Holidays with the Addams Family

 Holidays with the Addams Family | MGM Studios

The Addams Family is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 unrelated single-panel comics, about half of which were originally published in The New Yorker over a 50-year period from their inception in 1938. They have since been adapted to other media, such as television, film, video games, comic books, a musical, and merchandise.

The Addamses are a satirical inversion of the ideal postwar American middle-class nuclear family: 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 1964 television series. The Addams Family consists of Gomez and Morticia Addams, their children, Wednesday and Pugsley, and close family members, Uncle Fester[a] and Grandmama,[b] 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.[c]

In 1964, the live-action television series premiered on ABC and ran for two seasons. It subsequently inspired a 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 and was nominated for two Tony Awards and eight Drama Desk Awards. The series again rebooted in 2019 with the animated film The Addams Family, which led to a sequel in 2021. In 2022, Netflix debuted the original series Wednesday.

The franchise has become a staple of popular culture. It has spawned a video game series, academic books, and soundtracks which are based around its Grammy-nominated theme song. They have had a profound influence on American comics, cinema and television, and are seen as an inspiration for the goth subculture and its fashion.

History

Original The New Yorker cartoons (1938–1964)

Charles Addams began as a cartoonist in The New Yorker with a sketch of a window washer that ran on February 6, 1932.[2] 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.[3]

Outside of The New Yorker, Addams also published several collections, the most notable being Dear Dead Days: A Family Album in 1959. 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.[3]

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.

TV adaptations and rise to popularity (1964–1977)

A 1964 television adaptation brought the series to a much wider audience and was well received. Producer Nat Perrin took a "less evil" approach to the characters and stories than Addams had in the cartoons, emphasizing lighter, more comedic elements. Stephen Cox later referred to the series as "more zany than spooky". The popular series, broadcast on the ABC network, ran only two seasons.

The franchise remained in the popular consciousness even after the series concluded, with the "Lurch" dance move remaining popular through the 1960s for example. The television series was often re-run through television syndication for years afterward, in some areas continuing to broadcast as late as 1991. It was followed by a 1972 crossover appearance in Scooby-Doo and a 1973 animated series. The animated incarnation featured a new cast except for Felix Silla, who returned as Cousin Itt. A one-shot special, Halloween with the New Addams Family, reunited most of the original cast from the 1964 series.[3]

Film series and TV reboots (1991–1999)

The franchise was largely inactive throughout the 1980s. The 1987 retirement of William Shawn allowed a brief return of the cartoons to The New Yorker, though Charles Addams himself died only a year later.

Two live-action films were directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and released in the early 1990s, featuring a new cast. While the 1991 film received mixed reviews from critics, it performed reasonably well at the box office. A second film in 1993, Addams Family Values, had the inverse reception. It was highly regarded by critics but, unexpectedly, performed poorly at the box office, and earned less than half the revenue of its predecessor. This, and the sudden death of Gomez actor Raul Julia in 1994, prevented Sonnenfeld from producing further films.[3] Both received nominations for Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards, and Hugo Awards. For her role as Morticia, Anjelica Huston was twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, and Raul Julia (as Gomez), Christina Ricci (as Wednesday), Christopher Lloyd (as Fester), and Joan Cusack (as Fester's wife, Debbie Jellinsky, in the sequel) received multiple Saturn Award and American Comedy Award nominations for their portrayals.

Following the wave of interest in the franchise, a 1992 animated television series notably saw John Astin reprise his role as Gomez, almost thirty years after his first appearance in the role in 1964. It was nominated for four Daytime Emmy Awards, including one for Astin.

A direct-to-video film, The Addams Family Reunion produced by Saban Entertainment in 1998, featured the return of Carel Struycken as Lurch, but was otherwise unrelated to the Sonnenfeld films. It was very poorly received. The film was intended as the pilot for a Canadian-produced live-action television series, The New Addams Family, made with a mostly different cast and airing the following year.[4] Astin, then in his late 60s, returned as Grandpapa Addams in the TV series, rather than Gomez, who was played by Glenn Taranto.[5]