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Premise
They reside next to a cemetery and a swamp at 0001 Cemetery Ridge, in a gloomy, gothic 19th century mansion. (Charles Addams was first inspired by his home town of Westfield, New Jersey, an area full of ornate Victorian mansions and archaic graveyards.) Though they all share an obsession and interest in macabre subjects, the Addamses cannot be considered evil people. The Addamses are a close-knit extended family, regularly attending events involving the children and loudly cheering their accomplishments (despite the two usually being very poor at whatever is being attempted). Morticia and Gomez remain passionate toward one another, and it drives Gomez crazy when she speaks French. She sometimes calls him "Bubbele" (Yiddish: Little Boy), which he responds to by kissing her up and down her arms. Also, in several of the TV episodes, the family is unwittingly friendly to their visitors (who are often mortified at the Addams' lifestyle), and Gomez is willing to donate remarkably large sums to worthy causes sponsored by the visitors. Family Members and ServantsThe Addams family is an extended family, consisting of Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Uncle Fester, and Grandmama. The family is attended to by their butler, Lurch (who may be another family member, but this was never revealed on the show), and their servant, Thing. Various houseguests and neighbors also made appearances in the cartoon and the television series that was based on it. Gomez
MorticiaMorticia A. Addams (née Frump) is the matriarch of the Addams Family, serving as its heart and soul. Her original mother was Hester Frump, but her origins were later retconned and she became Grandmama's daughter. (Grandmama subsequently became known as Esmerelda Frump.) Morticia has an older sister named Ophelia. In the sitcom, her marriage brought her uncle Fester into the family. She is a vampish woman with pale skin and a gothic appearance, clad in a Vampira-esque skin-tight black gown with octopus-like tendrills at the bottom. She is portrayed as elegant, artistic, and musically inclined (opera singing, tango dancing, and playing numerous instruments). She also knits strange items of clothing for various members of the family. Gomez said she was pale and mysterious the first time he met her. As played by Carolyn Jones in the television series, the cultivated Morticia dabbles in art, raises man-eating plants, and trims her roses by clipping off the buds and saving the stems in a vase ("Oh, the thorns are lovely this year"). With her aristocratic detachment, she remains the cool, calm center in the middle of the chaotic events that continually swirl around the family. Pugsley and WednesdayGomez and Morticia have two children, Pugsley and Wednesday. Wednesday, whose middle name is Friday, was originally — as her name suggests — a quiet, somewhat pathetic child, full of woe. In the TV show she was a sweet-natured, happy child, largely concerned with her pet spiders. A favorite toy was her Marie Antoinette doll, which she had guillotined, and which she often showed to visitors. The movies gave her a serious personality with a deadpan wit, and a morbid fascination with trying to physically harm or possibly murder her brother (she was seen strapping him into an electric chair, for example, and preparing to pull the switch). She is apparently often successful, but Pugsley never dies. Like most members of the family he seems to live in a semi-immortal state. For his part, Pugsley is largely either oblivious of the harm his sister tries to inflict on him, or an enthusiastic supporter of it. In his first incarnation, Pugsley (originally to be called Pubert) was depicted as a diabolical, malevolent child next door. In the TV series, he was a devoted older brother and an inventive and mechanical genius, although his brilliance was lost in the movies, in which he appears to be of below-average intelligence as is stated a few times in the second movie, including when they are going to throw the baby off of the roof, he says he's "still on fractions," implying that Wednesday is more advanced at school than he is. In the films, he loses his independence and becomes Wednesday's sidekick, leaving it up to her to do the evil deeds with him cheerfully helping in any way possible. In the most recent animated series, Pugsley's and Wednesday's personalities seem to be a mix of their previous ones, with Wednesday being back to her happy and somewhat optimistic child, while retaining her sophisticated manner from the movies and Pugsley having regained some of his genius when it comes to chemistry and machines, but his intelligence still seems to be rather underdeveloped at times. PubertIn the 1993 film Addams Family Values, Gomez and Morticia had a third child, a son named Pubert (voiced by Cheryl Chase), a moustachioed and seemingly indestructible baby with the ability to shoot flaming arrows. (Charles Addams first created the name Pubert for the '60s TV series, but it was rejected so he changed it to Pugsley.) Uncle Fester and GrandmamaOther members of the family who live with Gomez and Morticia include Uncle Fester and Grandmama. Fester is a bald, barrel-shaped man with dark, sunken eyes and a devilish grin. He seems to carry an electrical charge and can illuminate a light bulb by sticking it in his mouth. In the original television series, Fester was Morticia's uncle, and therefore technically not an Addams, although