Gomez (father) Morticia (mother) Pugsley (brother) Pubert Addams (youngest brother, Addams Family Values) Wednesday Jr. (younger sister, Halloween with the New Addams Family) Pugsley Jr. (youngest brother, Halloween with the New Addams Family) Fester (originally maternal great-uncle in the 1964 series, paternal uncle from then on) Pancho (paternal uncle, Halloween with the New Addams Family) Debbie Jellinsky Addams (paternal aunt via marriage to Fester, Addams Family Values; deceased) Grandmama Addams (paternal grandmother) Granny Frump (maternal grandmother) Ophelia Frump (maternal aunt) Goody Addams (ancestor; Wednesday)
Wednesday Addams is a fictional character from the Addams Family multimedia franchise created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. She is typically portrayed as a morbid and emotionally reserved child that is fascinated by the macabre, often identified by her pale skin and black pigtails.
Addams Family members were unnamed in The New Yorker cartoons that first appeared in 1938. The character that would later be known as Wednesday Addams first appeared in the August 26, 1944, issue of The New Yorker in an illustration captioned, "Well, don't come whining to me. Go tell him you'll poison him right back." When the characters were adapted for the 1964 television series, Charles Addams named Wednesday based on the Monday's Child nursery rhyme line: "Wednesday's child is full of woe". Actress and poet Joan Blake, an acquaintance of Charles Addams, offered the idea for the name.[1] Wednesday is the only daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams and the sister of Pugsley Addams. Earlier adaptations depict her as the younger sibling, while later adaptations depict Wednesday as the elder Addams child.
Appearance and personality
Wednesday Addams is a typically young girl (in the original series, she is about six, in the two original movies and animated movies, she is 13, in the Netflix series, she is 15 and 16) who is obsessed with death and is described as brilliant, with a penchant for doing odd scientific experiments. Wednesday does most of her experiments on her brother Pugsley Addams for "fun" or for punishment. Wednesday has been shown to care for Pugsley, but is often hostile towards him, and has tried to kill Pugsley many times. She enjoys raising spiders and researching the Bermuda Triangle. She has a tendency to startle people due to her gothic personality.
Wednesday's most notable features are her pale skin and long, dark braided pigtails. She seldom shows her emotions and is generally bitter, often sporting a stare forward with blank, emotionless eyes, and seldom changes her expression. Wednesday usually wears a black dress with a white collar, black stockings, and black shoes. In the TV series, her middle name is "Friday",[2] and in the Netflix series, she retains this middle name, because she was born on Friday the 13th.
In the 1960s series, she is sweet-natured and serves as a foil to the weirdness of her parents and brother; although her favorite hobby is raising spiders, she is also a ballerina. She is stated to be six years old in the television series pilot episode. Wednesday's favorite toy is her Marie Antoinette doll, which her brother guillotines (at her request). She also paints pictures (including a picture of trees with human heads) and writes a poem dedicated to her favorite pet spider, Homer. Wednesday is deceptively strong; she is able to bring her father down with a judo hold. Although she is obsessed with death, the macabre, and enjoys being miserable, she is also good-natured, smiles and dances often, and with a slight distaste for torture.
In the 1991 film, she is depicted in a darker fashion. She shows sadistic tendencies and a dark, sarcastic personality and is revealed to have a deep interest in the Bermuda Triangle (which has remained an integral part of her interests throughout the adaptations) and an admiration for an ancestor (Great Aunt Calpurnia Addams) who was burned as a witch in 1706. In the 1993 sequel, she was even darker: she buried a live cat, tried to guillotine her baby brother Pubert, set fire to Camp Chippewa, and (possibly) scared fellow camper Joel to death.
In the animated series and Canadian TV series The New Addams Family from the 1990s, Wednesday retains her appearance and her taste for darkness and torture; she is portrayed as having her parents' consent to tie Pugsley to a chair and torture him with a branding iron and ice pick. In the 1990s animated series, no one is allowed to touch Wednesday's pigtails.
