The Addams Family
The Addams Family is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 standalone single-panel comics, about half of which were originally published in The New Yorker between 1938 and their creator's death in 1988. They have since been adapted to other media, such as television, film, video games, comic books, a musical, and merchandise.
For other uses, see The Addams Family (disambiguation).The Addams Family
The New Yorker cartoons
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (all media after 2019, 1964 TV series & 1991 film distribution rights)[a]
- Netflix (Wednesday)
- Warner Bros. Entertainment (animated TV series & 1998 film)
- Paramount Pictures (1991 & 1993 films)
- Disney Platform Distribution (1998 TV series)
- Tee & Charles Addams foundation (merchandise)[1]
See below (1938)
- The Addams Family (1991)
- Addams Family Values (1993)
- The Addams Family (2019)
- The Addams Family 2 (2021)
The Addams Family Fun-House (1973)
- The Addams Family (1964–1966)
- The Addams Family (1973)
- The Addams Family (1992–1993)
- The New Addams Family (1998–1999)
- Wednesday (2022–present)
Addams Family Reunion (1998)
- The Addams Family (2010)
The Addamses are an odd, old-money clan who delight in the macabre and are seemingly unaware or unconcerned that other people find them bizarre or frightening. The family members were unnamed until the 1960s. Matriarch Morticia and daughter Wednesday received their names when a licensed doll collection was released in 1962; patriarch Gomez and son Pugsley were named when the 1964 television series debuted.[2] The Addams Family consists of Gomez and Morticia Addams, their children, Wednesday and Pugsley, and close family members Uncle Fester[b] and Grandmama,[c] their butler Lurch, and Pugsley's pet octopus, Aristotle. The dimly seen Thing (later a disembodied hand) was introduced in 1954, and Gomez's Cousin Itt, Morticia's pet lion Kitty Kat and Morticia's carnivorous plant Cleopatra in 1964. Pubert Addams, Wednesday and Pugsley's infant brother, was introduced in the 1993 film Addams Family Values.[d]
The live-action television series premiered on ABC on Friday, September 18, 1964, and ran for two seasons.[2] It subsequently inspired a 1977 telefilm titled Halloween with the New Addams Family and cameos from the cast in other shows. An unrelated animated series aired in 1973.
The franchise was revived in the 1990s with a feature film series consisting of The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). The films inspired a second animated series (1992–1993) which is set in the same fictional universe. The series was rebooted with a 1998 direct-to-video film and a spin-off live-action television series (1998–1999). In 2010, a live musical adaptation featuring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth opened on Broadway with tepid reviews, but it was nominated for two Tony Awards[4] and eight Drama Desk Awards, winning one Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design.[5] The series was rebooted again in 2019 with the animated film The Addams Family, which led to a sequel in 2021. In 2022, Netflix debuted the original series Wednesday, which is a spin-off from the original 1964 series.
The franchise has spawned a video game series, academic books and soundtracks, which are based around its Grammy-nominated theme song. A staple in pop culture for eight decades, The Addams Family has influenced American comics, cinema and television. The goth subculture and its fashion have also been influenced by The Addams Family.[6][7]
History[edit]
Origins & The New Yorker cartoons (1933–1964)[edit]
Charles Addams began as a cartoonist in The New Yorker with a sketch of a window washer that ran on February 6, 1932.[8] Addams first drew the then-unnamed Morticia some years before her first published appearance in The New Yorker. Some sources give a date of 1933, while Addams himself when asked in interview suggested "around 1937."[9] Media speculation at the time often connected Morticia to Charles Addams' first wife Barbara Jean Day, but he had yet to meet her.[10] In an interview in 1981 he acknowledged that Morticia reflected the qualities he was attracted to, and because of that his wives resembled the character. He described Morticia as "not patterned after anyone in particular, although I’ve often thought there was a little Gloria Swanson in her."[9]
The first Addams Family cartoon was published in 1938, in a one-panel gag format. Charles Addams became a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and drew approximately 1,300 cartoons between then and his death in 1988. 58 of these would feature the Addams Family, almost all of which were published in the 1940s and 1950s. Members of the family were introduced one by one, with Morticia first, Gomez (based on Thomas E. Dewey) joining four years later, Pugsley, and finally Wednesday and Fester shortly after. Addams indicated that Fester resembled himself, "plus a little more hair."[9] A Christmas 1946 strip, showing the family pouring boiling oil on carolers, was well received and was later sold on Christmas cards.[11] Outside of The New Yorker, Addams also published several collections, the most notable being Dear Dead Days: A Family Album in 1959. The family members were initially not named; Wednesday was first given a name in 1962 for a licensed doll collection, while the others were named during the development of the television series in 1963.[12] The editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn, prevented any further Addams family cartoons from being printed after the 1964 launch of the television franchise.[12]
Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury created a series of tales chronicling a family of Illinois monsters, the Elliotts, that bear a strong resemblance to the Addams family. These stories were anthologized in From the Dust Returned (2001), with a connecting narrative, an explanation of his work with Addams, and a 1946 illustration Addams drew for Bradbury's short story "Homecoming" in Mademoiselle magazine, the first in the Elliot family series.
Legacy[edit]
The family has had a profound influence on American comics, cinema and television,[63][64][65] and it has also been seen as an inspiration for the goth subculture and its fashion.[66][67] According to The Telegraph, the Addamses "are one of the most iconic families in American history, up there with the Kennedys".[68] Similarly, Time has compared "the relevance and the cultural reach" of the family with those of the Kennedys and the Roosevelts, "so much a part of the American landscape that it's difficult to discuss the country's history without mentioning them".[69] For TV Guide, which listed the characters in the top ten of The 60 Greatest TV Families of All Time, the Addamses "provid[ed] the design for cartoonish clans to come, like the Flintstones and the Simpsons".[70] Owing to their popularity, the first feature-length adaptation has been identified as a "cult film",[71] while Addams Family Values was listed as one of The 50 Best family films by The Guardian[72] and nominated for the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Laughs at the turn of the century.[73] Ricci's portrayal of Wednesday in the film series was ranked one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters by Empire,[74] and in 2011 AOL named Morticia one of The 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters.[75]