at times he claims the family name as his own (in one episode, Fester became confused when someone asked what his last name was, implying that he had none at all). In all other animated and filmed content, Fester became Gomez's older brother, and therefore the uncle of Wednesday and Pugsley. In the second TV series, Uncle Fester is kidnapped by aliens who make a "twelve pack" of Uncle Fester clones to power their spaceship. In the first Addams Family movie, Uncle Fester and Gomez had a disagreement that led to Fester's 25-year disappearance. Having lost his memory, he was brainwashed by gold-digging Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson) into believing he was her son Gordon; the two hatch a scheme with the Addams' lawyer, Tully Alford (Dan Hedaya), to steal the family fortune, only to ultimately be thwarted by a lightning strike to Fester's head, which restores his memory. In the second Addams Family movie, Fester again finds himself in the clasp of a gold-digger, this time in the form of Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), a nanny the Addams hire to watch over their newest son "Pubert." Marrying Fester in order to kill him in an "untimely" death, Debbie's plans are eventually spoiled not only by the Addams' apparent invulnerability, but also by Pubert himself. Grandmama is Gomez's mother in the 1960s live-action TV series, where she is given the name "Eudora Addams". In both the movies and the animated TV series, she is Morticia's mother and her surname is sometimes mentioned as "Frump". Grandmama is a witch who deals in potions, spells and hexes of all kinds. She even dabbles in fortune-telling. Grandmama often argues with Fester, and wins. Her trademarks are her shawl and frizzy hair. In the original TV series, Mother Frump exists as a separate character from Grandmama. In the animated series, Grandmama is only referred to as "Granny". Thing, Lurch, and Cousin IttThe family has a servant in the form of a disembodied hand named "Thing". Thing has been Gomez's friend since childhood. He (it is implied that he is male) often performs common, everyday tasks such as retrieving the mail. Always credited as being played by "Itself" in the TV series (but in actuality played by Ted Cassidy, the actor who also played Lurch), he would appear out of ubiquitous boxes or other convenient containers throughout the house. In the movies and in The New Addams Family, Thing is an entirely mobile hand severed at the wrist (thanks to the introduction of filming on a bluescreen). The Addamses also have a tall, ghoulish manservant named Lurch. Lurch is a shambling, groaning Frankenstein's Monster-like butler. He tries to help around the house like any other butler, though occasionally he botches things up due to his great size and strength. Aside from her headless doll Marie Antoinette, Lurch is Wednesday's best friend. Surprisingly, he is often seen playing the harpsichord and organ with a great degree of skill. In the TV series, Morticia and Gomez summon him by means of a bell pull in the form of a hangman's noose which produces a crashing gong that shakes the house, to which Lurch responds instantly with "You rang?" For unexplained reasons, Lurch talks in the TV series, but merely groans in the films. Lurch never spoke in any of Charles Addams' cartoons. According to an IMDb entry for the series, Lurch was intended to be a nonspeaking part; however, Ted Cassidy improvised the "You rang?" line during his audition, and it was so well-received that it became a feature of the character. Much of Lurch's history (including his full name) and the nature of his relationship to the Addamses are largely unknown. But, in Addams Family Reunion, Gomez states that Lurch is not really an Addams, and Mortica replies that Lurch has parts of many families, and that he has the heart of an Addams. Gomez also has a cousin, known as Cousin Itt, who often visits the family. He is short-statured and has long hair which covers his entire body from scalp to floor. It is unclear what, if anything, is beneath the hair, although in the original TV series, Gomez asks him what is under all that hair, and is answered with the word "roots". He speaks in a squeaky, high-pitched gibberish language that only the family seems to understand. In the second animated series, Itt is a super-spy for the U.S. Government. In the movies he falls in love with a human woman, Margaret, and marries her after her first husband, Tully the lawyer, is disposed of by the Addams children. The Actor who portrays Cousin Itt in the TV series was Felix Silla. He went on to play Tweaky the android in the Buck Rogers Series. HouseguestsGuests include Morticia's older sister Ophelia (also played by Carolyn Jones in the sitcom), Morticia's cousin Melancholia and Morticia's mother (and Fester's sister), Hester Frump (played in the sitcom by Margaret Hamilton, best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz). The Addamses have many other eccentric relatives who, in the sitcom, were described but never shown. NeighboursMost of the Addamses' neighbors are less than understanding of the family's eccentricities. Within the larger community, the Addamses are viewed as oddballs, dangerous, or worse. Both the TV shows and movies deal with outsiders attempting to understand and "correct" the behavior of the family, and remain frustrated and horrified by the things that the Addamses find amusing. The Addamses, for their part, are just the opposite, and are often