So, I'm reading a book about the life of Charles Addams...best known as the New Yorker cartoonist who's twisted family of gouls became 1964's hit TV show "The Addams Family".
And while the biography fills in a lot of the background of this creative genius, the book also shares a number of examples and illustrations of his cartoons...both Addams Family and macabre. Most are one panel jokes, puns or droll humor.
But this week, I am struck by two that stand out.
One is taken from his 1967 book "Charles Addams' Mother Goose" illustrating the original verse, "Red Sky at night, Sailor's Delight; Red Sky at morning, Sailors take warning." At least, that's the one that I learned back in Boy Scouts. But Addams returned to the original wording, "Red sky at morning, sheppard take warning; Red Sky at night, sheppard's delight."
Addams drew the following picture, but the text describes something other than how we kids in 1967 read it. The author describes it as a threatening tornado, (which is why I mention it here this week, in the wake of the deadly OK tornados of the end of May) but to our eye, it was apparent as a nuclear blast. I am puzzled why the author could not see that and make the connect to a 1960s cold war threat.
The second image is one that immediately started bells ringing in my head, as I have seen at least TWO atlas pre-hero monster comic features or back-up strips that rely on the same or almost the same image and concept that Addams exploits. His cartoon below shows a wind up repairman working in a pannel of the largest computer you've ever seen.
But the story I recall from Tales to Astonish #44 ("Is this the END of Antman?") June 1963, features one of the final back-up features by Steve Ditko, "Fatal Mistake". I recall the plot vividly, even before I re-read it reprinted in the recent Atlast Masterworks #174. A man, displaced by the giant brain computer in the next room, is kept on solely to clean, dust and maintain the air-tight, air-conditioned environment for the machine. He takes vengence on the machine, busting out some circuits and tubes, but topples off his later, breaking his back or legs, leaving him crippled on the floor of the sealed room...which is controlled by the brain that he has just sabotaged.
A very similar twist was used in the earlier Tales of Suspense # 18 (June 1961) feature by Ditko, "Enter the Robot". A man, resentful of the robot which has outperformed him, takes vengence by ripping out some wiring, but after a cave-in, the robot programmed to save and rescue him in the case of a cave-in sits motionless...unless the man can find the right wire connections to restore him...he has doomed himself. (reprinted in Atlas Masterworks #98)
While I don't think any of these three concepts are unique, there's a repeating element that runs in all of them. I wonder if Chas. Addams ever got a look at either of Ditko's stories or if he dreamed his work up himself. About the same point in his biography, the author cities a famous cartoon "Whatever the Gods are, they aren't angry" as borrowing liberally from an earlier 1944 cartoon almost exactly the same and a later one that also is erriely the same. So, borrowing concepts is not unheard of.
What do you think?
Is there nothing new in comics and humor, or are we just all drawing on the same archetypes?
Replies
I am puzzled why the author could not see that and make the connect to a 1960s cold war threat.
I agree with you on that one. The shepherd going into a storm cellar to avoid a tornado isn't very funny; having a bomb shelter at hand as a nuclear mushroom cloud goes off is. More to the point, I think Addams could've drawn a better tornado if that was what he was going for.
As to the others, I think we're pretty far removed from the times, when robots and space age stuff were the rage. That computer isn't all that big compared to real ones of the time, which were monstrous. I remember them, but then I remember punching cards to run programs, too.
I'm sure there were far more intelligent robot/computer stories with ironic twists in them. The final one was a pretty standard twist ending for comics, it just involves a robot.
As to whether there's anything new, well, maybe not in the 6- to 8-page comics story. There's only so much room for complexity there. Humor is pretty much the same as it's always been, it just gets updated to the latest fashions and trends. There's more ironic and "meta" humor today, probably because we so easily share so much so quickly that it's hard to surprise anyone any more.
So the trick is not in the destination, it's in the journey. A super-hero dying any more isn't interesting; the only interesting part is how that loss affects everyone else, at least until the dead guy returns.
-- MSA
I think some themes are unavoidably repeated. Sometimes deliberately and sometimes not. The Addams Family tv show had a similar theme in many episodes: normal person gets freaked out by weird family. But there is almost always a new twist to put on it.
I think within shows, the basic premise gets repeated a lot with variations, especially those high-concept shows. The best ones create interesting characters and have them interact or respond to situations. That's why stuff like Modern Family, The Middle, Seinfeld and Friends did so well--describing a weekly plot doesn't sound like much.