In The Addams Family Broadway musical, Wednesday is 18 years old and has short hair rather than the long braids in her other appearances. Her darkness and sociopathic traits have been toned down, and she is in love with (and revealed to be engaged to) Lucas Beineke. In the musical, Wednesday is older than Pugsley.
In the parody web series Adult Wednesday Addams, Wednesday recovers her dark, sociopathic and sadistic nature (although as in the originals any actual horrific acts are only implied and may or may not occur off-camera) and her long braids, connecting with the events and the depiction of the movies and the original cartoons. This Wednesday deals with being an adult after moving out of her family home.[3]
In the 2019 animated version of the same title, Wednesday retains her emotionless nature and sadistic tendencies, trying to bury Pugsley and tormenting a bully at school. However, despite her gothic strangeness, she's also bored with her macabre and sheltered life, wanting to see the world despite Morticia's objections. This leads to her befriending Parker Needler and the two taking on several of each other's traits, with Wednesday at one point wearing colorful clothes, though ultimately deciding she likes dressing in darker colors more; in the 2021 sequel, she is revealed to love science experiments as well. She also often feels disconnected from the rest of her family for her differences, later realizing that being different is "the most Addams-y thing to be" and growing to love her differences, and has a pet squid named Socrates. Her braided pigtails end in nooses in the first film, and weights in the second.
In the Netflix series Wednesday, Wednesday is the titular character and is interested in being a detective. She has an interest in writing novels, specifically gothic mysteries. She tries to publish her works, but they are seen as far too shocking and macabre to publish. Other than writing, some of Wednesday's other hobbies are cello playing and fencing. She also knows German and Italian. It is mentioned that Wednesday is allergic to any color other than black, white, or gray. She retains her generally emotionless nature, but opens up during the course of the series, having a best friend, the colorful werewolf Enid, having a love interest and showing her care for her brother more explicitly. Wednesday in the series has psychic abilities, she can see important things of a person's past or future through touch. Because of her abilities, Wednesday is a "Raven" as her visions typically are negative, which causes her to estrange herself from the others, thinking she cannot trust them, though she learns to trust over the course of the series. Her mother, who has similar abilities, tells Wednesday that their psychic visions are based on their own attitude, and calls herself a "Dove" as her visions are usually positive, compared to Wednesday's visions. Wednesday also shares a similar appearance to her distant ancestor, Goody Addams, who is a "witch of great strength" and has the same psychic ability as hers.
Cindy Henderson (voice): the animated television series The New Scooby-Doo Movies (Wednesday Is Missing; 1972), the animated television series The Addams Family (1973),
Noelle Von Sonn: the pilot of the television show The Addams Family Fun House (1973),[4]
In the 1977 television holiday-themed special, Halloween with the New Addams Family, Lisa Loring plays a grown-up Wednesday, who mostly entertains their party guests with her flute, and can hear and understand coded help messages by bound-up members of the family, and dispatch help to free them. In the time interval between the original TV series and this television movie, her parents had two more children who look just like the original Pugsley and Wednesday, and they appropriately are called Wednesday Jr and Pugsley Jr, respectively.
The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993)[5] portray Wednesday more comic-accurately, maybe even darker. In both films, she is played by Christina Ricci. Wednesday's personality is severe, with a deadpan wit and a morbid interest in trying to inflict harm upon her brothers, first Pugsley and later Pubert. In the film Addams Family Values (1993), Wednesday and Pugsley are sent to a summer camp for "privileged young adults" called Camp Chippewa, where Joel Glicker (played by David Krumholtz)—a neurotic, allergy-ridden wallflower camper with an overbearing mother—takes a liking to Wednesday. She refuses to participate in Gary Granger's play, a musical production of the first Thanksgiving. She, Pugsley, and Joel are locked in the "Harmony Hut" and forced to watch upbeat family films to curb their antisocial behavior. On emerging from the hut, Wednesday feigns perkiness and agrees to play the role of Pocahontas, though her smile ends up scaring the campers, as well as her blonde nemesis.[6] During the play, she leads the other social outcasts—who have all been cast as Native Americans—in a revolt, capturing Gary, Becky, and Amanda and leaving the camp in chaos with Pugsley and Joel. Before she leaves, Wednesday and Joel kiss. At the end of the film, however, it is suggested that Wednesday, though she obviously likes Joel, purposely tries to scare him to death after he brings up the subject of marriage.
