The Addams Family

In The Addams Family, these animated Addamses look and sound familiar — John Astin even does the voice of Gomez — but they completely lack the macabre charm of previous TV and movie versions. (In 1973, Hanna-Barbera produced a TV-cartoon Addams Family who were even more charmless than this.) In this new incarnation, the creepy family is drawn in bright colors, giving them an inappropriately perky look. Their spooky spirit is definitely missing; all that’s left is sadomasochistic sight gags and grossness worthy of the Garbage Pail Kids. For example, Fester blows his nose and says, ”I’ll save that for my collection.” Tune in to reruns of the original series or rent the movie on video instead. D+