The Addams Family

• 1. Introduction

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  The Addams Family appears in a Christmas cartoon from 1946 in which the household greets a group of carolers by pouring boiling oil on them. Charles Addams drew the scene, and readers liked it enough that it was later sold on Christmas cards. The joke works because the family sees nothing strange in what it is doing. These are eccentric, old-money people who delight in the grotesque and seem unaware, or unbothered, that anyone finds them frightening. That single panel grew into a franchise that has stayed in popular culture for some eight decades. Yet for a long stretch the characters had no names at all. Who were they before anyone called them Gomez or Morticia? Why would the magazine that launched them turn its back on them? And how did a family of cartoon ghouls end up on Broadway, on a pinball machine and in a streaming hit?

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• 2. Cartoons Without Names

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  Charles Addams began his career at The New Yorker with a sketch of a window washer that ran on the 6th of February 1932. He drew the woman who would become Morticia some years before she reached print. Some sources give 1933, while Addams himself, asked in an interview, suggested "around 1937." Newspapers of the day guessed that she was modeled on his first wife, Barbara Jean Day, but he had not yet met her. In a 1981 interview he conceded that Morticia reflected the qualities he found attractive, and the women he married later on resembled her. Of her origins he said she was "not patterned after anyone in particular, although I've often thought there was a little Gloria Swanson in her."

  The first Addams Family cartoon was published in 1938 as a one-panel gag. In all, the family filled 150 standalone single-panel cartoons, and about half of them first ran in the magazine. Addams drew roughly 1,300 cartoons for The New Yorker between that year and his death in 1988. Only 58 of them featured the family, almost all in the 1940s and 1950s.

  The cast grew one member at a time. Morticia came first. Gomez joined four years later, and Addams based him on Thomas E. Dewey. Pugsley followed, and Wednesday and Fester arrived soon after. Addams said that Fester resembled himself, "plus a little more hair." Among his book collections, the most notable was Dear Dead Days: A Family Album, published in 1959.

  In 1946, Addams also teamed up with the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. They planned an illustrated book about a supernatural family called the Elliotts, who were much like the Addamses. No publisher could be found, and the two parted ways. The Elliotts finally reached print in 2001, in the Bradbury volume From the Dust Returned, which pairs the stories with the artwork Addams made in 1946.

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• 3. A Household of Misfits

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  A licensed doll collection released in 1962 supplied the first names: Morticia for the matriarch and Wednesday for her daughter. The remaining names came before the 1964 television debut, including Gomez for the father and Pugsley for the son. A claim holds that Wednesday's name nods to the nursery rhyme Monday's Child, in which "Wednesday's child is full of woe." The actress and poet Joan Blake offered the idea to Addams.

  By the time the television series arrived, the household included Gomez and Morticia, their children, Uncle Fester, Grandmama, the butler Lurch and Pugsley's pet octopus, Aristotle. Thing had been glimpsed in the shadows since 1954, first as a disembodied hand in a single strip. Cousin Itt, Morticia's pet lion Kitty Kat and her carnivorous plant Cleopatra all appeared in 1964. Itt was an invention of the television showrunner David Levy. An infant brother named Pubert did not turn up until the 1993 film Addams Family Values.

  Addams drew his inspiration from his hometown of Westfield, New Jersey, a place full of ornate Victorian mansions and archaic graveyards. In the cartoons the family lives in a gothic house on Cemetery Ridge. The television version places a gloomy mansion beside a cemetery and a swamp in an unspecified American town. The musical moves the house to Central Park. The 2019 film puts the family in an abandoned asylum on the outskirts of New Jersey, haunted by a disembodied resident who insists the property stay undisturbed.

  The family claims kinship with "those one-D Adamses," a connection it is deeply ashamed of. In the films its credo is the pseudo-Latin Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc, meaning "We gladly feast on those who would subdue us." Yet the television Addamses are not evil. Morticia is the real head of a close-knit clan, and the house is a wreck that the family is proud of anyway, with every trap door in good repair. When Morticia calls Gomez bubbeleh, he kisses her arms. Any few words of French from her produce the same result. Visitors who recoil at the household are welcomed warmly, and the family will even donate large sums to good causes. The parents stay supportive of their children, with one exception in the 2019 film, when Wednesday comes home wearing a pink dress.

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• 4. The Sitcom Years

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  In the early 1960s, the former NBC executive David Levy stumbled across one of Addams's books in a New York bookstore and decided its tone would suit television. He bought the book and met Addams at the Plaza Hotel, where the idea of a series came up. Others had made similar approaches, but Levy had an advantage: the two men shared a friend in the author John O'Hara. At a second meeting in Addams's apartment, Levy explained that the characters would need names, and Addams brought a list to the third. By Levy's account, Addams then took little part in the show. He kept a veto over casting and other decisions but never used it. Some rights went to Filmways, the production company behind the series.

  The live-action series premiered on ABC on Friday, the 18th of September 1964. It was shot in black-and-white and ran for 64 half-hour episodes, ending on the 2nd of September 1966. Producer Nat Perrin took a "less evil" approach than the cartoons had, and he leaned on comedy. Stephen Cox later called the result "more zany than spooky." Addams was not pleased and complained that the characters were "half as evil" as in his drawings.