Zoe Richardson appeared at the Birmingham Hippodrome as Wednesday Addams in a Musical adaptation of The Addams Family on Ice in November 2007.
The Addams Family musical debuted on Broadway in April 2010, with Krysta Rodriguez playing Wednesday. The character is now 18 years old, has "become a woman", and no longer sports her signature pigtails. In March 2011, Krysta Rodriguez was replaced with Rachel Potter as Wednesday in the Broadway cast. The production began its first national tour in September 2011, with Cortney Wolfson cast in the role of Wednesday Addams.
The web series Adult Wednesday Addams (2013–2015) gained media attention with the third episode of Season 2 in which Wednesday punished a pair of catcallers.[7] While this behavior gained attention from early fans, The Tee & Charles Addams Foundation, copyright owners of The Addams Family, flagged the series for copyright violation resulting in the series being temporarily pulled from YouTube,[8] however as of 2016 the series has been reinstated.
Chloë Grace Moretz voices Wednesday in the 2019 animated movie and in the sequel, which was released on October 1, 2021. The whole family is mostly designed to resemble the initial cartoon depictions, with added details; for instance, Wednesday's hair braids end in nooses in the first film, and weights in the second.
↑ In the BroadwaymusicalThe Addams Family, Morticia refers to Grandmama as Gomez and Uncle Fester's mother, to which Gomez reacts with surprise and says that he had thought she was Morticia's mother. Morticia later says that Grandmama "may not even be part of this family", referencing Grandmama's ever-changing relation to the 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.
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Known for playing unusual characters with a dark edge, Ricci works mostly in independent productions, but has also appeared in numerous box-office hits. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Uncle Fester is a member of the fictional Addams Family and has been played by numerous actors, beginning with Jackie Coogan in the television series The Addams Family (1964).
Thing T. Thing, often referred to as just Thing, is a fictional character in The Addams Family series. The Addamses called it "Thing" because it was something that could not be identified, being originally an unseen creature in the original cartoons but starting with the live-action television series it was settled to be a disembodied hand. It is known as "Mãozinha" in Brazil "Cosa" (Thing) in Spain, "Dedos" (Fingers) in Hispanic America, "Mano" (Hand) in Italy, "La Chose" in French speaking countries, "eiskaltes Händchen" in German, and "Rączka" in Polish.
Addams Family Values is a 1993 American supernatural black comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Paul Rudnick, based on the characters created by Charles Addams. It is the sequel to The Addams Family (1991). The film features almost all the main cast members from the original film, including Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carel Struycken, Jimmy Workman, and Christopher Hart. Joan Cusack, Carol Kane, and David Krumholtz joined the cast for this film.
Morticia Addams is a fictional character from the Addams Family multimedia franchise created by American Charles Addams in 1933. She plays the role of the family's reserved matriarch. Morticia Addams has been portrayed by several actresses in various Addams Family media, including Carolyn Jones in the television series The Addams Family (1964), Anjelica Huston in the feature films The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the streaming television series Wednesday (2022).
Lurch is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Charles Addams as a butler to the Addams Family. In the original television series, Lurch was played by Ted Cassidy.
Grandmama is a fictional character in the Addams Family television and film series. First appearing in the works of cartoonist Charles Addams, she is a supporting character in the film, television, and stage adaptations.
Gomez Addams is the patriarch of the fictional Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine in the 1940s and subsequently portrayed on television, in film and on the stage.
