Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Mango here and I have great news.
Speaker 1: My friends Dana Zarin and Jason, people I really love,
Speaker 1: are back with their show Very Special Episodes. There's a
Speaker 1: brand new season, and if you aren't familiar with the show,
Speaker 1: you need to get familiar because I'm a huge fan
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Speaker 1: actually the editor in chief of Mental Floss, the vgazine
Speaker 1: and I started, so I know him from forever ago.
Speaker 1: Dana used to write for us, and Zaren we worked
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. You're listening to part Time Genius, the production
Speaker 1: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess what gave? What's that mango? So?
Speaker 1: Cartoonist Charles Adams is best known for creating the endearingly
Speaker 1: morbid Adams Family, which I know you and I both
Speaker 1: know about. It kicked off a whole new genre of
Speaker 1: macabre humor in the US. But something I never realized
Speaker 1: before this week is that the Adams Family didn't appear
Speaker 1: that often in his work. In fact, out of the
Speaker 1: more than thirteen hundred comic strips that Adams published in
Speaker 1: his lifetime, only about one hundred and fifty of them
Speaker 1: featured his famous family.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty impressive restraint on his part. Like for
Speaker 2: a lot of creators, you know, it feels like once
Speaker 2: in idea hits like that, the impulse is to go
Speaker 2: back to the well, like over and over again to
Speaker 2: really milk it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, but in this case it probably helped
Speaker 1: the Adams never set out to create a big, enduring franchise, right, Like,
Speaker 1: most of his work ran in the New Yorker, and
Speaker 1: that meant it ran as like single panel strip, so
Speaker 1: it was like a newspaper comic that came out every
Speaker 1: day or every week. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there wasn't a dedicated Adams Family strip like Peanuts
Speaker 2: or Garfielder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or Hagar the Horrible shout out to Hagar Well.
Speaker 1: Adams was a regular contributor to The New Yorker for
Speaker 1: the first thirty years or so of his career, and
Speaker 1: the vast majority of his strips featured one off scenarios
Speaker 1: and characters. The Adams Family proved the exception to that rule,
Speaker 1: but their development did come out organically. Over the course
Speaker 1: of eight years. The family members were invented one by
Speaker 1: one based on the needs of each strip. So Martsha arrived,
Speaker 1: first appearing in a nineteen thirty eight cartoon that saw
Speaker 1: her as a mistress of a dirty old house. The
Speaker 1: family butler Lurch, stood by her side in the strip,
Speaker 1: sporting a beard for some reason, and they both looked
Speaker 1: puzzled and kind of annoyed at this door to door
Speaker 1: salesman who was trying to sell them a vacuum. Then
Speaker 1: in nineteen foury two, Mortitia was joined by her husband Gomez.
Speaker 1: His squat pig nosed appearance was actually based on New
Speaker 1: York's then Governor Thomas Dewey, which is kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: The couple's son Pugsley debuted the following year, he was
Speaker 1: first seen building a coffin and shop class and their daughter, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: arrived in nineteen forty four, and in her first strip,
Speaker 1: Wednesday complains to her mother that Pugsley is trying to
Speaker 1: poison her, and Mortitia says, well, don't come winding to me,
Speaker 1: go tell him You'll poison him right back. That's perfect
Speaker 1: A plus parenting for sure. Yeah. Well, how about Uncle Fester?
Speaker 1: When did he turn up? In true weird uncle style,
Speaker 1: He was the last to arrive. His appearance was in
Speaker 1: a wordless one panel strip that ran in The New
Speaker 1: Yorker in nineteen forty six. It shows an audience at
Speaker 1: the movies and every single person is either crying or
Speaker 1: on the verge of crying, except this one ghoulish, little
Speaker 1: bald guy who is just laughing hysterically. So basically me.
Speaker 2: Last week at the third Tron movie. Everyone around me
Speaker 2: was just checking their watch wondering why they came, and
Speaker 2: I'm just over.