shocked and horrified at the actions of "mainstream" society, such as the idea of summer camp. The second animated series introduced three new regular characters, the Normanmeyers (Norman, Normina, and N.J.), a family of "normal" people living across the street from the Addamses. While Norman and Normina are constantly appalled and shocked at the Addams' macabre behavior, their son N.J. counts Wednesday and Pugsley as his best friends, and the feeling is mutual. Norman owns and works at an underwear factory and is utterly obsessed with underwear, decorating the entire Normanmeyer house with an underwear motif, which arguably makes him less "normal" than the Addamses themselves. The nature of The AddamsesThe exact nature of the Addamses is never established. They all seem to share a bond with the occult and supernatural. Uncle Fester is often portrayed as something of a mad scientist, and Grandmama as a fortune-teller, but these activities don't really explain the Addamses' seemingly immortal state. The food they live on is inedible or outright deadly for normal humans to eat, and there is also the family's interest in painful activities like walking across minefields, and having a sharp pendulum cut them in half. In the 1960s television series, virtually every member of the family demonstrated some uniquely "non-human" trait. Morticia is able to light candles with the touch of a fingertip and relaxes by literally "smoking", curls of smoke emitting from her body. Gomez is remarkably athletic and can perform complicated calculations in his head, which makes a mechanical sound as he does so. Fester can generate both electricity and magnetism, while Grandmama, in addition to being able to whip up potions of varying effects, can fly on a broom (although she is not considered a witch by the family's standards, since the episode "Halloween, Addams Style" is partially devoted to a neighbor raising doubts in the children's minds about whether or not witches exist). Pugsley is able to hang from tree branches by his teeth (although this trait is only referred to and not seen), while six-year-old Wednesday is strong enough to bring her father down with a judo hold. Lurch is superhumanly strong, and Thing (whose paranormal nature speaks for itself) can apparently teleport from box to box almost instantaneously, since he emerges from various boxes throughout the house. None of these traits are considered unusual by any others in the family but treated simply as individual talents that anyone might possess by chance or development. All are capable of enduring such experiences as lying on a bed of nails, being stretched on a rack, and so on without pain and, indeed, derive pleasure from such experiences; Fester can survive a cannonball directly to the head with minimal effect. Although the Addamses are frequently labeled as nonconformists, this is not really the case. While they have little use for conformity, they do not consider their tastes to be nonconformist per se, since they are under the impression that most people share them and, thus, when an unsuspecting visitor reacts with shock to some of the disturbing artifacts and activities in the house, they invariably attribute the reaction to another cause, since the notion that anyone might find such things odd simply does not occur to them. Occasionally, the 1960s series featured guest characters who shared the Addamses' tastes, which, along with the fact that the family obviously purchases its yak meat, explosives, etc. from somewhere, implies an entire subculture of people who share the family's tastes (as seen in several Charles Addams cartoons). In contrast, the Addamses themselves consider such things as daisies, chocolate fudge, the Boy Scouts, and other such traditionally "wholesome" things—as well as any distaste for such things as swamps, octopuses, and hanging upside-down from the ceiling—to be odd, if not outright disturbing. Fester once cited a neighbor family's meticulous petunia patches as evidence that they were "nothing but riff-raff." Television, film, and gamesLive-action
In 1964, the ABC-TV network created a television series based on the characters in Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30 minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 installments (September 18, 1964 – September 2, 1966). It was originally produced by Filmways TV at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California, which also produced The Beverly Hillbillies, Mr. Ed, and Green Acres. Today, successor company MGM Television (for broadcast syndication via The Program Exchange and Sony Pictures Television; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment for home video/DVD) owns the rights to the show. A TV reunion movie, Halloween With The New Addams Family, aired on CBS in October 1977. It featured most of the original cast, except Blossom Rock, who had played Grandmama but was very ill at the time; she was replaced by Jane Rose. In the 1990s, Orion Pictures (which by then had inherited the rights to the series) developed a film version, The Addams Family. Due to the studio's financial troubles at the time, Orion sold the US rights to the film to Paramount Pictures. Upon the film's initial success, a sequel followed: Addams Family Values (1993, with worldwide distribution by Paramount). Later came Addams Family Reunion (1998). Loosened content restrictions allowed the films to use far more grotesque humor that strove to keep the original spirit of the