  No official reason was ever given for the cancellation after two seasons. Smithsonian Magazine suggested that the network's move to color programming the next year was the cause. Others point to Hogan's Heroes, which competed for the same time slot on CBS. Whatever the reason, the show left a mark. The Lurch dance move stayed popular through the 1960s.

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• 5. Banned and Bankrupted

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  In 1964 the New Yorker editor William Shawn refused to print the Addams Family any longer. He worried about the magazine's image and did not want it linked with a mainstream sitcom. Smithsonian Magazine called him "snooty." Shawn went on publishing Addams's other cartoons, and the ban on the family outlasted the television show by many years. Addams grew bitter toward the magazine "for disowning his family."

  Money was a second problem. When the series ended in 1966, Addams lost a source of income. His second wife, Barbara Barb, was a practicing lawyer who had engaged in "diabolical legal scheming" during the marriage. She had persuaded him to sign over rights to future television and film adaptations, along with rights to some other cartoons. After their divorce she kept those rights until 1991, when she sold them so the Sonnenfeld films could go ahead.

  In 1979, Addams slipped several of the characters into a strip called Z Line Subway as a cameo. In 1981 he married Marilyn Matthews Miller in a cemetery, at a ceremony with an Addams Family theme. Shawn retired in 1987, and the cartoons returned briefly to the magazine, though Addams died a year later.

  While the United States largely forgot the franchise, Australia rediscovered it. Widely watched reruns on TCN-9 sparked a wave of popularity. New merchandise appeared, a "Morticia Boutique Dress Shop" opened in Melbourne in 1988, and a satellite-linked interview with surviving cast members aired on Australian television. One fan told Cox that the Addamses were "less American" than the Munsters, which suited a country with a different lifestyle.

  In 1989, John Astin returned as Gomez to introduce reruns during a two-hour block on Nick at Nite's Sitcom Zone. That year Sunsoft released the video game Fester's Quest, which drew mixed reviews, and black-and-white advertisements were filmed to promote it. Meanwhile, in 1982, Orion Pictures had bought Filmways, the company that held key franchise rights.

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• 6. Animated Echoes

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  As early as 1959, Hanna-Barbera produced an animated homage called Mr. & Mrs. J. Evil Scientist, a family of characters who appeared on the Snagglepuss and Snooper and Blabber shows. In November 1964 the studio introduced Weirdly and Creepella Gruesome and their relatives to The Flintstones. They were based partly on the Evil Scientists and partly on the Addamses, and they returned now and then into the early 1970s.

  The real Addamses made their first animated appearance on CBS on the 23rd of September 1972. The third episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, titled "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family" and also known as "Wednesday Is Missing," put them in a mystery with the Scooby-Doo gang. John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan and Ted Cassidy all returned for it, and the characters were drawn to match Addams's cartoons. Fans wanted more, and Hanna-Barbera obliged.

  Late in 1972, ABC filmed a pilot for a live-action musical variety show, The Addams Family Fun-House. Jack Riley and Liz Torres played Gomez and Morticia and also co-wrote the special. Stubby Kaye was Fester, Pat McCormick was Lurch, and Butch Patrick, once Eddie Munster, played Pugsley. Felix Silla came back as Cousin Itt. The pilot aired in 1973 but never became a series.

  Also in 1973, an animated series ran on NBC Saturday mornings from the 8th of September to the 22nd of December. It sent the family on the road in a Victorian-style RV. Fester became Gomez's brother, and Grandmama became Morticia's mother. Coogan and Cassidy kept their roles, but Lennie Weinrib voiced Gomez and Janet Waldo voiced Morticia. A ten-year-old Jodie Foster spoke for Pugsley. New pets included Ali the alligator, Ocho the octopus and Mr. V the vulture. Ratings were good and children's merchandise followed, yet only 16 episodes aired. The theme had no lyrics and no finger snaps. Gold Key Comics also published a comic book of three issues in 1974-75, each adapted from a television episode.

  Then came Halloween with the New Addams Family, on NBC on Sunday, the 30th of October 1977. Most of the original cast reunited, though Blossom Rock was too ill to appear and Jane Rose replaced her. Production struggled. The crew shot in a house set built for the horror film Ben, which looked nothing like the Addams mansion and caused lighting problems. Critics attacked the script, the direction and some performances, and Jackie Coogan was recovering from a mild stroke. In the story, a gang of crooks bugs the house to steal the family fortune, and the family escapes with the help of the "Old Piccolo Game." The night ends with the Addamses singing in welcome for Cousin Shy.

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• 7. The Film Revival

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  Scott Rudin, head of production at 20th Century Fox, pitched an Addams Family film, but Fox did not hold the rights. They were split between Barbara Barb and Orion Pictures, which had the film rights through its purchase of Filmways. Fox tried to buy them and failed, because Orion planned a new television series. Plans changed when Barb sold her share to Orion, and the studio hired Rudin to produce a movie. Caroline Thompson and Larry Wilson wrote the script and faced heavy rewrites. Tim Burton was considered as director, but the job went to Barry Sonnenfeld.