Speaker 1: There lapping it up. So I was Uncle Fester. I
Speaker 1: guess maybe don't sound so proud when you say that,
Speaker 1: but seriously, that strip is a great example of what
Speaker 1: makes Charles Adams work so special. Even though the humor
Speaker 1: is morbid, it's a little off kilter. The strips are
Speaker 1: grounded in everyday experiences like resolving family disputes or going
Speaker 1: to the movies. And Adam's had a real talent for
Speaker 1: finding unexpected intersections between the bizarre and the mundane. And
Speaker 1: today we're celebrating all that spooky joy he brought the
Speaker 1: world by counting down nine of our favorite fact about
Speaker 1: his life and work. So snap twice for good luck
Speaker 1: and let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listener, as welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. I'm Monga's Articular and today I
Speaker 1: am joined by my fellow comics fan Gabe Luzier. Will
Speaker 1: need a little more time to work on his Halloween costumes,
Speaker 1: so Gabe is graciously filling in for him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: You said it's one of those two person horse costumes, right,
Speaker 2: that's what he's going with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, but I'm not sure his wife
Speaker 1: is going to participate, so he's got a monolize to
Speaker 1: figure it out. That's smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, making it a one person horse costume is gonna
Speaker 2: make it so much scarier.
Speaker 1: And over there in the booth, wearing a bald cap
Speaker 1: and clenching a light bulb in his teeth. That is
Speaker 1: our friend and super producer, Dylan Fagan. I'm guessing this
Speaker 1: has something to do with Uncle Festa, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's a trick that he does in the
Speaker 2: old TV show and actually in the movie from the
Speaker 2: early nineties too. He puts a bulb in his mouth
Speaker 2: and somehow lights it up with his own electricity. It
Speaker 2: doesn't work if you do it bulb first, though, so
Speaker 2: turn it around, Dylan, try that.
Speaker 1: Try that way. So it is late October, where in
Speaker 1: the heart of spooky season, and there's a new season
Speaker 1: of Wednesday streaming on Netflix. It feels like the perfect
Speaker 1: time to get into the Charles Adams spirit and get
Speaker 1: to know this creator a little better. So, Gabe, one
Speaker 1: of the things that's been funny for me is that,
Speaker 1: you know, these franchises that I thought would disappear still
Speaker 1: somehow are in existence. You know, Like my kids love Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and I vaguely, vaguely remember watching reruns of Adam's Family
Speaker 1: during the day as a kid. It used to come
Speaker 1: on when when I was sick at home, and and
Speaker 1: like either you could watch soap operas or kind of
Speaker 1: these TV shows that were on the cusp of black
Speaker 1: and white in color, you know, so like Gilligan's Island,
Speaker 1: Leave It to Beaver and Adam's Family, you know, things
Speaker 1: like that, And that's actually how I was exposed to
Speaker 1: some of those shows. What was your experience with Adam's Family.
Speaker 2: My first introduction was definitely the movies from the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: the ones with Christina Ricci is Wednesday and Christopher Lloyd
Speaker 2: is Uncle Fester. I watched those, you know, all the
Speaker 2: time as a kid, and I did watch some reruns
Speaker 2: I think on TV Land or something like that, of
Speaker 2: the old TV show Nick at Night. But somehow I
Speaker 2: never picked up at the show, you know that they
Speaker 2: were actually based on comic strips. I mean, you weren't
Speaker 2: reading The New Yorker as like a six year old. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to my eternal shame, I guess not. But you know,
Speaker 2: that's probably a good thing, because some of Adam's cartoons
Speaker 2: they would have seriously freaked me out as a little kid,
Speaker 2: Like He's got this one strip that's just a pair
Speaker 2: of unicorns standing on a rock in the middle of
Speaker 2: the ocean and they're like watching Noah's Arc drift over
Speaker 2: the horizon.
Speaker 1: It's so sad. I would have cried for days if
Speaker 1: I saw that as a kid. But you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: just get into your fact, because I know you've got one.
Speaker 1: I mean the early Peanuts strips right like are actually
Speaker 1: pretty dark too. Oh yeah, yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2: That's the very first strip is just a you know,
Speaker 2: two kids watching Charlie Brown walk by and they're like,
Speaker 2: good old Charlie Brown, How I hate him?
Speaker 1: So just like right off the bat, so much darker
Speaker 1: than you'd expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it hits harder in a medium like
Speaker 2: that because it's a little unexpected, right you think.
