somehow end up visiting the Addams to get a glimpse of a typical American family "Morticia the Matchmaker," in which the Addams try to pair up cousin Melancholia "Lurch Learns to Dance," an uhohhhhh episode supreme "Art and the Addams Family," which finds the Addams calling in Sam Picasso to give them a lesson or two "The Addams Family Meets a Beatnik," in which the Addams help an injured motorcyclist reconnect with his father and "The Addams Family Meets the Undercover Man," which has an undercover operative convinced, after monitoring radio signals coming from the house, that the Addams are spies.

Disc Three offers ""Mother Lurch Visits the Addams Family," a funny role-reversal episode which has the Addams waiting on Lurch "Uncle Fester's Illness," in which a local doctor gets "shocked" by Fester's power outage "The Addams Family Splurges," about the family's foray into racetrack betting in order to finance a vacation to the moon "Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family," where Cousin Itt takes a job at the local zoo and is mistaken for a wilid animal "The Addams Family in Court," where Grandma is arrested for telling fortunes and the whole family gets in trouble and "Amnesia in the Addams Family," which has Gomez getting a blow to the head and thinking he's (gasp) normal. Disc Three also contains the bonus features.

Total running time: 561 minutes.

Video:
The picture is sharp, and so, for that matter, are the animated menu screens. There's nothing bare-bones about those, which give a snappy lead-in to the episodes. The show is presented in black and white, and there's some grain but not much. I'm guessing that fans will be pretty happy with the quality, but not thrilled about the double-sided discs. It's too east to damage them trying to flip them over and insert them into the player.

Audio:
The audio is nothing fancy, just an English or Spanish Dolby Digital Mono, with subtitles in English or Spanish.

Extras:
"You Rang, Mr. Addams" features a spokesperson from the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation talking about Addams and how he came to create cartoons for The New Yorker. It turns out that the ghoulish characters were a natural outcropping of his imagination, because he walked past abandoned old Victorian houses like the Addams' and had a fascination with graveyards, antique weaponry, and torture devices. It's fascinating to hear how he didn't create the characters as a family and never gave them names until the TV series. "Snap Snap" zeroes in on the catchy theme song's composer, Vic Mizzy, who's shown at his organ laying the song and reminiscing about its creation. Then there's an "Addams Family Portrait" that features interviews with the actors that played Gomez, Pugsley, Wednesday, and Cousin Itt, talking about the show, the set, and their characters' development. Finally, there's the theme song with words and a gallery of still shots. It's not a bad package of extras, and if it's the reason why not all 35 episodes were included in this set, I'm guessing fans will think it's an okay trade-off.

Bottom Line:
It's a novelty sitcom, but as novelty sitcoms go, "The Addams Family" did a pretty good job of playing to the gimmick while also staying faithful to the tone and spirit of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams' original drawings.

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