How Rich Was Gomez Addams? The Real Money Behind The Addams Family

How rich was Gomez Addams? The Addams Family got an $84 property tax bill in 1965, and Gomez complained it was too low. Then he priced out a billion-dollar trip to the moon. Here’s who really got rich off the classic 1964 sitcom, and it wasn’t Charles Addams or the cast. Every family on this channel worries about money. The Addamses spend 64 episodes trying to get rid of theirs, and they can’t. Spotlight Moments: - Gomez buys a railroad during a market crash so he can play train wreck with real trains - Fester and Lurch start an escort service at $50 an hour, when minimum wage was $1.25 - Gomez buys the whole school when a truant officer cracks - Ted Cassidy makes up “You rang?” on the spot, then records a real hit single, The Lurch - Charles Addams loses his own family twice, once to a divorce and once to The New Yorker - Vic Mizzy keeps the publishing rights to the theme song: two finger snaps and you live in Bel Air Classic TV sitcoms show us what money looked like in the 1960s. Put real prices behind the Addams Family and the story flips. The family couldn’t lose money if they tried. Almost everybody who made them did. The actors got paid for five reruns. The butler worked in a job the minimum wage law didn’t even cover. And the man behind a 40-second theme song walked away rich. 00:00 The $84 Tax Bill 01:06 Charles Addams’ Cartoons 02:14 Building the Show 02:33 Gomez’s Fortune 04:30 Morticia the Breadwinner 05:40 Pugsley Wants Work 06:27 The Real House 07:32 Lurch’s Paycheck 09:10 The Lurch Record 09:59 Charles Addams’ Rights 11:56 Five Reruns Only 12:26 Vic Mizzy’s Snaps 13:12 Cancelled by Batman 13:59 How Rich Was Gomez #AddamsFamily #ClassicTV #TVLife #GomezAddams #Lurch #60sTV #RetroTV #SitcomHistory When you snapped your fingers to that theme, did you ever wonder who was getting paid for it? Tell us in the comments: which Addams Family money moment do you remember best? Like the video, subscribe for more classic TV money breakdowns, and share it with someone who still knows every snap. Before television had color, it had characters we never forgot. TV Life Black & White celebrates classic black-and-white television, from the laughs of I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners to the mysteries of The Twilight Zone and the dusty streets of Gunsmoke. Rediscover your favorite shows through behind-the-scenes stories, memorable moments, and a closer look at the lives those characters lived. Could they really afford those homes? How realistic were those picture-perfect families? And what did we miss when we watched the first time? From sitcoms and Westerns to crime dramas and science fiction, these shows still give us plenty to talk about. Subscribe, settle into your favorite chair, and revisit a world that never needed color to come alive. https://www.youtube.com/@TVLifeBlackWhite?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe to Our Sister Channel in Color TV Life YT: https://www.youtube.com/@TVLIfeYT?sub_confirmation=1