Speaker 1: About it completely, You think it's gonna be sweet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pulls the rail gua out from under you. But that, actually,
Speaker 2: you know, sets up my first fact pretty well, which
Speaker 2: is that the man behind these terrifying strips wasn't nearly
Speaker 2: as creepy or as kooky as his work might suggest.
Speaker 2: So people had assumed that Adam's home life was as
Speaker 2: strange as that of the family that bore his name,
Speaker 2: but by all accounts, he was a pretty down to
Speaker 2: earth guy. He had a normal upbringing in Westfield, New Jersey,
Speaker 2: as the only child of a piano salesman and he
Speaker 2: was well liked by his teachers and his classmates. In fact,
Speaker 2: Adams once told an interviewer quote, I know it would
Speaker 2: be more interesting, perhaps if I had a ghastly childhood
Speaker 2: chained to an iron beam and thrown a can of
Speaker 2: alpo every day. But I'm one of those strange people
Speaker 2: who actually had a happy childhood.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm obviously glad that his parents didn't making
Speaker 1: me dog food. But it is kind of disappointing, right
Speaker 1: You want like something dark to be inspiring him, or
Speaker 1: him to be like, you know, kind of more of
Speaker 1: a weirdo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And you know, I do have some good
Speaker 2: news on that front, because while there isn't any truth
Speaker 2: to the rumors that Charles Adams slept in a coffin
Speaker 2: or garnished his martinis with eyeballs, he did have.
Speaker 1: A few quirk so.
Speaker 2: As a child, he liked to explore local graveyards, where
Speaker 2: he tried to imagine what the people in the graves
Speaker 2: looked like and then you know, bring them back to
Speaker 2: life in his sketchbook. And as an adult he had
Speaker 2: a let's say, peculiar taste in home decor. He displayed
Speaker 2: his collection of antique crossbows over the living room sofa.
Speaker 2: His coffee table was a Civil War era embalming table,
Speaker 2: and he used the maybe creepiest of all, he used
Speaker 2: the salvaged tombstone of a child, Little Sarah, aged three,
Speaker 2: as a cocktail table.
Speaker 1: I mean that is so dark, but you know, I
Speaker 1: like how it plays to type, right, Yeah, absolutely kind
Speaker 1: of amazing. So my next fact is about Adam's early
Speaker 1: art career and his big break at The New Yorker.
Speaker 1: He had contributed cartoons to his high school newspaper, and
Speaker 1: by the time he graduated nineteen twenty nine, he knew
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a professional artist. For the next
Speaker 1: few years, he drifted through multiple colleges in search of
Speaker 1: a decent arts program, and he ended up at Grand
Speaker 1: Central School of Art in New York City. He was
Speaker 1: still a student when he sold his first cartoon to
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. It was an unsigned sketch of a
Speaker 1: window washer on the side of a tall building, and
Speaker 1: it ran in the February sixth, nineteen thirty two issue
Speaker 1: of The New Yorker. But while it did give him
Speaker 1: his first paycheck, it wasn't for that much. It was
Speaker 1: a whopping seven dollars and fifty cents.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that went a lot further back in those days, right,
Speaker 2: but still not enough to live on I wouldn't think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, not, especially like on a freelance basis. And
Speaker 1: that's why Adams decided to try a different kind of gig.
Speaker 1: Just a few months later, he started retouching these gory
Speaker 1: crime scene photos for True Detective magazine. So for the
Speaker 1: next few years he spent most of his days painting
Speaker 1: the bloodstains out of murder scenes. It sounds kind of creepy.
Speaker 1: It wasn't as glamorous as drawing for The New Yorker,
Speaker 1: but it did pay the bills, and it gave him
Speaker 1: a chance to hone that delicate ink wash technique that
Speaker 1: kind of becomes his signature style. Plus he was still
Speaker 1: able to draw cartoons in his free time, including five
Speaker 1: strips that he sold to The New Yorker in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three for about thirty dollars a piece, which was
Speaker 1: twice his weekly salary at True Detective. These bigger paydays
Speaker 1: soon allowed him to quit True Detective and focus on
Speaker 1: cartooning full time, and then in nineteen forty Adams drew
Speaker 1: his first breakout hit for The New Yorker. It was
Speaker 1: a strip called The Skier. You've probably seen this. It
Speaker 1: shows a downhill skier who's just left a single track
Speaker 1: on either side of a tree, suggesting that, you know,
Speaker 1: he somehow went through it rather than around it. And
Speaker 1: this baffling image that he'd created received more requests for
Speaker 1: reprints than any other cartoon that year, and that actually
Speaker 1: cemented adams Place as one of the magazines most popular
Speaker 1: and seemed to be highest paid contributors. But to his fans,
Speaker 1: he was Charles Adams. He was actually Chaz Adams, because
Speaker 1: that's how we signed his pieces.
