99 Fun Facts About Addams Family

The Addams Family began as single-panel cartoons in which magazine?

The New Yorker printed the first one in 1938: a vacuum-cleaner salesman making his pitch in a haunted mansion. The brood he met there would stay nameless for decades.

In the first episode of Netflix's Wednesday, what does Wednesday Addams release into her school's pool to avenge Pugsley?

Piranhas, two bagfuls of them, tipped in on the water polo team that bullied her brother. The stunt gets her expelled and packed off to her parents' old boarding school.

Which two Addams Family members were first given names for a 1962 line of dolls?

Morticia and Wednesday were christened for the dolls. The rest stayed anonymous until the 1964 sitcom's producer told Charles Addams that every character would need a name.

Which network premiered The Addams Family in September 1964?

ABC put it on Friday nights from September 18, 1964, one evening after unveiling Bewitched, so the network's witch and its ghoulish family arrived in the same week.

In the Addams Family sitcom, which language from Morticia drives Gomez wild?

French sends his ardour soaring at a single word: he seizes her arm and covers it in kisses. In a running gag he mistakes other languages for it and does the same.

Vic Mizzy wrote The Addams Family's finger-snapping theme and, a year later, the tune for which sitcom about a lawyer turned farmer?

Green Acres followed in 1965. For the Addams theme, Mizzy sang the vocals himself, overdubbed three times, because the production company refused to pay for singers.

The theme's sound is dominated by which instrument?

A bass clarinet supplies the low end under the harpsichord.

What is the Addams Family's street address in the 1964 sitcom?

0001 Cemetery Lane was a change from the cartoons: instead of a crumbling wreck, the sitcom's mansion became, as the theme song puts it, a museum crammed with oddities.

Who played Gomez in the 1964 sitcom The Addams Family?

John Astin settled the character's name as well: Charles Addams had floated 'Repelli', a play on repellent, but Astin went with Gomez.

Which former child star of Chaplin's The Kid played Uncle Fester in the 1964 Addams Family sitcom?

Jackie Coogan earned millions as a boy, only to find his mother and stepfather had spent nearly all of it. The scandal led California to pass the 'Coogan Act' protecting child actors' pay.

Ted Cassidy played Lurch in the 1964 Addams Family sitcom and also performed which other character?

Thing, the disembodied hand, was usually Cassidy's own arm reaching out of a box. When Lurch and the hand shared a scene, a crew member's arm stood in.

Which Addams Family relative was devised for the 1964 sitcom at its producer's suggestion?

Cousin Itt, a walking curtain of hair, was producer David Levy's idea. Addams went on to draw the character himself.

Morticia's man-eating plant in the 1964 Addams Family sitcom shares its name with which Egyptian queen?

Cleopatra is an African Strangler with a taste for red meat: Morticia feeds her zebra burgers and yak meatballs.

Why did Addams Family cartoons vanish from their home magazine in 1964?

Editor William Shawn banned the characters while the sitcom was on air, unwilling to see his magazine linked to a network comedy.

Which future Oscar winner, then about ten, voiced Pugsley in Hanna-Barbera's 1973 Addams Family cartoon?

Jodie Foster voiced the boy years before Taxi Driver, in a series that sent the Addamses across America in a camper built to look like their creepy mansion.

The Addams Family made its animated debut in 1972 as guest stars alongside which Hanna-Barbera characters?

Scooby-Doo and the gang are tricked into minding the mansion in 'Wednesday Is Missing', while Gomez and Morticia slip away on a second honeymoon.

Which former Coen brothers cinematographer made his directing debut with The Addams Family in 1991?

Barry Sonnenfeld had shot Big, Misery and Miller's Crossing but never directed, and the strain of the troubled shoot was such that he once passed out on set.

Who played Gomez in the 1991 film The Addams Family?

Raul Julia returned for the 1993 sequel although his health was visibly failing during the shoot, and he died in October 1994, less than a year after it opened.

Which actress played Morticia in 1991's The Addams Family, modelling the character's warmth on her friend Jerry Hall?

Anjelica Huston said she was surprised to be offered the part ahead of Cher. It brought her Golden Globe nominations for both the film and its sequel.

Who played Wednesday in the 1991 film The Addams Family and its 1993 sequel?

Christina Ricci came back three decades later in the series Wednesday, this time as a kindly teacher, Marilyn Thornhill, who turns out to be the villain.

Which cash-strapped studio sold The Addams Family to Paramount while the 1991 film was still shooting?

Orion Pictures held the rights because it had bought Filmways, the sitcom's producer, but it was so short of money that it sold mid-shoot. The crew heard the news from a journalist.

Which rapper's 'Addams Groove' was the 1991 film's theme song and won a Razzie for Worst Original Song?

MC Hammer's 'Addams Groove' was a hit regardless: it reached the US top ten, with a video shot around the mansion alongside most of the film's cast.

Who played Uncle Fester in the 1991 film The Addams Family?

Christopher Lloyd, Doc Brown himself, returned for the 1993 sequel, in which Fester falls for a bride who keeps trying to kill him.

What is the name of the moustachioed baby born to Gomez and Morticia in Addams Family Values?

Pubert was the name Charles Addams first proposed for Pugsley in 1964, until network censors judged it too risqué. The 1993 film finally put it to use.

In the 1991 film The Addams Family, which dance 'taught to us by our Cossack cousins' do Gomez and Fester perform?

The Mamushka was a much longer number until a test audience turned against it and the studio trimmed it. The film's 2021 re-release restored an extended version.

