Network television went through a brief, strange fascination with monster-based sitcoms in the mid-1960s. There must have been something in the air. CBS had The Munsters, a series created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher of Leave It To Beaver fame. But ABC beat them to the punch by six whole days in September 1964 with The Addams Family, a cheerfully macabre domestic face based on Charles Addams’ famed New Yorker cartoons from the 1930s and ’40s. Both shows lasted two seasons apiece, expiring in the spring of 1966. The Munsters managed to outlast The Addams Family on the prime time schedule by only about a month. “Ophelia’s Career,” the final Addams installment of the original series, first aired on April 8, 1966.
The episode, perhaps disappointingly, is nothing close to a proper series finale. The plot doesn’t even center around one of the main Addams characters, like Gomez (John Astin) or Morticia (Carolyn Jones). Instead, the focus of the episode is Morticia’s flighty blonde sister Ophelia Frump (also Jones), making her fourth guest appearance on the show. She’s been jilted again, this time for judo flipping her boyfriend, so the Addams try to cheer her up by grooming her as an opera singer. It’s not such a far-fetched idea, since Ophelia has the rare, superhuman ability to harmonize with herself. Though the connection is not made explicit, the scenes of Ophelia’s painful musical training are very similar to a subplot in Citizen Kane, complete with a temperamental, Italian-accented instructor. At least the episode provides nice showcase moments for Cousin Itt (Felix Silla), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), and Lurch (Ted Cassidy).