Speaker 2: Chaz has got to be one of the coolest abbreviations
Speaker 2: for a common name. I think, like, remember Chucky's dad
Speaker 2: on Rugrats Chaz Finster.
Speaker 1: I do not, But if you say it's cool, I've
Speaker 1: gotta trust you. He was so cool.
Speaker 2: But okay, speaking of names, most of the Adams family
Speaker 2: didn't have any until the nineteen sixties. Before that, they
Speaker 2: were never billed as the Adams family or even given
Speaker 2: individual names, and that finally changed in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: when Adams was approached by a TV producer to adapt
Speaker 2: the strips into a live action show, it was a
Speaker 2: no brainer to use his own surname for the family,
Speaker 2: but coming up with first names for each of the
Speaker 2: members was a little bit tougher, so Adams worked with
Speaker 2: producers to find just the right monikers, with Mortsha and
Speaker 2: Fester being instant approvals, but he had a little harder
Speaker 2: time with the others. So Adams thought that the head
Speaker 2: of the family should be called Repelle rather than Gomez,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to name their son Pubert, before the
Speaker 2: siding at the last minute that that was a little
Speaker 2: too gross for television, and at which point he changed.
Speaker 1: It to Pugsley, which is still weird. But Pugsy is
Speaker 1: so much cuter than Pubert.
Speaker 2: Right, agreed, And you know, the really funny thing is
Speaker 2: the name did find a second life much later on
Speaker 2: when Mortitia and Gomez have a second son in the
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three movie Adam's Family Values, they decide to
Speaker 2: call him Pubert.
Speaker 1: So what about Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the few names that Charles
Speaker 2: Adams didn't come up with himself. It was chosen by
Speaker 2: a toy company that was making dolls to coincide with
Speaker 2: the launch of the show. They picked the name based
Speaker 2: on this old British nursery rhyme called Monday's Child, you
Speaker 2: know the one. Yeah, Monday's child is fair of face,
Speaker 2: Tuesday's child is.
Speaker 1: Full of grace.
Speaker 2: But when Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Speaker 1: That's so sad. I know what happened on Wednesday? I
Speaker 1: have no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the poem doesn't say. But here are two quick
Speaker 2: bonus facts for you about Wednesday. The first is that,
Speaker 2: according to the original show, her middle name is Friday,
Speaker 2: So kind of a scandal there, uh. And second, there's
Speaker 2: a nod to that old nursery rhyme in the Wednesday
Speaker 2: series on Netflix. The episode titles are puns that all
Speaker 2: include the word whoe, like woe is the loneliest number
Speaker 2: and you reap what you woe, So Wednesday's titles are
Speaker 2: also full of woe.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting because from what I've read, suggesting
Speaker 1: names was one of the few contributions that Charles Adams
Speaker 1: actually made to that original TV show, or really to
Speaker 1: any adaptation of his work. He was pretty hands off otherwise,
Speaker 1: but you can still find his influence here and there.
Speaker 1: And after we take a quick break, we'll tell you
Speaker 1: more about that, including how young Charles developed a taste
Speaker 1: for spooky mannss, and of course, the story of that
Speaker 1: famous theme song, Don't Go Anywhere. Welcome back to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius, where we're celebrating Halloween by counting down nine
Speaker 1: facts about Charles Adams. If you're enjoying the show, be
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe and leave us a nice rating and review.
Speaker 1: You can also share this episode with a member of
Speaker 1: your own spooky family. I'm sure you have a cousin
Speaker 1: it who's dying to hear from you. But we have
Speaker 1: talked a bit about the Adams characters, but now I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about the eerie house they called home.
