Reviewed By Jason LockardThey're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They're all together ooky, The Addams Family. I grew up on old shows like Addams Family and Hanna Barbera cartoons. Sadly was wasn't born to long after these shows originally aired but I was able to see these via reruns. Well, in 1973 we got the best of both worlds, when Hanna Barbera produced a cartoon series The Addams Family.
Warner Archive has been releasing many of the Hanna Barbera classic cartoons on DVD. The Addams Family was one of these classics to get a Made-on-Demand release. Now anyone can add this release to their cartoon collection. Let's take a closer look at this series on DVD.
***=Worth a look.
**=An Ok way to spend some time.
*=You haven’t missed anything.
Disc One
1. The Addams Family in New York: The Addams Family buy the New York City's Central Park. They decide to help them clean it up, they free animals from the zoo, but the police come by. ***
2. Left in the Lurch: The Addams Family travel to Nashville in search of dinosaur bones, and Lurch is anxious about meeting his pen pal. The Addams family finds themselves at a Pop music festival where Lurch is onstage as the lead guitarist and singer for the group Freddie and the Frogs. ***
3. Boola Boola: The rare Boola-Boola is said can be found in the Black Lake.They decide to try to find the rare creature. ***
4. The Fastest Creepy Camper in the West: Petroleum shortage? Not while Fester is around. Uncle Fester's new invention — "Festerine" promises to put an end to all that, but Count Evil has plans as well. ***
Disc Two
5. The Mardi Gras Story: The Addams family join in on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but little do they know a couple of crooks are masquerading as Fester and Gomez. ***
6. Follow That Loaf of Bread: Thing finds himself in trouble when Morticia is baking Eerie Egg Bread and he falls into the mixture. ***
7. Aloha, Hoolamagoola: The Addams Family experience an exciting Hawaiian adventure in which they are mistaken for a Stone Age tribe: the lost Hoolamagoola. ***
8. The Reluctant Astronauts: The Addams Family wins a piece of land on the moon. Preparations arise for a visit to inspect their new possession, and their rocket blasts off with a little help from Uncle Fester. ***
Disc Three
9. The Great Balloon Race: During a balloon race Professor Orville Byrd's balloon is sabotaged during its entire route from New York City to Los Angeles. The Addams Family decides to help the imperiled professor. ***
10. Ghost Town: Ghosts are scaring everyone away from an Old Prospector's land. But they don't scare the Addams Family in fact the Addamses out spooking the spooks. ***
11. The Circus Story: The Addams Family visit a circus which they discover is "The Worst Show On Earth". They decide to help Honest John whose rival circus stealing its workers. ***
12. The Addams Family at Sea: The Addams Family take their first ocean voyage, but the sight of Ali the alligator and Ocho the octopus dancing has every passenger aboard spooked; so much so that they jump overboard.. ***
Disc Four
13. The Voodoo Story: Madame Hoodoo tries to frighten the Addams Family with curses and spells, but fail scare them. She decides to go back to Haiti for advanced voodoo lessons. ***
14. The Roller Derby Story: Wednesday Addams chooses to visit the Roller Derby for her birthday celebration, and the Addams Family are soon involved between the gang war between the Angels and the Demons. ***
15. The Addams Family Goes West: The Addams Family go West and find themselves outsmarting such characters as Wyatt Burp, Silly The Kid and Badmouth Ben. ***
16. The Addams Family at the Kentucky Derby: Pugsley wants a horse for his birthday. The Addams Family go to Kentucky to buy one. They choose a worn-out old nag named Bones, but Granny's cooking fixes Bones up so much that he might just win the Derby. ***
This series has all the charm of the Hanna Barbera classic cartoons with the creepy kookiness of the classic Addams family. Fester is still doing his crazy experiments, Gomez still giving away money like he is printing it. Grandmama still cooking off-the-wall recipes. It's the Addams Family you love in the original series just with that Hanna Barbera charm. And that simplistic animation is everything we love about Hanna Barbera.
As for the voice acting it was great to hear Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester) and Ted Cassidy (Lurch) reprise the original roles in voice. They are joined by Janet Waldo, famous for voicing of Judy Jetson, lending her voice to Morticia and Grandmama. Pugsley voice by the iconic actress Jodie Foster, Wednesday voiced by Cindy Henderson. All of these do a great job. The only off putting voice was Lenni Weinrib who voiced Gomez. Sadly instead of sounding like Gomez he sounded more like that of Jackie Gleason's character Reginald Van Gleason III.
As for this DVD release. Warner Archive decided not to squeeze too many episodes on one Disc. Major props to them for that. The DVD set is a 4 DVD collection. So with 16 episodes in this series that comes down to just 4 episodes on each disc giving us the best quality of for each cartoon. The episodes are presented in their original full-screen format and in 2.0 audio. These episodes look and sound absolutely dazzling.
So while this series is not the original. And while it has an issue with the voice of Gomez. All in all this is a very fun series, that I say still holds up to this day. In my opinion, Hanna Barbera cartoons are timeless and they never go out of style. And such is the case for this Addams Family DVD Set.
So if your a fan of Hanna Barbera and The Addams Family this is an absolute must-own collection. Head over to WarnerArchive.com or Amazon.com and get your copy of this 4 Disc DVD set. You won't regret it!
Offensive Material: Nothing
Audience: Families
Genre: Comedy, Cartoon
Length: 480 Minutes
DVD Value Rating: A
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