The Humor in ‘Addams Family’ Is Killer

In “Addams Family Values,” a new baby (Pubert) wreaks havoc on the already goofy household of Morticia and Gomez Addams, who hire a murderous nanny (Debbie) and send their jealous older children to summer camp. (Rated PG-13.)

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What can you say about a movie that starts off with the burial of a live cat and ends with a hand reaching out from a grave?

“I think it was absolutely great,” said 8-year-old Brittany Hoagland.

Several children said the most memorable scenes involved Debbie’s fruitless attempts to knock off Fester, Gomez’s well-to-do and naive brother, after wooing and marrying him.

“I liked when she left the bomb with him and she stayed in the car and it went off, but he wasn’t dead,” Brittany said.

“I liked when she put the radio in the tub and kind of blew up Fester,” said Jennifer Melville, 9.

“I remember when Fester got electrocuted; he got a light bulb in his mouth, and it went on,” said Ryan Hoagland, 9. “It was funny.”

Those who could compare this sequel to the original “Addams Family” movie agreed that the second time around was even funnier. Some credited the addition of the mustachioed infant Pubert.

As before, the laughs--mostly subdued in the audience around me--came in a couple of varieties:

There’s the juvenile sock ‘em, slice ‘em, put-bread-sticks-in-your-nose type of humor, as when Debbie stalks Fester or when the children (Pugsley and Wednesday) try to guillotine the baby.

There are the sly sexual jokes about the loving, sadomasochistic relationship between Morticia and Gomez. When they refer to a “ball and chain,” they mean it.

There’s the wit about their own peculiar “family values.” When Morticia reads “Cat in the Hat” to Pubert, she peeks to see how it ends, and murmurs, “Oh, no. He lives.”

And there’s the satirical sendup of conventional family values, epitomized by Camp Chippewa’s relentlessly cheerful counselors, who can’t cope with morbid misfits Wednesday and Pugsley.

When the siblings refuse to participate in organized activities, they are punished with isolation in the Harmony House.

Eventually, the children agree to take part in a Thanksgiving play for parents, only to make an impassioned speech in favor of Native American rights.

For Tawny Minna, 6, that scene led to her favorite part: “When they were at the camp-out, they got the two adults and put them on the stick and they rolled them over where the fire was.”

Some parents fell asleep; others found parts of the movie disturbing. But most could probably identify at some level with the harried and preoccupied new parents. As Gomez says to Fester: “I hope someday you’ll know the indescribable joy of having children and paying someone else to raise them.”