Speaker 1: So as a child, Charles Adams had briefly considered becoming
Speaker 1: an architect because he was fascinated by this Rundown Victorian
Speaker 1: house in his neighborhood. I think his neighborhood was actually
Speaker 1: full of these houses, and in fact, when he was eight,
Speaker 1: Adams was caught passing it one of the houses down
Speaker 1: the street. And he later told People magazine that when
Speaker 1: it came time to design the Adams family abode, he
Speaker 1: based it on that very house. His friend and the
Speaker 1: fellow writer, Wilfrid shed remarked that quote, it's nice to
Speaker 1: think of the eight year old Charlie Adams solemnly inspecting
Speaker 1: the house for its future tenants, which is so yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the perfect blend of creepy and sweet.
Speaker 1: Very very creepy. And the house used for the Adams
Speaker 1: Family TV shows stuck close to that design as well,
Speaker 1: except that there was one notable exception. The walls were pink. Luckily,
Speaker 1: the show's viewers were none the wiser because even though
Speaker 1: the transition to full color TV had begun when the
Speaker 1: show premiered in nineteen sixty four, it was filmed in
Speaker 1: black and white to match that gothic gray scale of
Speaker 1: the original comics.
Speaker 2: Okay, definitely the right call. But while we're on the
Speaker 2: subject of details pulled straight from the comics, I want
Speaker 2: to mention the Adams Family move from nineteen ninety one now. Sadly,
Speaker 2: Charles Adams never got to see the film himself because
Speaker 2: he died three years before it was released, but his
Speaker 2: influence can be felt from the very first scene, and
Speaker 2: that's because it was lifted directly from one of his strips.
Speaker 2: So if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about Christmas carollers are singing on the family's front porch,
Speaker 2: and the camera pans up to reveal the Adams clan
Speaker 2: standing on the roof, preparing to dump a cauldron of
Speaker 2: boiling oil on.
Speaker 1: Those Yeah, I remember that in So Dark.
Speaker 2: I know it is a very dark start to a film,
Speaker 2: you know, marketed to children, but it was also an
Speaker 2: homage to one of Adams's most famous cartoons. The uncaptioned
Speaker 2: strip showed the exact same scene, and it first ran
Speaker 2: in The New Yorker back in nineteen forty six, and
Speaker 2: readers liked it so much that the magazine actually released
Speaker 2: the image on Christmas cards.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is so wild that a joke that
Speaker 1: dark could go mainstream, especially like you're about the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties and for a Christmas card, people must have been
Speaker 1: really fed off with krolers coming to their doorsteps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, But that's not the film's only strip
Speaker 2: to screen. Example, in another scene, Wednesday and Pugsley are
Speaker 2: shown decapitating dolls with a miniature guillotine, and that's a
Speaker 2: gag repeated from a nineteen forties New Yorker strip. There's
Speaker 2: another scene where Gomez is playing with a model train
Speaker 2: set and we see a tiny commuter inside looking out
Speaker 2: the window at him. That's borrowed directly from a nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty four strip. Lastly, in the film's final scene, Mortisia
Speaker 2: reveals that she's pregnant with Pubert, and she does this
Speaker 2: by showing Gomez a freshly knitted onesie with three legs,
Speaker 2: And that's actually a callback to a nineteen fifty cartoon,
Speaker 2: with the only difference being that the sweater in the
Speaker 2: comic has four legs. Of course, all of that's a
Speaker 2: red herring because when Pubert shows up in the next movie,
Speaker 2: he has only two legs, but he does have a
Speaker 2: pencil mustache just like his dad, and that's arguably even creepier.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like baby facial hair is always unnerving,
Speaker 1: especially when it's like fully styled and groomed. Yeah, fully styled.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned earlier that Mortitia was one of the
Speaker 1: first Adams family members to appear in Prince. She was
Speaker 1: the first and fact way back in nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: And I think the reason he drew her first is
Speaker 1: that Martitia was actually his dream girl.
Speaker 2: You mean, he based the character on someone he.
