Cartoonist Charles Addams invented his famous family in 1935, when it debuted in the New Yorker magazine. The cartoon strip became a big hit and in the mid sixties, TV producer Dave Levy, backed by ABC, decided to give it a shot as a TV series.

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The creation of TV’s Addams family became a neck and neck race with CBS, who had missed out on the Addams and had commissioned their own creepy family, the Munsters. The Addams Family won by a TV whisker, airing its first episode on September 18, 1965, while the Munsters debuted a week later.

Getting the cast right was even more crucial than usual for a TV series like this to work. The whacky Addams needed to be played dead straight – after all, they thought they were the sane ones in an insane world.

John Astin was the perfect choice for Gomez Addams. With his wild popping eyes, insane grin and dapper moustache, his was a portrayal that wasn’t bettered until Raul Julia came along.

The choice for Morticia came right out of left field. Carolyn Jones was a beautiful actress, and a big movie star in the fifties. An Academy award nominee and Golden Globe winner, one of her best roles was as the tragic Ronnie in King Creole with Elvis Presley. Her career had gone into something of a decline during the sixties, and some of her fans were shocked to think such a high ranking movie star could stoop to a sitcom. But, fine actress that she was, she made the role indelibly her own, and showed her brilliant comedy timing.

Former child actor Jackie Coogan played Uncle Fester, a lady with the lovely name of Blossom Rock played Grandmama, and Ken Weatherwax and Lisa Loring played Pugsley and Wednesday. Unknown actor Ted Cassidy played Lurch. He also provided the hand for another regular character, Thing.

Later in the series, Jones also played Ophelia, Morticia’s sister, as a blonde ditz with flowers growing out of her head.

The ensemble proved perfect – all the actors worked together in a generous, team spirited way that lifted the show well above the ordinary.

But then, as viewers discovered, the Addams Family were well above the ordinary. The irony was that their attitudes and values, which had to be different to their neighbours to make them stand out, actually were the kind of attitudes and values people were coming to believe in more and more.

For a start, the Addams Family were absolutely color blind – as well as blind to any other differences of race, religion or creed. They welcomed everyone to their creaking door and asked only that their guests not mind sonorous banging gongs, creep butlers and the dragon under the stairs.

The TV series was meant to point out, in a hilarious way, how NOT to be the ideal sixties family. Instead, the Addams became a blueprint for future generations.

Gomez and Morticia were especially shocking – in a time when TV couples were still confined to single beds and a chaste kiss, these two were clearly sharing a bed and enjoying it. Gomez was meant to be a poster boy for horror husbands. Instead this work shirking (but rich) layabout was the ideal man – unfailingly courteous, passionate and supportive to his assertive wife – who was anything but the ideal TV spouse with her clingy gown, sexy wiggle and independent attitude.

The kids were way too smart for their schoolteachers – and encouraged to think for themselves, another idea somewhat ahead of its time.

Individuality and originality was prized in the Addams household far above getting on at work, impressing the neighbours and driving a late model car.

Alas, all of this was the show’s ultimate undoing in the eyes of TV execs. This was not the message the Addams were meant to convey.

The pilot episode set the tone. When the school truant officer discovers that Pugsley and Wednesday have never been to school, the wrath of the law comes down on the Addams. Gomez declares school to be a regimented prison for children, but eventually the kids are signed in.

Morticia keeps them home again when she discovers that they are being taught from Grimm’s Fairy tales, in which all witches and ogres painted as wicked and evil. The Addams demand the book is struck from the curriculum. The principal visits the house and is so terrified he agrees just to escape. Victory for the Addams – failure for the forces of conformity, that don’t have the courage of their convictions.

The challenge to conventional thinking was challenged head on in The Addams Family Meets a Beatnik. Rocky Cartwright is taken in by the Addams after he crashes his motorbike outside their home. They are naturally enchanted with his strange ways, unlike his father, who wants him to conform. When the Addams throw Rocky a surprise party, they invite the father, who realises that being `different’ is OK, and accepts that his son has to make his own decisions.

The last episode aired on September 2 1966, much to the chagrin of fans. But it still managed to beat its rival the Munsters by 24 hours, which shut up shop the day before.

The Addams Family, far more so than the Munsters, were simply ahead of their time. When the first Addams family movie was released in 1991, Raul Julia gave new life to the gallant, headstrong Gomez, and Angelica Huston recalled all that was wonderful about Morticia. More than ever, they seemed like a family with values more `normal’ people should emulate

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