The Addams Family: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The Addams Family is the creation of American cartoonist Charles Addams. They are a bizarre family who delight in all things macabre and are never really aware of why people find them frightening.

Addams' cartoons in The New Yorker magazine gained popularity in the 1930s. Addams was noted for his morbid sense of humor, and over the years various bizarre people and creatures who lived in a huge decaying Victorian Gothic house became recurring characters.

In the 1960s a network television series was spawned with actors playing characters from Addams cartoons, entitled The Addams Family. The television show originally ran from 1964 to 1966, and has been widely syndicated. The Munsters, which shared a similar gothic look but featured broader humor, was contemporary with The Addams Family.

In the 1990s this concept was developed into a film, The Addams Family (1991), and a sequel, Addams Family Values (1993). The latter 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).

Two animated television spin-offs have also been produced, running 1973-1975 and 1992-1995, as well as another live action version of the show (The New Addams Family), produced and shot in Canada.

Main characters

• Gomez Addams (played by John Astin in the 1960s show, Raúl Juliá in the 1990s movies)
• Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones in the show, Anjelica Huston in the movies)
• Pugsley Addams (Ken Weatherwax in the show, Jimmy Workman in the movies)
• Wednesday Addams (Lisa Loring in the show, Christina Ricci in the movies)
• Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan in the show, Christopher Lloyd in the movies)
• Grandmama (Marie Blake in the show, Judith Malina in the 1991 movie, Carol Kane in the 1993 movie)
• Lurch (Ted Cassidy in the show, Carel Struycken in the movies)
• Thing (Ted Cassidy's hand in the show, Christopher Hart's hand in the movies)
• Cousin Itt (Felix Silla on-screen and Tony Magro as Itt's voice in the show, John Franklin in the movies)

In Addams' original cartoons, the characters were not named. When the television show was developed, Addams was asked to contibute names, and all of his suggestions were used except for Pubert, who was renamed Pugsley. The name Pubert was eventually used in Addams Family Values.