7.4 97

When Morticia declares she's bored and needs an outlet for her creativity, Gomez suggests several possibilities, including sculpting. This strikes a chord in her and immediately she throws herself into it. The house is soon filled with huge boulders Gomez is purchasing from a quarry. In one scene, he and Fester struggle to move one up the front steps, but Lurch deftly picks it up as if it weighed only a few ounces. Morticia is shown furiously banging away with a hammer and chisel in a montage, finally declaring, supposedly after months of work, that it's finished. Unfortunately, it pretty much still looks like a big shapeless rock. Gomez has an art dealer appraise the masterpiece, but the man thinks it's so bad he actually hits it with his cane before storming out. Gomez realizes he's right, but he'd do anything to keep Morticia happy, so he devises a plan to pay another, more unscrupulous dealer, "The World's Crummiest", one Sam Piccasso (Vito Scotti) to pretend to like it and purchase it, all with Gomez's money. This goes off without a problem until Morticia decides to keep the money instead of put it in the Addams family bank account as Gomez thought she would. Instead, she keeps the money ($50,000) for an art school she intends to establish. She also starts work on more statues, which she also sells to Mr. Piccasso, each time for more and more (of Gomez's) money. Eventually, Piccasso's a wealthy, top-hatted success, while Gomez is running out of money so fast he has to consider liquidating some of his vast world-wide business investments, including the blue-chip top stock of the era, AT&T, to keep up. In desperation, he begs her to give up the sculpting, for which she has neglected Gomez, the house, even sleep itself to pursue, to no avail. But when Wednesday and Pugsley come down from their bedrooms for a midnight snack, things change. Instead of dining on some cold yak meat left in the refrigerator, they make a pan of chocolate fudge. Morticia is horrified that such depravity has occurred because of her lack of supervision, and decides to hang up her chisel for good.