Happy 100th Birthday to Mr. Charles (Chas) Addams!

I can remember as a kid flipping through the New Yorker Magazine and looking at the cartoons. There was one cartoonist that I loved more than all the others which was Chas Addams. There was just something quirky and fun about his cartoons. I didn’t get a lot of the jokes until I was older but the style always appealed to me.

I didn’t see the TV show until much later in my life and found out that the break in the cartoons from Mr. Addams was because the New Yorker didn’t want to help him promote the TV show. I enjoyed the show a lot. Peter and I agree that the Addams family is probably the most functional family depicted on television.

I heard that they were going to make a movie of the TV series. I was dubious about it until I heard the casting and then I was on board. It didn’t disappoint and I think Mr. Addams would have been happy with the film since you could take his drawings and superimpose them on pieces of the film.

I will admit that the moment that Peter and I heard they were doing an Addams Family musical we were so there. Especially when we heard who the leads were. We went to see it and were not disappointed. The puppets by Basil Twist were a bonus. We took Caroline who loved it and we listen to the soundtrack on long trips.

Charles Addams made it OK to laugh at the macabre. To look at something with a dark slant and find humor in it. His characters would shout Boo and then giggle about it.

Today’s Google Doodle here in the US is a tribute to Mr. Addams and his beloved characters. I think I am going to pull out my Charles Addams coffee table sized book of his art and give it a read and a serious giggle.

I am grateful for the body of Mr. Addams’ work