Watching Preacher and Lucifer, and surviving a week’s worth of cute at VBS, got me thinking how, in 1964, a silly sitcom had caused me to say, “These people get me.” I was 10, and while my faith remained long enough to understand its theological underpinnings and how later shows interpreted them, I can understand why preachers might rail against them, though they are (kinda) Full Gospel, in their way. Like Black Sabbath, in its Non-Conformist way. 
FTR, I spent some time alone in the sanctuary while the kids ate, alone with God and the ghosts who hang out in the SW corner, but my pew is in the NW corner and I don’t have no truck with dead folk. None of the above said, “Hey,” but I would’ve been more disturbed if they had. The ghosts seem more confused than interested in hanging out in church.
The Addamses are probably the finest family to ever appear on TV: they were extremely polite, they cared very much for each other, they invited anybody into their home and made them feel welcome, punishments were firm but fair, the parents were involved in their children’s up-bringing, the elderly relatives were respected and included, they had an almost Old World sense of FAMILY and were law-abiding and respectful of society and community. A model American family.
Feel free to embellish.
The reason they were denounced was you didn’t see them go to church; doesn’t mean they didn’t. They weren’t affiliated with a specific denomination AFAIK which pisses off clergy. Bragging rights, you know. :rolleyes:
I know that, and that they and the Munsters were the LEAST dysfunctional families EVER on TV, but I would like to discuss how their cultural “dysfunctionality” allowed younger and later generations to realize they weren’t really wierdos. At the time we needed that.
Were there actually churchly denunciations of the Addamses? I shouldn’t be astonished; I’ve just been fortunate never to have heard of this.
(Some of the implications in the movies are…disturbing. It appears that this family has a special deal with death. They can electrocute each other, eat poison, go after each other with big blades…and not die. Maybe they have Death – per Neil Gaiman – trapped in a bell jar in the basement.)
Take the Addamses as empowering. I’ve quoted before from the Addams rap:
“They do what they wanna do, say what they wanna say
Live how they wanna live, play how they wanna play
Dance how they wanna dance, kick and the slap a friend.”
Their ideas of home decor have been hugely influential on me and on my sister: we live in very Addams-style homes.
Well, law-abiding to a point. Grandmama was busted for fortune telling once. But the judge’s wife was one of her customers and made him dismiss the case. 
I forgot the decor. At a flea market mine wife talked me out of bidding on the head of a White Buffalo, saying she would never allow the thought to allow such Bad Magic near her.
If nothing else. I married appropriately.
Oh, FTR? For those unfamiliar with Native American religions, you do not fuck with White Buffalo, and, as I have mentioned before, Wife has had enough trouble with Deer Woman.
We really need the old RollEyes. Forty years and I can’t use them IRL.
And the parents showed genuine affection for each other, and the rest of the family. Quite different from the “shrieking harpy” and “fat dumb guy” yelling at and insulting each other all the time
Don’t remember if the Addams Family perverted or empowered me, but my friends and I started snapping our fingers a lot. Make of that what you will.
Don’t remember any complaints about the show, except my parents were irritated with the finger snapping.
The show wasn’t particularly controversial in its time; the only arguments are whether it or The Munsters was the better show. I was already fan of Charles Addams when it went on the air and was watching from the beginning.
Vacation Bible School?
It’s also a neat refutation of Tolstoy’s claim that “happy families are all alike”.
Better than cracking your gum.
Plus, they’re altogether ooky.
No religious pushback against either show that I remember. My priest was a fan of the Munsters, as I recall.
The Munsters were one of the earliest TV couples to be allowed to share a bed (apparently, it was okay if you were monsters), unlike Rob and Laura Petrie, who had to be shown in twin beds. (Causing most American males to wonder how any husband could be in the same room with Mary Tyler Moore in different beds). Maybe it was considered a further sign of the Munsters’ weirdness.
There was also little doubt that the Gomez and Morticia Addams shared an enjoyable and healthy sex life. Gomez positively glowed with pleasure when around his wife and couldn’t keep his hands off her. (Also an interesting early example on TV of a mixed marriage between an Hispanic husband and an Anglo - i think - wife (Her maiden name was Frump), along with Desi and Lucy.
John Astin as Gomez was kind of my model for how to approach life - he always seemed almost manically happy and upbeat and filled with gleaming-eyed joie de vivre. It looked like a lot better way to live life than, say, Ozzie Nelson or Danny Thomas.
Yeah…somebody wrote once that Gomez and Morticia were the first sitcom couple who appeared to be having sex.
Morticia Adams was one of my first childhood crushes. I thought she was “smoking” hot.
Off-screen, I mean.
And John Astin was certainly more attractive than his Charles Addams doppelgänger.
