Addams Family living room in the news

[Gillfan]

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3021327/asides/the-addams-familys-living-room-was-pink

[Monster Bob]

The wallpaper is blood-red, victorian "flocked" paper (not pink...yeesh). The TV GUIDE photo is hand tinted, or at least very washed out. The TV Addams' walls were MGM left overs from the 50s film THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN starring Debbie Reynolds.



This is my modern recreation, using Hollywood-made wallpaper using 1800s stencils, and is extremely close to the original and is color correct.

[The Batman]

'LOVE the photos and factoid statement guys! I need to get some DVDs of their show to enjoy yet again. cheers! 

[Haunted hearse]

Even if the photos are washed out, since the shows were shot in Black and white, we would not have seen how bright they were.  Since the "Incredible Molly Brown" was shot in color, I can't help but wonder if there was a chance, the wall colors may have been toned down somewhat for the filming of the series.

[Monster Bob]

I don't believe the color of the paper had anything to do with the fact they were shooting ADDAMS in B&W myself. Everything on TV was B&W then.

Addams was shot on the cheap, and everything on the set was old rehashed MGM prop house stock. They went with those walls because it was a victorian house, they already had access to the MOLLY BROWN walls, and this is typical victorian-era wallpaper.

Having grown up myself in a circa 1880 victorian house, and my Mom loved red flocked wallpaper, she used it herself when we bought our house in the 1960s (and I hated this paper as a kid). It was popular in the sixties and a similar paper was readily available then. When I went to buy it, NOBODY made it, and I had to use a company in the San Fernando valley that made era-correct wallpaper for film and TV (to order). They had original 1800s-era stencils, thought my project was cool, and said 'what color do you want'? Since then, it has been a reinstated  pattern/type by them, and I have seen this wallpaper pattern used in dozens of films, music videos, and TV shows, in all kinds of colors.

What really bugs me is the "fake prop" guys on ebay (jsnent, jmsmcmahon, etc.) that have a never ending supply of fake 'used as a backround prop in ____ series' stock on ebay call the ADDAMS TV style "gothic", which it is not.  It is VICTORIAN! BTW, when you see this 'backround prop' stuff being sold on ebay, 99.9% of the time it is bogus, a lot of it being stuff that isn't even as old as the series. They are dummies, and have been busted before, though ebay just lets them keep on selling....




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