Addams Family Reunion is a 1998 American comedy horror film based on the characters from the cartoon created by cartoonist Charles Addams. Directed by Dave Payne, the film was intended to serve as a pilot for a new proposed television series produced by Saban. The film stars Daryl Hannah and Tim Curry as Morticia and Gomez Addams respectively while Carel Struycken and Christopher Hart's hand are the only ones to reprise their roles from the last two films. The film's plot focused on the eccentric, macabre aristocratic Addams family mistakenly arriving at the wrong family reunion and encountering a man who seeks to commit murder in order to inherit a fortune.
Pugsley Pubert Addams is a member of the fictional Addams Family, created by American cartoonist Charles Addams.
The Addams Family is an American macabre/black comedy sitcom based on Charles Addams's New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute television series was responsible for taking the unnamed characters in the single-panel gag cartoons and giving them names, back stories, and a household setting. It was spearheaded by David Levy, who created and developed the series with Donald Saltzman in cooperation with cartoonist Addams, who gave each character a name and description for the first time. The series was shot in black-and-white, airing for two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966, for a total of 64 episodes. The show's opening theme was composed and sung by Vic Mizzy.
The Addams Family is an American animated sitcom adaptation of the Charles Addams single-panel comic for The New Yorker. The show was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for Saturday mornings in 1973, and was later rebroadcast the following season. Jackie Coogan and Ted Cassidy, who played Uncle Fester and Lurch, respectively, in the 1960s television series, returned in voice-over roles. The cast also included 10-year-old Jodie Foster, who performed the voice of Pugsley Addams. The show's theme music was completely different and had no lyrics or finger snapping, but retained a recognizable part of the four-note score from the live-action series.
The Addams Family is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. The show is based upon The Addams Family characters created by Charles Addams in his single-panel gag cartoons, which depict a ghoulish American family with an affinity for all things macabre. Although numerous film and television adaptations of Addams' cartoons exist, the musical is the first stage show based on the characters. The Addams Family is also the first show produced by Elephant Eye Theatricals.
The New Addams Family is a sitcom that aired from October 1998 to August 1999 on YTV in Canada and Fox Family in the United States and CITV in the United Kingdom on weekends. It was produced by Shavick Entertainment and Saban Entertainment as a revival of the 1960s series The Addams Family. The series was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Addams Family are fictional characters who originated in a series of comics created in 1938 by Charles Addams in The New Yorker magazine.
Krysta Anne Rodriguez is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles as Ana Vargas in the NBC series Smash, Summer Henderson in the NBC series Trial & Error, Maxine Griffin in the ABC series Quantico and Ms. Crumble in the Netflix comedy series Daybreak.
Jenna Marie Ortega is an American actress. She began her career as a child and received recognition for her role as young Jane in The CW comedy-drama series Jane the Virgin (2014–2019). From 2016 to 2018, Ortega had a leading role as Harley Diaz in the Disney Channel series Stuck in the Middle; she won an Imagen Award for the part. She played Ellie Alves in the second season of the thriller series You in 2019 and starred in the family film Yes Day in 2021, both for Netflix.
The Addams Family is a 2019 animated supernatural black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon created by cartoonist Charles Addams. It was directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, with a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and a story by Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja, and Vernon. The film stars the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and Allison Janney.
Wednesday is an American coming-of-age supernatural black comedy mystery television series based on the character Wednesday Addams by Charles Addams. Created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, it stars Jenna Ortega as the titular character, with Gwendoline Christie, Riki Lindhome, Jamie McShane, Hunter Doohan, Percy Hynes White, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Georgie Farmer, Naomi J. Ogawa, Christina Ricci, and Moosa Mostafa appearing in supporting roles. Four out of the eight episodes of the first season were directed by Tim Burton, who also serves as executive producer. It revolves around Wednesday Addams, who attempts to solve a murder mystery at her new school.
References
↑ Addams Family Values, Letters, The New Yorker, July 30, 2018
↑ "Wednesday Leaves Home" (November 20, 1964) Season 1, Episode 10, at 06:30
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