Friday, January 23, 2009

The Addams Family.

Last month I bought Season One of The Addams Family. I remember watching this when I was young and it has held up very well. There were a couple of episodes I didn't care for but most were very funny. I think the show was a little head of its time. Some of the foods they ate are not quite as odd today. In one episode Gomez commented about not understanding how people wouldn't like octopus. Now you can order that in some restaurants. They were delightfully odd. Gomez loved to wreck his trains. Morticia would literally smoke. Uncle Fester was a human generator. There are commentary tracks with Ken Wetherwax (Puggsley), Lisa Loring (Wednesday), Felix Cilla (Cousin Itt), and Stephen Cox (author of The Addams Chronicles). One comment Lisa Loring made comparing The Addams and The Munsters, which was on during the same years as the Addams family, was the Munsters were more like the 3 Stooges and the Addams was like The Marx Brothers. It was pointed out one of the writers of the series had written for Groucho.

I had never seen the entire movies, so when I started watching this DVD I decided to watch them. I did not like them. The first movie, simply called The Addams Family, was not that good. They changed several things, Fester being Gomez's brother for one. That didn't bother me as much as the characterizations for the movie. Where the TV family was charmingly odd, the movie family was more mean spirited. IMDB rates the movie a 6.5, I gave it a 4. Then I tried to watch Addams Family Values. Note the word tried. I watched about half an hour and turned it off. I didn't find anything the least bit funny. Where I saw the first movie as mean spirited, here they were cruel. IMDB rating was 6.2, I gave it a 1.
My friend Travis answered yesterdays question and your spelling was right, Travis. The answer was the Tigris. Today's question is Grade 5 History.

Who led the first journey around the world?
A) Christopher Columbus
B) Ferdinand Magellan
C) Vasco da Gama

History is one of my strong suites. I got this one right and am now 14-5.

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