Charles Addams was a compelling figure. He visited cemeteries for fun, he raced cars, he collected crossbows. But Addams surprised a lot of people in not being a an elusive proto-goth. He was a dapper, sociable, irreverent delight.
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welcome to stuff. You missed in history class from Housetop works, tat, come hello, unwelcome upon Canst, I'm hungry fry and I'm crazy. The wealth it to his ear have to ask you a question right out of the gate and putting on the spot. Ok the
Adams, family or the monsters
now, when I was a kid, I loved the atoms family? Most and I thought the monsters were a weird knock off: that's not accurate,
oh, but I but that's valid to think that
will probably shock you. By saying when I was a kid, I liked the monsters more really I did it was not until I got older than I chemist switched it over, and I think I realized trying to figure out why that was, and I think that with us and
aspirational Gould, where I could never be like the long willowy mortician
but I could probably pull off a lily share like VON Der Carlo with their little white stripes and her hair and choose shorter, and she had that
fabulous Ruth dress and the bat Nicholas, and so I think that was what it was, but I like them both
yeah. I love them both, but today
We are going to talk about Charles Adams, who was the creator of the atoms family as
for too long before it was ever a tv series or films etc.
Charles Adams, was by all accounts. They really compelling figure. He visited cemetery
for fun, and he was a car enthusiast and he raced cars as an amateur and he collected and shot crossbows and Alfred Kitchen
once, just showed up on its doorstep, with no advance warning hoping to meet him and saying when Charles Adams opened the door, I've just
see you in your natural bailiwick, but Adams very
likely surprise the filmmaker, because he surprised a lot of people who thought they could into it
the creator of the kinds of cartoons he made would be like because he was not an elusive sort of prayer
gas at all. He was in fact, very dapper and so
trouble. Any was irreverent, but by all accounts, completely delightful to be
round and there is so much a great stuff to his story that this is a two partner, so we had
about all of his good and bad qualities, and also, I will just say that, after doing all this research
build a time machine. My answer might have changed again because I just wanna go by.
Can maybe have cocktails with Charles Adams with it
I wish you would be just a super fun guy to hang out with. I also feel like this is an interesting, not exactly counterpoint, but that's the word that I can think of to last halloweens
we'd gory episode, yeah they in terms of them both having sort of them a com.
fascination in their work and having very distinctive personalities. In its end.
Staying it. It doesn't come up in either of these episodes, but a natural
people would ask him a little bit about goree
and other artists as well cartoonists in, and he always felt that
and I'm paraphrasing based on stuff that I read that to him. He was just
to Charles atoms. He just thought he was funny. He didn't really see himself
necessarily assembly, my car, but all or is he really thought that
gory had this insight into the lake, the darker side of humanity- and he was like I struck funny stuff.
We're just kind of interesting because
lot of his stuff, at least
the time it was very dark. Nowadays, it's probably continue pretty mild by comparison, but it
sort of a wonderful, an unexpected,
nature of how it look
lead the world in humanity and that some people often found a little bit dark or a lot dark. So us
The beginning, as we usually do, Charles Samuel Adams was born in Westfield, New Jersey on January seventh, one thousand nine hundred and twelve his father, Charles Huey Adams, had studied to be an architect but then ended up working at a piano company. He worked his way up for
salesman to an executive and he really travelled a lot. The young child,
his mother was Grace M spear atoms and he went by them
Charlie by all accounts. He was a berry
jolly baby and the atoms has had this blue,
child a little late, considering the time graces,
her thirties, when he was born, and they really just treasured him
There is a great story in in the biography that I read of him that she initially was very nervous and she bought a baby book and was doing, and she eventually just threw it out. Issues like I just I just love this kid and we're just going to raise way. That way be the guiding principle here.
also really fascinated as a kid by some of the old rundown victorian homes in their neighbourhood and when he was
Charlie in a number of other boys broke into one that was under renovation and eight groups
It is on the walls and they caused all kinds of other mischief. They messed with the sum of the the
and reasons that the construction workers had left behind, and this got them
little bit of trouble with the local police, Adam
like to tell people that he got arrested at the age of eight for trespassing and vandalism, but there
actually, no arrest, the kids
instead rounded up and they were taken to the court,
and Mister Adams, Charlie's father paid for the damage
the boys had done like an episode of the
De Griffiths. Will a lot of his life sounds like that growing up. He always stressed when a normal sort of wholesome happy boyhood, he had
later on, as a young man, he really did get arrested, though he was arrested on. He removed the tank top part of his swimsuit at the beach after having
a photo of italian men who were wearing their swimsuits with just the short time,
as for emulating, fascism, he
got a little bit of legal trouble,
did remain fascinated
With victorian homes after his child had even but
during his childhood, he liked to wander the streets of
town where there were a lot of them, and you would imagine the secrets of the people who live there and thought about the sinister possibilities.
things in their lives. They might be hiding, but here
family. Like I say it was pretty happy
even pretty ordinary. His parents were dead,
did to one another.
Sometimes joke that he was strange because he didn't have an unhappy childhood. He was a much
love child in here
also really loved his parents- the
We think that seem to darken this picture of perfection and happiness was that his mother would get lonely when his father travelled for work long past that home break in Charles continued to be a prank stir,
He liked to use the dumb waiter in the family home to sneak into his grandmothers ruminant jump out and scare her something that he admitted doing,
the same eternal grandmother Emma Louise Tufts Spear would go on to ensue.
I or the grandma character in his famous work as an adult, and it was through her that Charley was
waited to not only the Tufts family, but also very distantly to John Adams. Yes,
that's the other side of the family, not the Adams, from whence his name comes, which is a to g situation as in it has two days in. It
yeah. So he had a pretty illustrious family
of connections on his mother's side. He also would say that
in the inspiring
grandmother later on in Adams, namely that was his grandmother like when she first woke up in the morning and hadn't combed her hair. She was not always dishevelled but
as a kid. There were also some clues that Turkey was really in tune with the Mc Cobb.
In addition to thinking about those secret lives of the people in the houses around him, he adored
things like skeletons in coffins and even iron maidens at one point
he said. He really believed that if he had told his parents he wanted an iron maiden. They probably would have bought one for him, but some of his
Summation with such things actually came from his fear of them. He was actually pretty claustrophobic. He
about is a kid in his diary and he was afraid of snakes, but instead
trying to avoid those things he confronted them and he drew his fears to deal with that. One of the things that comes up over and over when you read about his house as an adult, isn't he had
kinds of snake are events, so he clearly really embraced that fake ya
They really loved r P started drawing of a kid, and his parents encouraged him in it. Even when Charlie
Don't very young younger than seven. He was drawing pictures of world where one as it took place,
was imagining the seems that he heard about a news reports and he also
to draw out of pictures of Keyser Wilhelm, the second being killed in all kinds of ways. He was hanged.
Run over by a car on and on you used
drew everything he heard
true and unique callin so much so that at one point grace brought some
his drawings to Hd Webster at the New York Herald and said. Look at my child
Transcript generated on 2020-10-17.