The Addams Family Mugs - The Mystery of Charles Addams' Halloween Mugmates

Back in 1964, the Pan-American Coffee Bureau released an ad that featured some eye-catching custom-designed mugs by Charles Addams. As most television fans are well aware of, Charles Addams was a cartoonist whose bizarre and yet amusing characters "The Addams" became the basis for a popular 1964 television series, The Addams Family, starring John Astin and Carolyn Jones. 

I first saw this ad in a graphic design book about 15 years ago and liked the mugs immediately. Every year when Halloween came around, I remembered the mugs and thought how nice it would be to find them at a second-hand store or rummage sale....but no such luck. So I finally searched for them on eBay and, again, came up with no results. That's when I decided to look at that graphic design book again and read the ad more closely. It appears that Mugmates were blank mugs that you could draw on. The ad was not promoting a set of Charles Addams mugs to purchase but rather giving you inspiration if you wanted to create your own matching coffee cups. "How interesting!" I thought. "I wonder what other famous artists created Mugmate designs?" That was another thought that led to a dead-end because I was not able to find other custom-designed Mugmates. But what I did discover was a very interesting radio broadcast from another curiousity-seeker that shared of the story of these Mugmates. Believe it or not, there was even a song written about them! 

Check it out here! 

The Mystery of Mugmates - https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-12-19/mystery-mugmates

It remains a mystery as to where these particular Charles Addams mugs reside today, but if I had to bet money I would say the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation have the set tucked away in a box in their archives.