Satire-wise, The Addams Family has long presented the shining apple ripe for plucking by the adult industry, but the timing had to be right. Thank you, Hollywood.

To coincide with the release of the mainstream film, director Herschel Savage and the people at X-Citement Video, like rock groupies camping out day and night for premium concert tickets, get to be first in line with their spoof of cartoondom's beloved ghouls. Likewise, take it to the blood bank there will be several more sexed-up renditions (including Coast to Coast's The Anus Family) of this fornicating family before the coffin dust settles.

Other productions not withstanding, you can say that Savage has fashioned, if you pardon the word, a dead-on piece of whimsy. His choices to play the roles of the Vampira-like Horticia (Ona Zee), her natty but nutty husband with the matinee mustache, Cortez (Mike Homer), Uncle Pester (Ron Jeremy), the butler Crotch (John Dough) and Cousin Tit (Charisma) are inspired.

It's a strange video to have it with, but this is bountiful Charisma's shining moment in the adult business.

Ona Zee, who preens and poses like her mug's on the national postage stamp of the Cayman Islands, does a caricature. Jon Dough, who it has been humorously suggested at times acts like he's dead, gets an ample chance to prove it. In my opinion, he steals the show with his creaky groans and sepulchral looks. Dough's funnier than a funeral, which is not to slight Ron Jeremy who's Pester characterization is a complete panic, especially in his hilarious coupling with Charisma who must have grown another couple of Z cups since her last video. Or, as she says to Tuesday (Kim Angeli) during their girl-girler, "it's the price you have to pay for being blest."

Well blest he's not, as Cortez (typically an on-the-money Mike Homer role) discovers he's been financially ruined when the bottom drops out on the munitions market. Finding a little time between their constant amoral caressing, Horticia decides to turn the house into a brothel with Tuesday and Cousin Tit designated to service the would-be clients. Of course, they need to sharpen their skills, and that's where the rest of the family comes in handy. Deidre Holland as the city inspector who's going to give the Maddams Family a business license to operatewhat she thinks is a massage parlor, drops in during a handjob sequence which, visually, is a lot funnier than my just telling you.

The sex is lusty, the makeup brilliant and the videography is rich in color, making Maddams Family one of the premier releases of the year. A supremely clever boxcover adds to this feature's immense marketability.