Ga-Ga For Gomez

John Astin walked away from the failure of the sitcom I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster without any damage. After a year off, he was given the role of Gomez in The Addams Family in 1964.

The show was derived from the single-panel cartoons of Charles Addams that portrayed a group of people who revelled in ghoulishness in an irreverent sort of way. Trying to translate that kind of humour into a half-hour TV sitcom was impossible. So, instead, the series shot off in other directions while still keeping an air of being off-beat.

The Addams Family lasted only two seasons in prime time on ABC but had the same good fortune that a number of used comedies had back in that day—it went into endless daytime reruns and its popularity grew and grew.

Astin enjoyed the role, as we can gather from newspaper interviews of the time. We’ll reprint two below. The first appeared in papers on June 22, 1964, the second on November 2, 1964. Both compare the show with The Munsters. In interviews years later, Astin insisted the shows weren’t the same at all. Both dealt with the macabre in a comic way, but the Munster family couldn’t understand why they were considered different while the Addamses just didn’t care. They went on living their lives.

The Addams Family' May Slay TV Viewers
By HAL HUMPHREY
HOLLYWOOD — Editors of the New Yorker magazine may get a little upset to learn that David Levy, who is producing a new TV series based on the Charles Addams cartoons, believes the Addams wit and audiences not irreconcilable.
"If Addams was not under contract to the New Yorker," says producer Levy, "TV Guide or some other mass circulation magazine would snap him up.
"You should have seen what happened when we showed the pilot film of 'The Addams Family' at the National Association of Broadcasters convention last spring. "And when ABC had the film pre-tested before an audience, the network executives couldn't believe the results. They thought there must have been some mistake," continues Levy, warming to his subject.
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"We showed it to three of Addams' attorneys, who sat as if they were on the Supreme Court, but they began to fall down within three minutes after the film began to unroll."

Addams was in the room, too, at that time. According to Levy, the only sounds he heard emanating from Addams were "strange ones."
"They were really sounds of approval, though," Levy adds, hastily. "And one of the attorneys, a woman, said afterward to Addams, 'He is much more Addams-like than you are.'
"She was referring to John Astin, who plays Gomez. He really moved them. Addams did say later he liked the music, and of Carolyn Jones — she plays Morticia — he said, 'Enchanting!'"
Despite all of this praise, Levy is playing it cautious with the TV critics and refuses to show the pilot to them prior to airtime next September.
HE CAN hardly be blamed for playing it cool. It has been more than two years since Levy phoned Addams to open negotiations.
"We had cocktails at the Plaza in New York and discovered we both had roots there. I knew Addams had turned down other TV offers, but I believe he warmed up when I told him I did not read the New Yorker stories, only the cartoons.
"It took a year from that day just for the attorneys to do the paperwork involved, and it was largely Addams and hit attorneys' paper."
Addams also had to approve the cast which Levy came up to fit the characters most prominent in Addams' murky and macabre world. Besides Carolyn Jones and John Astin, there is a six-toot-nine giant named Ted Cassidy who will do his first acting as "Lurch." Six other characters will be used more or less frequently.
Levy made a deal with the Filmways company, the same studio which turns out "Beverly Hillbillies," "Petticoat Junction" and "Mr. Ed." If Addams is acquainted with any of those series, he might be experiencing some apprehension at this point over how his brain-children will thrive in such a climate.
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LEVY DOES grant that any writer assigned to "The Addams Family" TV series will need "far more imaginative gifts than those turning out ordinary situation comedy."
"We will be telling the TV audience, too, that these are not the neighbors next door," says Levy.
Meanwhile, over at CBS, a Thursday night time spot is being cleared for what the network is heralding as a completely new idea in situation comedy — The Munsters — which dealt with a 'normal' American family whose physical characteristics are reminiscent of such famous movie monsters at Frankenstein's creation, Dracula and a lady vampire."
The Addams attorneys may discover their TV work is not finished yet.

John Astin 'Arrives' In Series
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD — It must be nice to be independently wealthy, madly in love with your wife and serene enough to enjoy your children and relatives talking and playing together in the living room.
This happy home time occurs every Friday night at ABC's reverse joke series, "The Addams Family," where the sweet things in lite are pet spiders, poison ivy and a hangman's noose.
The head of the house, nonconformist Gomez Addams — addicted to cigars, double-breasted chalk striped suits and blowing up toy trains — walks about with feet wide apart, full of good cheer. He is a happy man and so far has never been seen in a downcast mood. Life is very good to Gomez.
Actor John Astin, formerly seen as a carpenter in "The I'm Dickens . . . He's Fenster" series, was the first person cast in the series, derived from Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons, and he has given a good deal of serious thought to Gomez.
"We did a number of tests without makeup," says John. "And some felt I was too straight. There was a suggestion to do odd things with the eyes, but we stopped that."
Astin, a talented, serious New York actor, leaning towards the works of Samuel Beckett, and who once produced Christopher Fry's "A Sleep of Prisoners," written to be performed in a church, plays Gomez in an expansive mood.

"You can tell about Gomez from the way he walks," he says. "The legs shoot out. And when he stands the feet are far apart, like a cigar smoking New York businessman, only Gomez is a successful nonconformist. This can't simply be a reverse joke show. We have to affirm our position."
So far the series does rely on the reverse joke and the kids don't seem to mind at all. The cartoon characters on TV are sweet and a big hit among the young viewers whose after school television chatter revolves mostly around "The Addams Family" and "The Munsters."
Both series could be written by the same people in that both emphasize a close family life, sight gags galore and reverse jokes. Their viewpoints are remarkably similar.
'Attack Objects'
Pushing the nonconformist line, Astin says, "We attack objects, not people. We know we're different and we feel others are not as fortunate as we are. And when we take out our aggressions, no guilt is involved."
"The Addams Family" and "The Munsters" take great care to stress a happy home life. "These are good people" is implied in every line. Now this wasn't the case in all Addams cartoons "Many suggested violence," admits Astin. "and it wasn't necessary for Addams to follow up. Cartoons don't have to answer any question, but we do in 26 minutes."
Astin was an Addams fan before he joined the cast and enjoyed the marvelous poetic expressions on the characters while performing some weird deed. "I remember one cartoon where the butler poured hot oil over Christmas trees and he positively beams," says Astin, "but we can't do things like that."
With the role of Gomez, Astin has quickly erased his former image of the carpenter who played straight man on the "I'm Dickens-Fenster" series. There were times when Astin toyed with the idea of changing his name to Harry Dickens, after being stopped by fans who ask whether John is Fickens or Denster. "I'm John Astin," he would say politely. "Oh, yes, you're Dick Fenster," would be the reply.
'More Opportunity'
"People don't know I've done serious things," says Astin with downcast eyes. "In New York I was known as very strong for art for art's sake plays." Now that Astin is a TV figure living in Southern California, some of his theater associates accuse him of selling out.
"I've had more opportunity here," says Astin, whose Fry play ran one performance in New York's Phoenix Theater. "I say art is where you make it. I intend to do my little art film and it won't matter where I am."
He rolled his eyes, twisted his mouth, threw back his head and there was Gomez, a happy man.

Astin went on to an ill-advised appearance on Batman before creating the wonderfully semi-hinged Buddy Ryan on Night Court in the ‘80s. But, I suspect, for many, he’ll always be Gomez Addams.