The Addams Family relied on that outside person's shock of their everyday life for the humor a lot of times. They could have varied it much more, letting them go out into the world and away from their comfort zone, but they liked the comfort of the sight gags the wacky house could provide.
With short stories, I think there are fads that arise that are easy targets for comics stories that need to be told fast and often. Fighting back against machines was a big topic as automation became a bigger deal in the 1950s.
The Jimmy/Lois stories early on had the same problem of needing to get into a dilemma really fast to save enough room for hijinx and resolving it. So Jim kept allowing Professor Potter to experiment on him, Superman kept showing up with unknown alien souvenirs, and Lois kept doing anything and everything questionable for a "scoop."
It's amazing anyone read the Daily Planet, considering how many stories were fabricated for one reason or another, including pranks being played by the reporters to drum up circulation.
-- MSA
I never could understand what Superman saw in Lois, it seemed so much a Popeye/Olive Oil style of relationship.
With the Addams Family a lot of the key to that show was the cast and the set (I wanted to live in that house), but the guest stars who interacted with them really sold it too by their reactions. However I can think of any TV western that used a similar theme week after week, usually ending with a gun fight. Same with police shows. Even Kung Fu had a similar theme running through most of the episodes.
Most of the monster movies I saw from the 1950's had the same sort of style/structure. Them, Tarantula, Blob... unseen murderer, discovery, scientist... The only one that really broke that mold was Attack of the 50 foot woman.
I don't know if the success of all of these says that we just like familiar stuff or that the writers aren't trying hard enough.
I remember Bonanza having a recurring theme where Pa or one of the sons would meet the perfect woman only to have something derail the nuptials by the end of the show. They did vary what the "something" was, so that made it different. Pretty predictable, though.
The original Kung Fu show benefited by David Carradine's acting. The repeating theme seemed to be his kicking the hell out of racists and other bad guys. The interesting thing was that the in the Old West nobody had ever seen Asian martial arts, which gave him more of an advantage. When they made Kung Fu: The Next Generation, it had neither Carradine nor the surprise of martial arts. All the bad guys already knew what to expect.
The girl friend not living past the show was a common theme all over the place as I recall. If you saw Starsky or Hutch with a serious girl friend you knew she wouldn't make it past the middle of the show.
Kung Fu had some really good direction and it worked because David Carradine could really play naive at the time, he was wandering around a very strange land compared to the one he knew in China. The institutionalized racism and intolerance of the time was never down played. The two episodes that he did with his father were two of the best.
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
That was because those producers of all those shows didn't want to change the status quo by bringing in a romantic partner who would be around ... then they'd have to write stories about the courtship and romance, and such.
I was just talking about KUNG FU: THE NEXT GENERATION on Facebook earlier today! I'm surprised anyone else has seen it. It was a follow up to the previous year's KUNG FU movie (descibed in some places as "Kung Fu: The Movie", which it did not say onscreen) which teamed Carridine & Brandon Lee as that most 80's of cleches-- "the son he never knew he had". Though it ended with some plot threads unresolved, they never quite did a follow--up. The next year jumped to the present day and had David Darlow (who years later played Lucky Luciano in THE UNTOUCHABLES tv series in the early 90's) and, again, Brandon Lee. This was broadcast during the summer as part of a series of "unsold pilots". Just as well... it wasn't that bad, but wasn't that good either. A few years later, Carridine returned for a cameo in THE GAMBLER RETURNS: THE LUCK OF THE DRAW, the all-star cast "western crossover" 4-hour movie. Unlike his previous appearance, he was wearing his proper hat in this one, and so really looked right.
And then a couple years later, they did KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES, with Carridine, Chris Potter, Kim Chan ("The Ancient"), and for the first 2 years, Robert Lansing. I LOVE that show!!! For many years I figured it made KF:TNG non-canonical, but after watching that again, and seeing how many relatives there've been in the Caine family tree, I wonder. It's possible there are actually 2 different "Kwai Chang Caines" in the modern day, one on the west coast, and one in the midwest (well, that's where the un-named town in KF:TLC was said to be in at least one episode). Despite Carridine getting top billing, I've come to feel Chris Potter's "Peter Caine" is really the main character, and would love it if one of these years they got around to doing ANOTHER sequel, with him as the star.
Side note: I've just learned the young lady who is my college aged daughter's best friend is actually a descendant of Charles Adams. Apparently he is her great grandfather. Her family is related to an early wife.
What are the odds? I'm reading the Chas.Addams bio "A Cartoonist's Life" and "Charles Addams' World" right now.
Mark S. Ogilvie said: