In 1965, The Addams Family aired a popular episode called "Lurch the Teenage Idol," where the towering butler became a pop sensation overnight.

The humor of the episode comes from seeing Lurch surrounded by screaming teens, but that extreme level of fame that Lurch experienced always eluded The Addams Family composer Vic Mizzy, who in the Sixties never gained the household name status of his equally prolific composer peers.

For the majority of Mizzy’s career, he penned hundreds of songs for hit artists like Dean Martin, Doris Day and Billie Holiday, but for decades upon decades, the only song he ever recorded under his own name was The Addams Family theme song.

Of course, if he was going to pick one of his songs to lay down on vinyl, he picked the most popular one. It’s said that the only song played more frequently than The Addams Family theme song is the "Star-Spangled Banner."

Over the years, the theme song became very close to Mizzy’s heart and there’s no greater proof of his bond with the song than the fact that when he married his third bride in 2001, he had his wife walk down the aisle to his most famous song.

The story goes that Mizzy fell in love with Shirley Leeds and they decided to get married when he was 85 years old. When they got hitched at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, The Addams Family theme song chimed as Leeds approached Mizzy at the altar – a resoundingly different way of hearing wedding bells.

Three years later, one of Mizzy’s friends tried to convince him to record more of his own songs.

See More

Of course Wednesday Addams played with the oldest stuffed toys in the world

In 2004, he released Songs for the Jogging Crowd to appease his friend, the same year he was tapped to compose the theme song to the hit movie Spider-Man 2.

Through the years, he never stopped composing and for Mizzy, singing his own songs was certainly familiar. He’d been meeting up with his old friend Eddie Albert frequently for decades to sing songs and share meals together. But recording the songs still felt strange after all that time.

"I’m just a new fella to this," Mizzy told the Quad-City Times in 2005.

He said he decided to follow through with his friend’s idea after waking from a particularly disturbing dream.

"I had a nightmare a year and a half ago where Ringo Starr recorded an album where he sings the songs of The Sound of Music," Mizzy said. "I woke up in a cold sweat. If he can do the songs of The Sound of Music, I can do my own songs."

We might think it’s strange to think that anyone might not know Mizzy by name today, but it’s clear despite his immense talents, the composer never really sought the spotlight in his life. He had a much simpler goal when writing his memorable tunes.

"When a songwriter writes a song, all he’s hoping is that someone will really like it," Mizzy said.

We bet after it became their wedding song, he and his bride had a new reason to love The Addams Family theme song.