Today is actor John Astin’s 80th birthday. Astin is probably best known for his hilarious portrayal of the eccentric Gomez Addams, head of the comically macabre Addams Family. The Addams Family was created by cartoonist Charles Addams with whom I share the same date of birth although not the same year (I only think like a 98 year old). Addams started drawing cartoons for the famed “New Yorker” magazine in 1932. The first Addams Family characters appeared in 1938 and continued to grace the pages of “The New Yorker” right up until Addam’s death in 1988. “The Addams Family” television show debuted in 1964 and ran for two seasons until the spring of 1966. Thanks to the more ambitious production schedules of 1960s TV, there are 64 total episodes that happily exist on DVD today. The show, which co-starred Carolyn Jones as Morticia and Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester, remains in my memory primarily because of John Astin. He was brilliantly mad in the role and, of course, by “mad” I don’t mean angry. I mean “mad” as in nuts, crazy, bonkers, and brilliantly funny. Of course, the best thing about Gomez is that he really wasn’t crazy. We’re given hints that in many ways, he’s quite brilliant. He and his clan are just, well, . . . different. They don’t view things the way you and I might but they’re actually a quite tight-knit, loyal and loving family.
The other vivid memory I have of Astin is from another wonderful sitcom that appeared on TV twenty years after “The Addams Family.” The show was “Night Court” starring Harry Anderson as Judge Harry Stone. It was a workplace ensemble show in the great tradition of “Barney Miller.” Astin appeared in ten episodes of “Night Court” throughout its nine year run as Buddy Ryan, a man who met and married Harry’s mom while they were in a mental hospital. Buddy, then, is essentially Harry’s step-dad and he becomes the closest, most loving family member Harry’s ever had. Buddy is also an “eccentric” character but in a much different style than Gomez Addams. Buddy is painted with more pathos dues to his circumstances and his relationship to Judge Stone. Even so, whether Buddy’s flashing that toothy grin and assuring us that “he’s much better now” or whether he’s admirably trying to be the father Harry never had, he hits the mark every time.
I have the first two seasons of “Night Court” on DVD and I could watch that today but I have another Astin vehicle that I think is perfect to celebrate the madcap talents of John Astin and that’s an old television movie called “Evil Roy Slade.” It’s a silly romp written by Garry Marshall and JerryBelson in the tradition of “Airplane” although it precedes “Airplane” by about eight years. Some parts are just plain dopey and some are just plain hilarious. In addition to John Astin, the cast includes four of the principals from one of my all-time favorite movies, “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” – Mickey Rooney, Milton Berle, Edie Adams, and Dick Shawn.
So whether you celebrate it by doing a back flip, speaking French with your Mrs., or just watching some of John Astin’s work, just remember at some point to thank Gomez, Buddy, Evil Roy and all rest of Astin’s characters for all the laughter they’ve provided over a 50 year career in show biz!
3 comments ↓
Dear Mr. Bruno,
May one assume your “long Easter Weekend break,” as you characterize it, has allowed you sufficiently to recover from the obvious stresses and tribulations that seem to be taking their toll on the resident blogger at OttoBruno.org?
Regarding your tribute to the estimable Mr. John Astin:
I am prepared to overlook your capricious and indiscriminate use of quotation marks where italics are called for. I am even willing to allow you the unfathomable insertion of an apostrophe in the (non-possessive) word “Addams”, as if the name of the artist or the family were Addam.
[Unfortunately, the limitations of this little “reply box” force me to commit improprieties of punctuation (cf. my use of the "chevron"-like device, below) and text-formatting that you, constrained by no such limitations, are at liberty to avoid, but which you nevertheless so blithely insist upon committing.]
But when you write of “Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fenster,” the blood of this normally-even-tempered woman reaches its boiling point.
Not only do you demean Mr. Coogan by misidentifying the character he played so well. I speak, of course, of Uncle FESTER. (Perhaps as you typed “Fenster” you were drowsily contemplating the surname of the Addamses’ exact television contemporaries, the Munsters.)
But in so doing, you also give the brush-off to the gifted Marty Ingels, who brought the character of Arch Fenster so brilliantly to life in the late, lamented «I’m Dickens…He’s Fenster» television program.
And, of course, the result of your having slighted Mr. Ingels and «I’m Dickens…He’s Fenster» is ironic to the nth degree, as «I’m Dickens…He’s Fenster» is the series that, as you very well know, first brought the comic gifts of Mr. John Astin to a sizable public.
I won’t go so far as to accuse you of a personal vendetta against Mr. Ingels and/or Mr. Leonard Stern, the program’s creator. I trust your fecklessness is merely the result of your justifiable enthusiasm for the work of Mr. Astin, and your understandable exhaustion resulting from such demanding activities as “cooking, cleaning, […] and overeating.”
Ciao,
Gia Pierini
Dear Ms. Pierini:
I applaud, agree with, and appreciate your pointing out any grammatical errors on my part. I admit that when I find such errors in magazines and newspapers it bothers me as well. I freely admit I am not a grammarian. My emphasis is on content. Nevertheless, I consider that to be constructive criticism and for that, I thank you. As for your opinion as to where italics and quotation marks belong, I am working under the impression that such choices are sometimes a subjective choice of style. There are a variety of different style manuals, as you well know, including “The Chicago Manual of Style,” “The MLA Style Manual,” “The ALA Style Guide,” etc. The publication in Chicago for which I write a monthly article requires us to use quotation marks for titles of things like books and movies, so that’s how/why you saw that usage seep into my blog. I apologize if it offends your grammatical sensibilities.
As for your outrage at my typo of Fenster instead of Fester, I agree it was a mistake which might have caused undo confusion on the part of knowledgeable TV aficionados like yourself. For that I apologize and have corrected the error. However, to assume it was some sort of deliberate or even unconscious character assassination pointed towards Mr. Coogan, Mr. Ingels, Mr. Stern, or any of the other talented people involved in the production of the shows mentioned and unmentioned, is grossly unfair and just plain ridiculous.
I’m also sorry that you don’t think of cooking or cleaning as work or that you don’t have enough of a sense of humor to understand the overeating comment from a fellow Italian after an Easter Sunday meal. Perhaps you would have been more understanding if I mentioned the two other part-time jobs I have while also looking for a full-time job as I was “downsized” two months ago from my job of 11 years thereby finding myself out of work for the first time in 29 years. I suppose if I wanted to milk it, I could have said that I also drive my three kids around to their baseball practices/games, track practices/games, Lego club, chess club, and Girl Scouts. Of course, I didn’t mention all those things because I know that every other parent in the world does the same thing and there are also millions of other Americans out there looking for work. Therefore, instead of writing some serious sob story, I went for a bit of humor. Humor that was sadly, lost on you.
As for me directing my readers to the “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster” website, I’m sure I would have been more than happy to do so if the request has been composed differently. However, as my mother always told me, “You can attract more bees with honey than vinegar.”
Many thanks for your patronage of my site!
Dear Bruno,
You handled Ms. Pierini’s un-warrented comments well.
She obviously does not have a sense of fun or humor, unless of course her entire missive was in fun?
Happy B-day to John Astin. I worked in Disney World when he toured it in the 80′s and when he realized we all knew who he was he gave us a big smile and wave.
Love him! Love the Addams Family.
Lisa
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