1964 publicity photo for the TV series. From the left: Lisa Loning as Wednesday, John Astin as Gomez, Ted Cassidy as Lurch, Carolyn Jones as Morticia and Ken Weatherwax as Pugsley.
The Addams Family are an eccentric and rather macabre fictional family. They were created by the American cartoonist Charles Addams and first appeared in a series of single-panel cartoons in The New Yorker magazine in 1938.
The extremely wealthy family live in a mansion that has become somewhat run down, giving it the appearance of a typical haunted house. The Addams family consists of a husband and wife, their two young children and two older relatives. They have a butler who resembles Frankenstein's monster (as played by Boris Karloff in the 1931 movie Frankenstein) and various other family members have visited them from time to time.
The characters are unnamed in Charles Addams' cartoons. When a TV comedy series based on the characters was developed in 1964, Charles Addams was asked to provide names for them. He named the butler "Lurch", the husband and wife "Gomez" and "Morticia", the two older relatives "Uncle Fester" and "Grandmama" and the children "Wednesday" and "Pubert". The name "Pubert" was rejected by the show's producers and the character was named "Pugsley" instead. The name "Pubert" was later used as the name of Gomez and Morticia's third child in the 1993 movie The Addams Family Values. One character had been named "It" in Charles Addams' cartoons but was renamed "Cousin Itt" by the show's producer David Levy.
In addition to the sitcom which ran from 1964 to 1966, other media in which the Addamses have appeared include animated cartoon series from 1973 and 1998, two thetricaly released movies from 1991 and 1993 and another live-action series called The New Addams Family from 1998.
Magazine cartoons
The Addamses first appeared in a series of one-panel cartoons by Charles Addams that appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1938. Cartoons featuring the characters continued to appear occasionally in The New Yorker and other publications until Charles Addams' death in 1988.
At first, the only recurring characters in the cartoons were a creepy woman dressed in black (later named Morticia) and her creepy Frankenstein's monster-like butler (later named Lurch). The first published cartoon shows a traveling salesman attempting to sell a vacuum cleaner to Morticia, apparently unaware that someone who lives in what looks like a haunted house, complete with bats, is not in the market for such an item. The cast of characters was later expanded to include the woman's husband, son and daughter (later named Gomez, Pugsley and Wednesday) and other members of the extended family.
Much of the humor in the cartoons is derived from the Addamses' likes and dislikes being the exact opposites of those of most people. For example, one cartoon shows Gomez looking out of the window at a violent storm and commenting to his family, "Just the kind of day that makes you feel good to be alive!" The characters are sometimes shown apparently about to commit acts of violence against other people. One cartoon from 1947 shows Wednesday and Pugsley apparently about to throw a boulder at a passing car. A famous cartoon from December 1946, which was later adapted as the opening sequence for the 1991 movie version of The Addams Family, shows the family apparently about to pour boiling oil on a group of carol singers.
1960s TV series
External links
- "The Cartoon Bureau" on Charles Addams from the online version of The New Yorker.
- Entries for the 1964, 1973, 1992 and 1998 TV series of The Addams Family on the Internet Movie Database.
- Entries for the 1964, 1973, 1992 and 1998 TV series of The Addams Family on TV.com.
- The Addams Family on the Big Cartoon Database.
- The Addams Family on Television Tropes & idioms.
- The Addams Family Wiki.