Speaker 1: Knew that's the thing. Adams married three different women in
Speaker 1: his lifetime, and all of them resembled Martitia. They were
Speaker 1: tall and skinny, with dark hair and pale skin. He
Speaker 1: definitely had a type. His final wedding even took place
Speaker 1: in a pet cemetery, with both the groom and the
Speaker 1: bride dressed in all black. But the really interesting part
Speaker 1: is that he had been drawing early versions of the
Speaker 1: character a full decade before his first marriage.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so it's more like he based his why
Speaker 2: on more Titia then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he actually was not shy about this. He
Speaker 1: once told People magazine quote, I married women who looked
Speaker 1: like Martitia. She is my ideal. So even though Adams
Speaker 1: also said he related more to Uncle Fester than the Gomez,
Speaker 1: they definitely had the same taste in women. Another thing
Speaker 1: I just learned this week is that it was actually
Speaker 1: actor John Aston's idea to make Gomez and over the
Speaker 1: top romantic. It's one of the sweetest parts of the show,
Speaker 1: I think, for this family. And after being cast in
Speaker 1: the role for the nineteen sixty four TV show, he
Speaker 1: reportedly told producers that quote, their romance should be unceasing
Speaker 1: and the slightest look or keyword should send Gomez into raptures.
Speaker 1: And this character beat worked so well that it's actually
Speaker 1: been carried forward in every incarnation of the family ever since.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, looking back, that feels like a
Speaker 2: pretty progressive move for the time, Like early TV shows
Speaker 2: were notoriously prudish about that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I know, read couples.
Speaker 2: You know, they were shown sleeping in separate beds pretty
Speaker 2: often until the mid nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if it's because they were so creepy
Speaker 1: and so other that they were allowed to get away
Speaker 1: with that romance factor too.
Speaker 2: You know, that's kind of sad between spouses only if
Speaker 2: you're really weird.
Speaker 1: This is a random bonus fact. But that's not the
Speaker 1: only thing that Adams Family was head of the curve on.
Speaker 1: They were also the first TV family to have a
Speaker 1: home computer, which I only learned in this research. But
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixty five episode of The Adams Family Splurges,
Speaker 1: viewers were introduced to Wizzo, a clunky home computer built
Speaker 1: by Gomez and Pugsley. It was portrayed by a real
Speaker 1: life UNIVAC or Universal Automatic computer, and the family used
Speaker 1: it to predict the horse race winners as a way
Speaker 1: to pad their vacation budgets.
Speaker 2: It is still the best use of a home computer
Speaker 2: by bar It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: I know that Adam West Batman show that debuted in
Speaker 2: sixty six, so that means that Adams computer beat the
Speaker 2: bat computer by like a full year.
Speaker 1: Not bad, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, the sad thing to me is that despite the
Speaker 2: show's merits and milestones, Charles Adams wasn't a fan of it.
Speaker 2: He famously complained that the family members were quote about
Speaker 2: half his evil is his originals, and if you compare
Speaker 2: them yourself, it's hard to argue with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, using a computer named Wizzo to predict
Speaker 1: horse races is definitely more silly than evil, right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't have quite the same bite as dumping
Speaker 2: hot oil on Christmas carollers. But it's maybe no surprise
Speaker 2: then that the show only lasted two seasons and was
Speaker 2: never a huge ratings hit, though it did have a
Speaker 2: successful afterlife and reruns and helped introduce the family to
Speaker 2: a much wider audience. Also, despite being watered down for television,
Speaker 2: there was one thing that Adams liked about the adaptation,
Speaker 2: and that of course, was the theme song. The tune
Speaker 2: was written and arranged by film composer Victor Mizzi, who
Speaker 2: also went on to write the theme for Green Acres,
Speaker 2: so really a bit of a departure there. And the
Speaker 2: song Spooky Melody was created with only harpsichord percussion and
Speaker 2: some well placed finger snapping. Missy even sang the theme
Speaker 2: song himself and then over dubbed it three times to
Speaker 2: make it sound.
Speaker 1: Like multiple people. And while you might assume he did that.
Speaker 2: For eerie effect, it was actually a cost saving measure
Speaker 2: because the production studio refused to pay for backup singers.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really interesting, And since that is the only
Speaker 1: thing that Adams liked about the show, let's play a
Speaker 1: little bit in his honor right now. Mysterious and spooky.
Speaker 1: They're all together, the ad family. The house is a
Speaker 1: muse yep when they come to see yup really arms Breham.