Addams cartoons. The second film's title is a piece of word play on family values, the Addamses seeming to represent values the polar opposite from the term's usual meaning (in fact, the Addams exhibit many laudable values; in particular, they are a close-knit, loving family). The third film was released direct-to-video, this time by Warner Bros. through its video division. The movie has no relations to the Paramount movies, including Pubert. It is in fact a full-length pilot for a second live-action television version, The New Addams Family, produced and shot in Canada, ran during the 1998–1999 season on Fox Family. A large continuity error, as the third movie's Gomez follows the style of Raul Julia's, played by Tim Curry, while the new sitcom's Gomez is John Astin's style. Most fans hated the new series. Most episodes were remakes of the original series' episodes, although some re-scripting was done to account for the new relations between characters, and the more macabre versions of Wednesday and Pugsley, to try and fit the episodes into the movies' universe. John Astin returned to the franchise in specific episodes of this series, albeit as Grandpa Addams (Gomez's grandfather, a character introduced in Addams Family Reunion). Pubert's absence in the new series was explained in an early episode when Wednesday mentioned that there used to be a third, but they ate it. AnimationTwo animated television spin-offs and an animated guest appearance have also been produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Addams Family's first animated appearance was on the third episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family" (a.k.a. "Wednesday is Missing"), which first aired on CBS Saturday morning September 23, 1972. Four of the original cast (John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, and Ted Cassidy) returned for the special which involved the Addamses in a mystery with the Scooby-Doo gang. The Addams Family characters were drawn to the specifications of the original Charles Addams comics. After the episode aired, fans wanted more animated adventures featuring the Addamses, and Hanna-Barbera responded in kind. The first animated series ran on Saturday mornings from 1973–1975 on NBC. In a departure from the original series, this series took the Addamses on the road in a Victorian-style RV. This series also marked the point where the relations between characters were retconned so that Fester was now Gomez' brother, and Grandmama was now Morticia's mother (though the old relations would be revisited in the 1977 TV-movie, to keep continuous with the original sitcom). Although Coogan and Cassidy reprised their roles, Astin and Jones did not, their parts being re-cast with Hanna-Barbera voice talents Lennie Weinrib as Gomez and Janet Waldo as Morticia, while none other than an eight-year-old Jodie Foster provided the voice of Pugsley. Again, the characters were drawn to the specifications of the original Charles Addams comics. One season was produced, with the season rerunning the following year. The second animated series ran on Saturday mornings from 1992–1995 on ABC after producers realized the success of the 1991 Addams Family movie. This series returned to the familiar format of the original series, with the Addams Family facing their sitcom situations at home. John Astin returned to the role of Gomez, and celebrities Rip Taylor and Carol Channing took over the roles of Fester and Grandmama, respectively. New artistic models of the characters were used for this series, though still having a passing resemblance to the original comics. Two seasons were produced, with the third year containing reruns. Oddly in this series, Wednesday maintained her macabre, brooding attitude from the Addams Family movies, but her facial expressions and body language conveyed the happy-go-lucky, fun attitude of her portrayal in the original television show. GamesSix video games released from 1989 to 1994 were based on The Addams Family. Fester's Quest (1989) was a top-down shooter that featured Uncle Fester. The Addams Family platformer was released for Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy, with later ports for Sega Genesis (based on the Super NES version), Master System and Game Gear (both based on the NES version but with different graphics), TurboGrafx-CD (developed separately) and ZX Spectrum; these games, released by Ocean Software (Flying Edge in the case of the Sega consoles ports) (ICOM Simulations for the TurboGrafx-CD version), these were based on the first movie rather than the TV series or cartoons. The games' sequel, The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (1993), also by Ocean Software was based on the ABC animated series, and was released for Super NES, NES and Game Boy (although the latter two were just 8-bit remakes of the first SNES game, swapping Pugsley and Gomez's roles). Addams Family Values (1994) by Ocean was based on the movie's sequel and returned to the style of gameplay seen in the original Fester's Quest. A Game Boy Color game was released in the 1990s for promotion of "The New Addams Family." The game was simply titled, "The New Addams Family Series." A pinball game by Midway (under the Bally label) was released in 1992 shortly after the movie. It broke previous sales records by selling over 20,000 units.
Cast
TriviaImage:HisteriaAddams.gif The cast of Histeria! spoofs the opening to The Addams Family.
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