He’s Altogether Astin

ABC canceled “The Addams Family,” the sitcom based on popular Charles Addams’ cartoons, in 1966. But for John Astin, who played the wacky Addams’ patriarch, Gomez, it’s almost as if the show never went off the air.

“It has been on (in reruns) throughout most of the country,” Astin said. “Not a day has gone by that I have been out that someone hasn’t talked to me about the show.”

Astin, 61, is playing another delightfully spooky character on NBC’s offbeat fantasy-adventure series “Eerie, Indiana.” He joined the cast last week as Radford, the proprietor of the ultimate convenience store, the World of Stuff. Radford befriends 13-year-old Marshall Teller (Omri Katz) and his 10-year-old buddy Simon (Justin Shenkarow).

Radford, Astin said, is “strange, definitely eerie, but I am accessible to the boys. I am someone they can talk to. They may wonder about me, but they can, at least, have a conversation with me.”

Astin describes “Eerie, Indiana,” as a cross between “The Twilight Zone,” “The Wonder Years” and “Tom Sawyer.”

“One might say that the town is a metaphor for the world as seen through the eyes of a 10- and 13-year-old,” he said. “There is also a memory jog for anyone who watches the show. I am certainly not made nostalgic, but I recall the eerie sensations I had when I was growing up. It is not a sick or twisted show. I really feel privileged to be a part of it. I think it is a quality show.”

Astin has not seen the box-office smash movie version of “The Addams Family,” which stars Raul Julia as Gomez and Anjelica Huston as his wife, Morticia. “I am behind on my movie viewing,” he said. “I am really delighted at the reception it has been getting. It is not a surprise to me.”

The original series, he said, was funny. “It has sort of an ageless kind of humor because it is still funny. Very little of the show seems dated. I think the cast, myself excluded, was very talented.” The cast included Carolyn Jones as Morticia, Ted Cassidy as Lurch and Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester, all of them deceased.

“The Addams Family,” Astin said, was “a delightful collaboration” between executive producer and creator David Levy, writer-producer Nat Perrin and the cast.

Astin was involved in the series several months before Levy had a formal deal with ABC. “I had a great chance to make up a character,” he said. “There were very few specifics we were able to get from Charles Addams. I was determined to reproduce the spirit of the cartoons in this character. I always hoped that Charlie’s spirit, his motivation to do the cartoons, was close to my motivation for this character.”

Addams, he said, liked the series. “He was very happy with what we did. In fact, he wrote about it in a review of the show for TV Guide.”

Psychiatrists, Astin said, even analyzed “The Addams Family” when it originally aired from 1964 to ’66. “They wrote that this family was probably the healthiest family on the air. We had this strange exterior but underneath we were good people. We were respectful and loving of one another. They made the comment that Gomez and Morticia were the best adjusted married couple on television.”

“Eerie, Indiana” airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on NBC. Reruns of “The Addams Family” air weekdays at 4 p.m. on TBS, and weekdays at 5 and 11 p.m. and Saturdays from 3 to 4 p.m. on KCAL.