The Addams Family

- Season 1

(1964)

The local truant officer forces Wednesday and Pugsley to attend public school to their parents' consternation.

Morticia and Gomez seek professional help after Pugsley starts displaying normal childhood behavior and interests.

Fester's been sly and secretive lately, more than usual, and has also taken to intercepting the daily newspaper deliveries. He's been scanning the lonely hearts columns looking for a bride. Fester finally fesses up and writes a letter, with Gomez happy to snap the picture to adjoin it. Days pass without a response. When Miss Carver appears at the door, she's mistaken for Fester's correspondent - a desperate wanna-be housewife with suitcase in hand ready to move in. She's actually a door-to-door cosmetics saleswoman, and her smooth and mildly seductive sales pitch, ...

Election day is nearing, and Gomez is getting very excited. He puts up all his old campaign posters; notably, all of Gomez's favorite candidates were losers. Sam Hilliard is running for city council, and Gomez throws his support behind the man. Hilliard is eager to get his hands on Gomez's campaign contributions. However, Gomez declares that he'd like to see the money spent in certain ways. After hearing some of the Addams' suggestions, Hilliard wishes they would stay away from his campaign altogether.

Pugsley and Wednesday attend a birthday party for neighbor Harold Pomeroy. Though Morticia instructs her children to be modest about their advantages, it's not an attitude reflected by the Pomeroys, who call them kooks and proclaim them inferior. Incensed, Gomez hires Mr. Pomeroy's genealogist, Professor Simms, to examine the Addams' family tree for ancestors to flaunt at them. In the interim, Mr. Pomeroy completely changes his manner due to oil he thinks he's found on land owned by Gomez. Before the two meet up to discuss business, Simms spills the beans on several ...

Pugsley and Gomez visit Oscar Webber, who owns a failing circus. Pugsley befriends Gorgo, a gorilla. Gorgo follows them back to the Addams' house. Gomez hopes to find a spot for Gorgo in the household. To the dismay of Lurch, Gorgo shows some aptitude for some of the butler's tasks. Meanwhile, Morticia aspires to join a social club for women, The Ladies' League. When the ladies visit Morticia at home, will Gorgo's style of service impress the guests?

On Halloween night, two robbers accept the Addams' unknowing invitation to celebrate in their home to hide out from the Law.

When Moticia's childhood friend, Lionel Barker, visits, Gomez views him as an old beau and current rival. Fearing he and Morticia might run off together, Gomez hires Mildred, an awkwardly man-crazy maid, to pull Lionel from Morticia, which doesn't work. When Morticia catches Gomez giving Mildred love lessons, she thinks her marriage is on the rocks. What neither realize is that Lionel's a white-collar con-man out to bilk Gomez.

A newlywed couple discovers to their horror that the landlords of their newly leased home are their bizarrely frightening next-door neighbors, the Addamses.

When a disgruntled Wednesday pretends to run away, her parents call the police and drive a cranky Missing Persons detective batty.

Two suspicious Soviet dignitaries demand to visit a typical American they have picked at random, and end up visiting the Addams Family as a result.

A bachelor lawyer visits hoping to make a business deal, but he finds himself the unwilling target of Morticia's matchmaking when her cousin Melancholia arrives, distraught after being jilted.

Lurch receives his annual invitation to The Butlers' Ball, which he ignores as usual because he can't dance. Morticia is determined he accept this year's invitation to avoid the reclusive direction in which he's headed. To that end, a dance teacher is hired, but when that doesn't work (due to frequent fainting spells), the whole family rallies to Lurch's cause, to the endangerment of innocent furniture and healthy vertebrae everywhere.

When an outraged art critic recommends that Mama get a teacher to help her paint better, Gomez gladly hires none other than Picasso for Mama. Not Pablo Picasso, Sam Picasso, a penniless non-talent who's more than willing to be flown to affluent America to teach in exchange for free room and board. Despite outside opinions to the contrary, Gomez believes Sam is an undiscovered master. Consequently, Sam soon finds himself locked in the Addams' basement until such time as he "finds himself" and starts cranking out masterpieces.

A young biker on the run from his domineering tycoon dad ends up hiding out in the Addams house, and the Addamses couldn't be happier.

The feds get interested in the Addams Family due to Pugsley's ham radio, powered by Uncle Fester, sending out mysterious "coded" messages world wide. Agent Hollister enlists the aid of a few private citizens to suss out the Addams domain without raising their suspicions, but it doesn't work. The Addamses become aware that something's not right and call in the feds.

Lurch's mother comes to visit the Addams family. Paralyzed by shame, Lurch is unable to admit to Gomez his mistake: Lurch has told his mother that he owns the big house. Gomez gamely suggests a role reversal: Lurch will act like the man of the house, and Gomez and Morticia will act as his servants. Once Lurch's mother arrives, Gomez senses his mistake. The old woman treats Gomez and Morticia poorly, and the husband and wife strongly wish they had never gone along with the act.

Lately, Uncle Fester's been a bit rundown, literally unable to maintain his wattage. Since Dr. Mbogo, the reliable family witch doctor, is too busy to leave Africa, the Addamses must take their chances by engaging the services of a local physician, who pays them a house call.

The Addams family hopes to vacation on the moon, but needs to raise a billion dollars. Using Gomez's new supercomputer, the family schemes to make the money by betting on horse races.

Parks Commissioner Fiske visits the Addams house seeking contributions for expansion of the city zoo. Gomez believes visiting Cousin Itt - all hairy and gibbering four feet tall of him - would be perfect as the zoo's new curator. He has the two meet, but Commissioner Fisk misunderstands the intent and mistakes Itt for a new exotic animal attraction whom he has hauled away in chains when the others aren't looking. When the family finds out what's happened, Uncle Fester is ready to administer retribution the Addams way - with a bullet from behind.

While Gomez and Morticia were away bat hunting, Mama resumed her old bad habit of fortune telling, which soon snags her an arrest on a municipal code violation. In her hour of need, the family rallies to her side as none other than Gomez "Loophole" Addams - who's never lost a case (nor won one either) - dusts off his law degree to defend her in court.

An accident with his new set of old Indian clubs gives Gomez amnesia and a complete shift in aesthetics. It, unfortunately, coincides with the new million dollar double indemnity insurance policy he's just drawn up to benefit Morticia, causing the amnesic Gomez - aghast at his macabre home and family - to think his life's in jeopardy. A second blow on the head might return him to normal. Unfortunately for Gomez there are plenty of clubs with just as many loving family members skulking about, keen to restore his sanity.

When Thing goes missing, the family discovers he's been "thing-napped."

Once again, Fester's cannon has wrecked the plumbing. The Arthur J. Henson Insurance Agency, subsidiary of Excelso Fidelity Insurance, is outraged by yet another in a series of payouts on the Addams policy, but a clause in the small print enables them to finally cancel it. Fester's allowance is subsequently suspended, so he gets a job - as an insurance salesman for Henson Insurance. It's not hard to guess to whom he sells his first policy, which has the head of the company in an uproar and storming his way to the Addams house to wheedle out of it.

Lurch feels betrayed when Gomez and Morticia give their antique harpsichord to a museum.

Morticia and Fester overhear Gomez on the phone with his broker. Hearing the words "broke, penniless and wiped out," they believe Gomez is financially ruined, not realizing he's merely discussing the misfortunes of others before launching into a secret plan to buy his own railroad as a surprise to Morticia. Morticia rallies the rest of the family to figure out ways to earn money and help Gomez. Grandmama prepares to be a beauty stylist, Fester forms an escort service with Lurch, the children sell drinks at a sidewalk stand (henbane) while Morticia offers fencing and ...

Pugsley's late night missile launches cause no less than fourteen sighting calls to the Bureau of Mysterious Space Objects (M.S.O.). The Addamses are about to leave for a combined midnight picnic and snail hunt when they hear an announcement of unknown flying objects in their area. Thinking there might be Martians about, they happily decide to tarry and see while investigators from the M.S.O. converge upon the Addams estate with the same idea. The two parties meet, each deciding that the others are from another world.

Uncle Fester thinks his conjuring mishap has turned Pugsley into a chimpanzee. Now the family awaits him to turn Pugsley back into a boy, unaware that Fester's explosion merely knocked Pugsley into a secret room, where he's trapped, and that the chimp is just a chimp (escaped from an organ grinder) whom Pugsley befriended outside anyone's notice and dressed in a duplicate set of his clothes.

The family decides to donate their most precious things to the local bazaar.

The city is planning to put a freeway through the Addams' neighborhood. In fact, the Addams' house is slated for demolition. Gomez and Morticia must find a solution, or else the house will be destroyed. Arthur J. Henson, city commissioner, visits to underscore the point: the Addams must move out. Unwilling to leave their precious home, Gomez and Morticia arrive at an idea: have the house moved to another location. Gomez buys the vacant lot next to Arthur Henson's home, and he pays to have their house moved there.

Uncle Fester confesses that he's exaggerated himself to his Illinois pen pal, Madelyn, especially about having a full head of hair - a mane to equal his bristling athleticism. For Madelyn's forthcoming visit, Morticia and Gomez have Uncle Fester outfitted with a hairpiece, but when Morticia learns that Madelyn has had five husbands, all now dead, she begins to worry for Uncle Fester's future happiness.

Morticia thinks marriage counseling would be the perfect career choice for Cousin Itt. To prove it to him, she and Gomez pretend to be a couple in trouble, but the pretense goes awry when she starts believing in parts of Gomez's fanciful play-acting. Now Morticia and Gomez really are a couple in trouble, and Itt won't do as a marriage councilor at all. Finally, a professional vocation advisor is called in to evaluate Itt, with an astonishing result.

Lurch inadvertently becomes a pop-music star with screaming fans mobbing him.

A magazine article by eminent psychologist Dr. Francois Chalon has Uncle Fester believing that the happiness of Morticia and Gomez' marriage masks seething emotions buried deep, so Fester makes it his duty, for family peace and harmony, to get them fighting so they can let off emotional steam and become a truly happy couple. He recruits others in the family to this end but winds up with little to show for it. Finally, Fester calls in Dr. Chalon himself, but the eminent doctor proves to be a modern day Casanova, bringing different problems into the Addams home by ...