That was probably what Sherwood Schwartz was hoping for, just like The Brady Bunch was supposed to be a humorous but realistic look at the challenges facing a blended family.
The reality, of course, is that with the constraints of network television, the amount of time and money available to produce each episode, the principle of “the lowest common denominator,” unwillingness of sponsors to support anything controversial, the fact that Schwartz was no Carl Reiner or Gene Roddenberry when it came to storytelling, and a bunch of other factors, it’s something of a miracle it stayed on the air at all.
The Addams Family WAS shit, just like the sitcoms that surrounded it.They recycled cornball gags on a weekly basis. Some Addams Family fans like to think it was a very smart show, especially as compared to The Munsters, but they don’t seem to be able to come up with any actual examples of the show being anything but another dumb high concept show.
PS I am a fan of basically all the high concept shows including The Addams Family.
So many unanswered questions, so many unanswered questions. If it was a three hour tour,why did the Howells bring so many changes of clothing and all of their cash ? Was the professor gay? How did a farm girl find herself in Hawaii? If the professor could build a dental drill, a working radio, and so many other items, with a never discharging battery, how couldn’t they build one rowboat? Why did the skipper and Gilligan share a room, a la Ernie and Bert? Why, why, why?
The Addams family jokes were pretty good ones, really… But there were so few of them, and they used every one in every episode. Mail’s in, It’s three o’clock, Urrrrrrr…
What made the show stand out were John Astin and Carolyn Jones. They really were that good! I’d have watched those two read the phone book.
Agreed. They had better chemistry than the leads in contemporary sitcoms. We wouldn’t see another such perfect pairing until Archie and Edith a decade or so later.
The Smothers Brothers did an eponymous sitcom before they got their Sunday-night variety show on CBS. IIRC, Dick (the dumb one) died and came back to help Tom muddle through life’s troubles and tribulations. Or something like that.
Hilarity may have ensued, but I think the show barely lasted one season (1964–65?).*
It’s probably on YouTube, just like the unaired pilot of Archie, next to which it must have seemed like high comedy!
As for GI, it was the best of the really dumb shows! :o
*I’d look it up, but I’m feeling too damned lazy right now.
Yeah, I don’t think Gilligan’s Island has ever had the reputation of being a bad show (certainly far from the worst thing that’s ever been on TV), just of being a dumb, silly, lowbrow show—which it certainly is. I watched it on afterschool reruns when I was a kid, which is probably the best age to have watched it.
True about classical archetypes though: the characters were reportedly based upon the 7 deadly sins. From the internet:
That leaves Mrs. Howell who supposedly is gluttony “because she doesn’t work hard getting off the island.” I don’t buy that one. The creator apparently copped to this is a general sense, though I doubt whether it was this literal.
The show was still crap.
