Halloween with the New Addams Family

As stated by others, this is not as well-crafted as the more recent movies, but this was a pilot attempt to revive the original series in 1977.

Nearly all the cast returned, and new young children (Wednesday Junior and Puglsey Junior) were also added. Unlike the sound stage original, this special was shot on video in a real house, with props added, including good ol' Thing.

But, like many other shows that made the black and white to color transformation, the Addams' gallows dark humor seems lost in a bright colorful world of early video tape. Still, hats off to the performance of the original cast especially John Astin, Caroline Jones, Jackie Coogan and Ted Cassidy.

After being off the air for so many years, it was nice to see ANY new Addams Family adventure. Their first (and only) appearance in color, unfortunately helped to show how old many of them had grown. Being shot on video and the low budget special effects (cousin Itt spoke 'garbled' dialog not his usual high speed reverse English) were disappointing, but it is a GREAT watch at Halloween. A moment to look for: In order for Carolyn Jones to be able to march up the staircase for the finale, it was necessary for her tight fitting dress to be slit up the back all the way up to her spine. Watch for John Astin's ear-to-ear grin as he stares at her butt while walking behind her & you'll see that this is a TRUE story!

Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977)

** (out of 4)

Gomez (John Astin), Morticia (Carolyn Jones), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) and various other members of the family return in this made- for-television special that has the weird family getting ready for a Halloween party. Along the way an outside tries to work himself into the family to try and so some spying on the various creepy things going on.

If you're a fan of the television series then you'll probably be slightly entertained by this special, which at least gets the majority of the original cast members back and in action. I personally thought this special was okay but there's certainly nothing classic here. It seems that this period was full of popular television shows getting feature length movies and this here is pretty much average for this type of thing.

I thought the best thing about this was Astin who has no problem fitting back into the role of Gomez. He's certainly very fun to watch and brings a lot of energy into the film. The supporting players are fun to watch as well but there's still no question that the screenplay is rather weak and there aren't nearly enough laughs to carry the picture.

The entire film seems like a bunch of skits and it just never really feels like a movie or even a television show for that matter. It certainly doesn't help that the laugh track is so annoying and often has laughter at the lamest of jokes. Still, fans of the original will enjoy seeing the cast members and that's probably enough for them to watch this.

During the 1970s and into the 80s, a ton of classic TV comedies were brought back through made for TV movies. What revivals of "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Leave it to Beaver", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Green Acres" and other programs have in common is that the reunion shows were painful to watch. Much of it is because you simply cannot recreate the magic and much of it is because the writing was so bad and much of it is because several of these revivals were ruined by dead cast members. For example, with the "Leave it to Beaver" special, Hugh Beaumont was dead so scenes with him were done by having June talk to Ward at his grave!! In the case of "The Beverly Hillbillies" too many old cast members were dead or refused to do the reunion...so they did it anyway!

So how does this "Addams Family" reunion stack up with the rest? Well, in some ways it's quite a bit better. The only missing cast member was Blossom Rock (Grandmama) and she was not a pivotal member of the cast. In addition, several very familiar old 60s TV guest stars (Parley Baer and Vito Scotti) were there as well. So at least in this sense the show achieved something...though the house set was gone and the Addams' new house just isn't the same. As far as the most important part goes, the show is only fair...at best. The writing and pacing of the show TRY to recreate the magic but cannot. The plot is only okay at best and the laugh track didn't work because the laughs and goofiness were just not there. Overall, mildly interesting for die-hard fans but like all the reunion shows I mentioned, it's still a mistake...albeit a better than usual mistake for the genre. A score of 4, while not good, is lightyears better than the "Green Acres" and "Beverly Hillbillies" reunions...and slightly better than the others I mentioned.

This low-budget, color video followup to the 1960s Addams Family series was a hardcore stinker. The original series, which in my opinion was never as clever as the original Charles Addams cartoons which inspired it, nevertheless had a certain charm and atmosphere that made a big impact on me as a kid. This special had none of that, and was little more than a chance to point the camera at the same group of actors (or at least the surviving ones). I mean, it ends with the family singing a Halloween carol! How lame is that? I had the good fortune to meet Charles Addams shortly before he died in 1988. While he was politely dismissive of the original series (he called it a kids' show, but not a bad one), he mentioned the reunion show as being singularly terrible. I agree.