  A new cast was needed. Blossom Rock had died in 1978, Ted Cassidy in 1979, Carolyn Jones in 1983 and Jackie Coogan in 1984. Anjelica Huston became Morticia, Raul Julia became Gomez, Christina Ricci became Wednesday and Christopher Lloyd became Fester.

  Production was troubled. Sonnenfeld blacked out on set, and a burst blood vessel in Julia's eye delayed the shoot. Director of photography Owen Roizman quit three months from completion, so Sonnenfeld took over that job as well. Orion's finances collapsed, and the studio sold the project to Paramount midway through. The deal left out overseas home media rights, which hurt distribution. Orion kept them, and they passed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when it bought the studio in 1997.

  The Addams Family opened on the 22nd of November 1991. Critics were mixed, but it did reasonably well at the box office. David Levy sued over the use of Thing and Cousin Itt, and the case was settled out of court on terms that were never made public. Addams Family Values followed on the 19th of November 1993. Critics admired it, but it earned less than half of what the first film had. Looser content rules let the sequel push the grotesque humor further, and several gags came straight from the single-panel cartoons. Julia died suddenly in 1994, and a script for a third film was abandoned. Both films collected nominations for Academy, BAFTA and Hugo Awards, and Huston was twice nominated for a Golden Globe.

  The films revived the brand elsewhere. A 1992 animated series on ABC brought back John Astin as Gomez almost thirty years after his first turn, with Rip Taylor as Fester and Carol Channing as Grandmama. It earned four Daytime Emmy nominations. A pinball machine released by Midway under the Bally label in 1992 used voice work from Julia and Huston. It sold more than 20,000 units and is the best-selling pinball machine of all time.

  In 1998, Saban Entertainment made Addams Family Reunion, a direct-to-video film with Tim Curry as Gomez and Daryl Hannah as Morticia. Only Carel Struycken as Lurch and Christopher Hart as Thing came back from the Paramount films. It was very poorly received, but it served as a pilot for The New Addams Family, shot in Vancouver. That series ran for 65 episodes, one more than the original, on the newly launched Fox Family Channel. Glenn Taranto played Gomez in the style of Astin, who appeared as Grandpapa Addams. It ended after one season in 1999. A 2001 Game Boy Color game based on it had a company called Funnyday buy the Addams mansion to build an amusement park.

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• 8. Stage, Streaming and Legacy

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  In May 2007, the producers Elephant Eye Theatrical announced a Broadway musical, with rights held by the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation. Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice wrote the book, and Andrew Lippa wrote the score. Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott directed and designed it. A tryout ran at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Chicago from the 13th of November 2009 to the 10th of January 2010. Nathan Lane played Gomez, and Bebe Neuwirth played Morticia. It opened in previews at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on the 8th of March 2010. Reviews were tepid, yet it earned two Tony Award nominations and eight Drama Desk nominations, and it won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design. The Broadway run lasted 22 months, with 35 previews and 722 performances, and closed on the 31st of December 2011. A UK tour opened at Edinburgh Festival Theatre on the 20th of April 2017.

  In 2010, Illumination Entertainment bought the rights to the drawings and announced a stop-motion film led by Tim Burton. By July 2013 the project was cancelled, because Burton had left over the decision to use computer animation. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer then took the remaining rights and announced a computer-animated film. Conrad Vernon directed The Addams Family, released on the 11th of October 2019, with Oscar Isaac and Charlize Theron voicing Gomez and Morticia. Sales were moderate and reviews mixed. The sequel arrived on the 1st of October 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and fared worse with both audiences and critics.

  Miles Millar and Alfred Gough started work on Wednesday in 2019, financed by MGM, and the writers room met remotely during the start of the pandemic. Netflix announced the show in 2021, with Jenna Ortega in the lead and Burton directing several episodes. Wednesday is a student at Nevermore Academy who uses psychic ability to solve murders and a 25-year-old family mystery. Luis Guzman plays Gomez, and Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Morticia. In March 2022, Christina Ricci, the film Wednesday of the 1990s, joined the cast as a series regular. The first season premiered in 2022 to critical acclaim, and a second followed in 2025. Amazon bought MGM in 2021, so it now holds the rights.

  The franchise has also spread across other media. Ten video games appeared between 1989 and 2021, including The Addams Family Mystery Mansion in 2019 and Mansion Mayhem on the 24th of September 2021. In 1994 the cast of the first two films appeared in Japanese television spots for the Honda Odyssey, speaking Japanese, and a voice actor stood in for Julia. In 2007 and 2008, the Addamses appeared as M&M's characters for dark chocolate. The 1964 theme song, composed by Vic Mizzy, earned a Grammy nomination.

  Critics have made large claims for the family. The Telegraph placed the Addamses alongside the Kennedys, and Time compared their cultural reach with that of the Kennedys and the Roosevelts. TV Guide ranked them in the top ten of the 60 greatest TV families and said they gave the template for cartoonish clans like the Flintstones and the Simpsons. The goth subculture and its fashion have drawn on them as well. In 2011, AOL named Morticia one of the 100 most memorable female TV characters.

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