Addams Family (TV Show): What Was Gomez' Profession?

[ralph124c]

I always wondered what Gomez did to support his family-was he a stockbroker? He seemed to be always checking tickertapes…or was he a guy who lived off inherited wealth.
Was Gomez weirdly dressed for a guy in the mid-1960’s? As I recall he wore a double breasted pinstriped suit…and it appears he had a pocket watch.
I liked Gomez-he was one of the more interesting characters.

[Nom_de_Plume]

I believe he had inherited money, but had also invested well in stocks.

[gaffa]

@Nom_de_Plume

I believe he had inherited money…

…which he kept in a huge subterranean vault.

[Musicat]

@ralph124c

Was Gomez weirdly dressed for a guy in the mid-1960’s?

Compared to the rest of the family, he was pretty normal, dontcha think?

Hyper-normal, even.

[cochrane]

I believe it was mentioned in a couple of episodes that Gomez was an attorney. However, not a very good one. It seems he lost all of his cases. I do think most of his wealth has been inherited, though. As bad of a lawyer as he was, he certainly seemed better off not working at all. And he once told Pugsley, “No Addams has ever worked in 200 years.”

[Elmer_J.Fudd]

It was a running gag that he owned several companies that he had simply forgotten about. His investment strategy was to buy stocks and companies with little or no promise which would inevitably triple in value through some quirk of fate. In short, Gomez is like that monkey with a dartboard that inevitably beats the DJI every year.

[Jormungandr]

Elmer’s correct, Gomez is just lucky in investments from swamp land to mummies. In 2007, he was# 12on Forbes Fictional 15 billionaires.

[Kent_Clark]

@ralph124c

Was Gomez weirdly dressed for a guy in the mid-1960’s? As I recall he wore a double breasted pinstriped suit…and it appears he had a pocket watch.

Take a look at these two sharp dressed menfrom 1964.

And compare them toGomez.

[BrainGlutton]

@cochrane

I believe it was mentioned in a couple of episodes that Gomez was an attorney. However, not a very good one. It seems he lost all of his cases. I do think most of his wealth has been inherited, though. As bad of a lawyer as he was, he certainly seemed better off not working at all. And he once told Pugsley, “No Addams has ever worked in 200 years.”

In one episode he and Morticia had the kids on the hotseat for something or other, and Pugsley or Wednesday said, “I take the Fifth Amendment!”

GOMEZ [whispering]: What’s that?

MORTICIA: Didn’t you go to law school, dear?

GOMEZ: Yes, but I was sick that day.

[Musicat]

@kunilou

Take a look at these two sharp dressed menfrom 1964.

And compare them toGomez.

Yep, same wide eyes, same mustache, same leer.

[BrainGlutton]

Wikisez:

Charles Addams’ description went like this:

“ Husband to Morticia (if indeed they are married at all) … a crafty schemer, but also a jolly man in his own way … though sometimes misguided … sentimental and often puckish — optimistic, he is in full enthusiasm for his dreadful plots … is sometimes seen in a rather formal dressing gown … the only one who smokes.[2] ”

— Charles Addams

Gomez Addams is an athletic, acrobatic, and eccentric multi-billionaire.[3] Though an extremely successful businessman, having acquired much of his wealth through investments, he seems to have little regard for money and will casually spend thousands of dollars on any whimsical endeavor (a fact that often mortifies visitors of the Addams household). Gomez’s investments are guided more by whimsy than strategy, yet luck rarely fails him. “It’s not for nothing that they call me “The Plunger”,” he once boasted, an apparent reference to sticking doggedly with a stock despite low fluctuations, although this nickname was in fact bestowed upon him not by Wall Street investors but by the Plumbers’ Union. According to The New Addams Family, he has 20-20 vision, and the heart of a 20-year-old track star — Mama had performed the surgery herself.

In the original sitcom, Gomez owned businesses around the world, including a crocodile farm (“Crocodiles Unlimited”), a buzzard farm, a salt mine, a tombstone factory, a uranium mine, and many others. It was not unheard of for him to simply forget that he owned a controlling interest in a business or to draw a check on the wrong bank. Guinness World Records 2008 ranked him as 5th richest TV character with a net worth of $8.2 million. Forbes lists him as worth much higher; in their 2007 “Fictional 15” list of the richest fictional characters, he was ranked #12 with a net worth of $2 billion, but has been omitted from recent lists.[4]

As a young man, Gomez was, per flashback in “Morticia’s Romance,” a perennially sickly youth, gaining perfect health only after meeting Morticia. He nevertheless studied law (voted “Most Likely Never to Pass the Bar”), and although he rarely practices, he takes an absurd delight in losing cases, boasting of having put many criminals behind bars while acting as their defense attorney; this is somewhat contradicted in the episode “The Addams Family Goes to Court,” where it is noted that while Gomez has never won a case, he has never lost one either (“Perfect record!” boasts Grandmama). In The New Addams Family, Gomez had also studied medicine.

Gomez has offered contradictory views on work; in one episode, he claims that, although his family was wealthy even in his childhood, he nonetheless performed odd jobs and “scrimped and saved [his] kopeks,” which he considered character building. When his son Pugsley decided to find a job, however, Gomez was horrified, claiming that “No Addams has worked in 200 years!” Possibly Gomez, who dotes on his children, feels that behavior that was good enough for him is not good enough for Pugsley. In the 1991 animated series, Gomez deliberately tried to fail at something, anything, only to realize in the end of the episode that he is only a failure in failure. This is additionally contradicted in “New Neighbors Meet the Addams Family” Season 1 : Ep. 9(1960). He specifically states that Thing always beats him at bridge.

[Larry_Mudd]

@ralph124c

Was Gomez weirdly dressed for a guy in the mid-1960’s? As I recall he wore a double breasted pinstriped suit…and it appears he had a pocket watch.

Gomez’ costume for the ‘60s television show wasn’t significantly different from Addams’ first depictions of him, made in the '30s.

It would be very bizarre indeed if he didn’t look absurdly anachronistic. That said, he didn’t look absurdly anachronistic. Good times!

[BrainGlutton]

I think Addams originally conceived the characters as a macabre spin on an “Old Money” family, the sort that has the leisure-across-generations to develop flamboyant eccentricities and turn them into traditions. One panel had Morticia (the characters are not actually named in the cartoons, but you know who I mean) showing a guest the family portrait gallery, remarking, “Ours is a very old family.” (The oldest portrait is a skin-clad caveman holding a club.)