The Ultimate 70s Saturday Morning Cartoon Binge Is Free—Every Episode Is Streaming Now
Saturday mornings once meant cereal, pajamas, and a lineup of Scooby-Doo, Fat Albert, and Super Friends—a rite of passage for a generation. That ritual has all but vanished; here’s how it faded and what filled the void.
If your childhood Saturday mornings were a blur of cereal and cartoons, this one is going to hit the nostalgia button hard. The short-lived Addams Family cartoon just crawled out of the crypt and onto streaming, and yes, it is free.
The 1973 Addams Family cartoon is back, and you do not have to pay for it
As of May 1, all 16 episodes of the one-season Addams Family animated series are streaming exclusively on Tubi. It is completely free to watch. This is the Hanna-Barbera take that aired on NBC in 1973, the one that sends the family on a cross-country road trip in a tricked-out RV. It has been weirdly hard to find online for years, so this drop is a big deal if you have been waiting to revisit it (or finally see what the fuss was about).
Why this version matters (beyond the theme song already living rent-free in your head)
The show spun out of a well-received 1972 crossover with Scooby-Doo, then brought Gomez, Morticia, and company back to TV with a tone that stayed deliciously morbid while leaning into animation in a way that felt true to Charles Addams' original New Yorker cartoons. Two key carryovers from the 1960s live-action series returned to voice their roles: Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester and Ted Cassidy as Lurch. The show also pulled a fun casting surprise: a young Jodie Foster voiced Pugsley. The RV road-trip premise let the family bump into America at large, which fits a Saturday morning format surprisingly well.
Tubi is quietly stocking up on classic Addams Family
Before the cartoon arrived, Tubi already had the complete 1960s live-action series — all 64 episodes, covering its two-season run on ABC from 1964 to 1966. It also streams the 1977 Halloween special that reunited the original '60s cast, where the family gears up for their favorite holiday while, in true Addams fashion, not noticing that the houseguests are actually robbers plotting to swipe their fortune.
The ripple effect
The 1973 cartoon helped prove the family works in animation, period. It took a while, but Hanna-Barbera circled back with a new two-season Addams Family animated series in the '90s, riding the momentum from the hit 1991 live-action movie. And in the last few years, the clan has been back on the big screen in animated form with films released in 2019 and 2021.
Also new on Tubi this month (if you are already there for the Addams)
- TV: Cow and Chicken, Evil Con Carne, Static Shock
- Movies: Flushed Away, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Rio 2, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, The Angry Birds Movie
If you grew up on Saturday morning weirdness, the 1973 Addams Family is a quick, free time machine. Fire it up, snap along, and enjoy the RV era of America’s spookiest family.