Speaker 1: The Adams family. That is obviously going to be stuck
Speaker 1: in my head all day, and I do not mind.
Speaker 1: But all right, since you brought up the backlash to
Speaker 1: the old TV show, I do want to close out
Speaker 1: by talking about the most brutal setback and comeback that
Speaker 1: Charles Adams faced in his career, so you might imagine
Speaker 1: that having his comic strip adapted for primetime television would
Speaker 1: improve Adam's standing at The New Yorker, but it actually
Speaker 1: did just the opposite. During the show's brief run, the
Speaker 1: Adams Family disappeared from the magazine's pages, and that's because
Speaker 1: it's new editor, William Sewan, thought the strip had grown
Speaker 1: too commercial for the New Yorker brand, and not only
Speaker 1: did Sean ban Adam's most popular characters, he also turned
Speaker 1: away many of the artists' other strips, believing that jokes
Speaker 1: about death were in bad taste.
Speaker 2: What about when the show went off the air, was
Speaker 2: the band lifted weirdly?
Speaker 1: Sean considered the damage done, so the moratorium continued all
Speaker 1: the way until his retirement in nineteen eighty seven. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, Adams kept the family alive through advertising and
Speaker 1: by occasionally sneaking them into his other cartoons. And while
Speaker 1: he never burned bridges with The New Yorker during the
Speaker 1: Shawn years, according to those close to him, he never
Speaker 1: fully forgave them for disowning the family after such a
Speaker 1: strong start together.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's rough, all right, Mango I think I'm ready
Speaker 2: for the comeback part now. So how'd Adams get his revenge?
Speaker 2: And did it involve boiling oil?
Speaker 1: No? Definitely, no oil. And I'd say it was more
Speaker 1: like vindication than vengeance. So after Sean stepped down, Robert
Speaker 1: Gottlieb took over as editor, and he was much more
Speaker 1: receptive to Adam's graveyard sense of humor. Gottlieb welcomed the
Speaker 1: Adams family back with open arms, and for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life, Charles got to draw whatever he wanted
Speaker 1: for The New Yorker, just like in the old days.
Speaker 1: But this is the creator of the Adams Family we're
Speaker 1: talking about, So of course the story ends with a
Speaker 1: bittersweet twist, and here it is the reunion that Adams
Speaker 1: had waited more than two decades for lasted only about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. He died in September of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight at the age of seventy six, after
Speaker 1: suffering a heart attack.
Speaker 2: All right, bear with me, but is it weird to
Speaker 2: say I wish he had been strangled by an octopus instead.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be insensitive. It just feels like
Speaker 2: he deserved a weirder death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure he'd appreciate that. But if it's any causolation,
Speaker 1: his ashes were interred in that pet cemetery that I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the one where he married his third wife. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that is pretty weird definitely. And speaking of his last wife,
Speaker 1: her name was Tea, and she offered one last punchline
Speaker 1: as a parting gift to Adams. He was a lifelong
Speaker 1: fan of auto racing and was found dead behind the
Speaker 1: wheel of his parked car, So Tea told a press
Speaker 1: He's always been a car buff, so it was a
Speaker 1: nice way to go.
Speaker 2: Wow, that really does sound like a caption for one
Speaker 2: of his cartoons, like someone just seeing someone dead at
Speaker 2: the wheel and being like, well, he.
Speaker 1: Would have liked that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think maybe a fitting death after all.
Speaker 2: And because you took us out on that perfect sour
Speaker 2: note for a Halloween episode, I think you deserve today's trophy, Mango.
Speaker 2: Just be careful not to spill it, okay, because it
Speaker 2: is full of boiling oil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course it is. Well, that is going to
Speaker 1: do it for today's episode. If you have a spooky
Speaker 1: story you want to share with us, we are all ears.
Speaker 1: Give us a call at three o two four oh
Speaker 1: five five nine two five. That is the part Time
Speaker 1: Genius hotline that we have set up again. That's three
Speaker 1: oh two, four oh five five nine two five. You
Speaker 1: can also drop us a line at high Geniuses at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week with another brand new
Speaker 1: episode and in the meantime from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Speaker 1: and myself, thank you so much for listening, and Happy Halloween.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongage
Speaker 1: Heartikler and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shoring.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.