When Gomer Pyle was on TV in Australia, another fabulous US series I loved, The Addams Family, was on children’s television in a regular cycle of repeats. John Astin as Gomez was a big favourite of mine.

This strip of photos was found on New Year’s Day, 2003, at Leicester Station. I was living in that U.K. city at the time. While this guy doesn’t really look like the head of the Addams family, either in the sitcom or the New Yorker cartoon versions, there is something good-naturedly creepy about him. I think he could be Gomez in his pre-moustachioed youth. His funereal black jacket and blood-red tie add to his modern ghoulish style. I love the gormless look on his face and his spidery uneven fringe, which is reminiscent of Pugsley Addams (below) of the TV series, too.

A description of Gomez as a young man, in the episode Morticia’s Romance, was of a perennially sickly youth who gained perfect health only after meeting Morticia. This guy’s pasty, sun-starved complexion, agrees with that description and adds to the Addams Family appeal of this strip of photos.

Pugsley Addams, son of Gomez and Morticia