Wonderful collection!
And indeed, some of them leave me stumped, at least in part.
The third one down seems to be a variation on the Planet of the Apes. I don’t remember the original very clearly, but was it located in a sandy desert? And didn’t they uncover the Empire State Building? This looks more like the Chrysler Building.
The exec at his desk with portraits of (presumably) his predecessors, or maybe personal ancestors as well … is it just having fun showing this stuffy scene, or is there more going on? I thought maybe grandpa, on our right, has Mickey Mouse or comedy ears?
The man at the desk has the same highlight lamp as the portraits behind him. It’s just kind of silly.
The archelogy one…I’d thought that no sooner had they uncovered an ancient temple, there’s a guy in the background come to knock it down with a crane, but perhaps I erred in my reading.
Archeology one: I think the crane is removing the dirt being dug up around the building. At first I saw this as some archeologists in the very distant future finding the Chrysler building and uncovering it. Then I wondered if this is a current dig and they are realizing there was a society advanced enough to have constructed a building like that but is obviously no longer extant. Sort of hints that society and civilization goes in circles.
I do not understand the mountain one with what I think is the devil and lots of souls.
For the last cartoon, I assume that the/a devil is running a bar in Hell. You can see the taps, and glasses & bottles under the counter. The souls can’t get to him, which is the torture. A point against this interpretation is that there are no flames present.
A favorite Addams has a driver stopped at a school crossing in the middle of nowhere. A solid column of school kids, three or four abreast, are crossing the road. The column appears to be endless, originating somewhere beyond bare distant hills.
The driver,doesn’t look annoyed, or shocked, or puzzled. He has a look of concern and slight fear, which you see on a lot of people in Addams’s world. They don’t understand what’s happening any more that we do.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Chas Addams was almost always great. Even if the joke wasn’t that funny, the artwork was terrific.
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Wonderful collection!
And indeed, some of them leave me stumped, at least in part.
The third one down seems to be a variation on the Planet of the Apes. I don’t remember the original very clearly, but was it located in a sandy desert? And didn’t they uncover the Empire State Building? This looks more like the Chrysler Building.
The exec at his desk with portraits of (presumably) his predecessors, or maybe personal ancestors as well … is it just having fun showing this stuffy scene, or is there more going on? I thought maybe grandpa, on our right, has Mickey Mouse or comedy ears?
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I’m not sure I understand the one with the exec at a desk. Is it that he looks like a cross between the two founders?
Mitch4: The Planet of the Apes he finds the Statue of Liberty. Here they seem to be uncovering the Chrysler Building.
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The man at the desk has the same highlight lamp as the portraits behind him. It’s just kind of silly.
The archelogy one…I’d thought that no sooner had they uncovered an ancient temple, there’s a guy in the background come to knock it down with a crane, but perhaps I erred in my reading.
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Archeology one: I think the crane is removing the dirt being dug up around the building. At first I saw this as some archeologists in the very distant future finding the Chrysler building and uncovering it. Then I wondered if this is a current dig and they are realizing there was a society advanced enough to have constructed a building like that but is obviously no longer extant. Sort of hints that society and civilization goes in circles.
I do not understand the mountain one with what I think is the devil and lots of souls.
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@beckoningchasm: “The man at the desk has the same highlight lamp as the portraits behind him.” I think that’s it. Subtle.
The mountain one has the devil at a bar (see what looks like beer taps), with no way for the souls to approach.
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For the last cartoon, I assume that the/a devil is running a bar in Hell. You can see the taps, and glasses & bottles under the counter. The souls can’t get to him, which is the torture. A point against this interpretation is that there are no flames present.
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#3: Tribute to the poem ‘Ozymadias’?
#4: I took the lamp to indicate the man at the desk would soon be joining his predecessors as a portrait on the wall. It is Addams, after all.
#5: @zbicyclist Seems reasonable. It wasn’t clear to me that the devil was on an island.
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A favorite Addams has a driver stopped at a school crossing in the middle of nowhere. A solid column of school kids, three or four abreast, are crossing the road. The column appears to be endless, originating somewhere beyond bare distant hills.
The driver,doesn’t look annoyed, or shocked, or puzzled. He has a look of concern and slight fear, which you see on a lot of people in Addams’s world. They don’t understand what’s happening any more that we do.
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Was Wednesday big in the cartoons?
She’s taken over the movies & TV.
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That character was pretty frequent in the drawn cartoons, but did not yet have a name. (Nor did the rest of the family.)
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The school crossing one might play upon a similar anxiety of having to wait at a grade crossing for slowly approaching mile-long freight train.
Or not.
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In the archeology/construction one are those ancient Egyptians on the left
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