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Cousin Itt - Short, very hairy man
seen on the bizarre comedy THE ADDAMS FAMILY/ABC/1964-66.
Cousin Itt with Gomez and Morticia
Cousin Itt (played by Felix Silla and Roger Arravo) stood three-feet tall, wore
a derby hat, sunglasses and was covered from head-to-toe with
long locks of light brown hair that obscured his face and body.
Itt often visited his relatives, the Addams who lived at 001
Cemetery Lane. Gomez Addams (John Astin) once said of Itt, "Inside
all heart, outside all hair."
Because Itt was extremely hard to understand )speaking va a high
speed gibberish) Gomez remarked that he could "become a rock and
roll singer. However, if you can get past his accent, he made
perfect sense." Surprisingly, Itt had an IQ of 320...with his shoes
on. While visiting the Addams, Itt liked to hang out in their
chimney or in some cozy closet.
Cousin Itt appeared on episodes No. 20 "Cousin Itt Visits the
Addams Family" (2-5-65); No. 32 "Cousin Itt and the Vocational
Counselor" (5-7-65); No.35 "My Fair Cousin Itt" (9-17-65); and No.
40 "Cousin Itt's Problem" (10-22-65).
TRIVIA NOTE: Cousin Itt's voice
was provided by sound-effects engineer Tony Magro, who created Itt's
garbled responses by mouthing gibberish into a tape recorder, with a
"ppffft and a thhhhhttt" added for good measure, and then
accelerating the tape's recording speed.
Some sources erroneously report that producer Nat Perrin
performed Cousin Itt's voice. But in the book "The Addams
Chronicles" by Stephen Cox, Magro stated "I never got screen credit,
but they paid me for it...Everyone in town knew it was me. Even my
daughter still introduces me to her friends as Cousin Itt."
In the Paramount motion picture remake The Addams Family
(1991), actor John Franklin played the hairy Cousin Itt, this time
standing a bit taller at five-feet.
The Cousin Itt character returned on the revival series THE NEW
ADDAMS FAMILY that premiered on the Fox Family Channel in the fall
of 1998. David Mylrea played the role of Itt.
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