Great Old TV Episodes...from The Addams Family

 

LURCH LEARNS TO DANCE was from the first season of the two-year run of the ABC sitcom The Addams Family, first airing in December, 1964.  Lurch, played by Ted Cassidy, is the eccentric family's imposing butler, pictured above on the left of Gomez (John Astin) and Morticia (Carolyn Jones)...in other episodes his one line was "You rang?" after being summoned by the pull of a hangman's rope.  The show's general tone is like the concurrent family sitcom The Munsters, making light of the traditionally morbid and gruesome elements of our history and popular culture...like a TV version of that old funny single The Monster Mash.  Yet with both The Addams Family and The Munsters, they are engaged, loving families...with the latter the Frankenstein-monster-resembling Herman goes off to work while with the former Gomez is apparently independently wealthy, always staying at home like the father in the movie You Can't Take It With You. Each episode usually has someone from the outside encounter them at their house and get utterly freaked out over the surroundings and residents...this particular episode is no exception as Lurch, naturally shy, gets an invitation to the Butlers' Ball and admits to Gomez and Morticia that he doesn't know how to dance.  Concerned, they first arrange for a visiting dancing instructor and, when that doesn't work out, various family members try their hand at helping Lurch...to hilarious results.  Like all the other Addams Family episodes, there is a profound sense of sweetness in this household which otherwise embraces the grotesque...I found that very appealing.  When I was an 8-9-year old kid during the series' run, they actually sold Addams Family trading cards at the U-tote-M convenience store on Taft Street near my home...I collected these at the time along with Beatles and Outer Limits cards.  Besides Lurch, Gomez and Morticia, the family includes the children Pugsley and Wednesday, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, Thing (a disembodied hand that can go anywhere on the property), and later...Cousin Itt.  The unkempt, creepy-looking yard in front of their house has inspired me to engage in the rhythmic finger-snapping of their theme song whenever I'm out walking and pass by a really weedy place that appears abandoned or neglected.  Duh-duh-duh-DUH, snap-snap...