Who stars as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix series Wednesday, which premiered in November 2022?

Jenna Ortega learned the cello, fencing and German for the part, and had her hair cut and dyed black.

Which school for outcasts does Wednesday Addams attend in the Netflix series Wednesday?

Nevermore Academy is her parents' old school. They send her there after she is expelled from her previous school for taking revenge on the boys who bullied her brother.

Which director made four episodes in each of the first two seasons of Netflix's Wednesday?

Tim Burton had passed on directing the 1991 film and later walked away from a stop-motion Addams movie, so Wednesday was third time lucky.

Netflix's Wednesday sends Wednesday Addams to school in Vermont, but season one was filmed in which European country?

Romania's Cantacuzino Castle, in the Carpathian town of Bușteni, supplied the school's exterior. The production then moved to Ireland for season two.

Wednesday Addams's dance in Netflix's Wednesday went viral on TikTok set to which Lady Gaga song instead of the original track?

Bloody Mary, an album track from 2011, was sped up by fans and then sent to radio as a single eleven years late. On screen she dances to the Cramps' 'Goo Goo Muck'.

Who plays Uncle Fester in the Netflix series Wednesday?

Fred Armisen's Fester, a bank robber on the run in this version, first appears as a figure lurking in the woods at a funeral in the seventh episode.

Which pair play Gomez and Morticia Addams in the Netflix series Wednesday?

Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones play them. In season one Gomez is arrested over the death of a boy at the school decades earlier, a case his daughter reopens.

In Netflix's Wednesday, Wednesday's roommate Enid Sinclair belongs to which group of outcasts?

Werewolves, though Enid is a late bloomer who has never managed to transform. She finally does so in the season one finale, rushing to rescue her roommate.

Which pair originated Gomez and Morticia in the 2010 Broadway musical The Addams Family?

Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth led a story in which a grown-up Wednesday falls for a thoroughly ordinary boy and begs her family for one normal night with his parents.

Where did Addams Family creator Charles Addams marry his third wife, Tee?

In a pet cemetery on Long Island, where the bride wore a black dress and carried a black feather fan because the groom, she said, 'just likes black'.

Charles Addams illustrated the 1946 story 'Homecoming', about a family of monsters called the Elliotts, for which author?

Ray Bradbury and Addams planned a whole book about the Elliotts that never happened. Bradbury finally published the saga in 2001 as From the Dust Returned, with Addams's 1946 picture on the cover.

In the 1964 Addams Family sitcom, Wednesday's favourite doll, Marie Antoinette, is missing which part?

Its head: the doll is named for the guillotined queen, and Wednesday had her brother chop it off to match.

What can Uncle Fester famously power in The Addams Family with his own body?

A light bulb: he pops one into his mouth and it lights up, a party trick he performs again and again in the 1964 sitcom.

In the 1964 Addams Family series, tugging a hangman's noose in the living room summons whom?

Lurch appears the instant the noose is pulled, after a gong that shakes the whole house, and groans his catchphrase: 'You rang?'

Which rival sitcom premiered on CBS six days after The Addams Family in September 1964 and also ended in 1966?

The Munsters were the mirror image: they looked like movie monsters but behaved like an ordinary suburban family, while the Addamses looked human and behaved like nobody else.

Which part of her roses does Morticia Addams snip off and throw away?

The flowers go in the bin: Morticia cuts off every bud and keeps only the bare, thorny stems.

In Netflix's Wednesday, which Rolling Stones song does Wednesday Addams play on her cello from the dormitory balcony?

Paint It Black is heard in the first episode. To play scenes like it, the show's star learned the cello for the part.

In the 1991 film The Addams Family, where is the long-lost Uncle Fester said to have been missing for 25 years?

The Bermuda Triangle is the cover story for Gordon, a con artist's son hired to pose as Fester. The twist is that he really is Fester, with amnesia.

In the 1964 Addams Family sitcom, the pet Kitty Kat is which animal?

A lion: Kitty Kat wanders the mansion at will and scares the wits out of visitors, while the family treats the big cat as a harmless pet.

Who played both Morticia and her flower-child sister Ophelia in the 1964 sitcom The Addams Family?

Carolyn Jones put on a blonde wig to play Ophelia, the sister Gomez was originally engaged to marry before he fell for Morticia instead.

Which rapper voiced Cousin Itt in the 2019 animated film The Addams Family?

Snoop Dogg lent a famous voice to a relative who speaks only high-pitched gibberish that the family alone understands, and returned for the 2021 sequel.

In Addams Family Values, what is Debbie Jellinsky's job when she meets Uncle Fester?

Nanny is only her cover: Debbie is a serial 'black widow' who marries rich men and kills them for the inheritance, and Fester is next on her list.

In Addams Family Values, which role is Wednesday given in the Camp Chippewa Thanksgiving play?

Pocahontas goes off-script: Wednesday abandons the play's cheerful Thanksgiving story and leads the camp's outcasts in burning down the stage.

In the 1964 sitcom The Addams Family, what does Gomez gleefully do with his model trains?

Crashes and blows them up: Gomez sets his trains running, then dynamites the track just as they come through.

What are the Addams Family pouring onto Christmas carolers in a much-loved cartoon from 1946?

Boiling oil is the family's answer to carolers at the door, and the scene went down so well that it was later sold on Christmas cards.

Which actor played a hunched, hairless and amnesiac Uncle Fester in the 1991 film The Addams Family and its sequel?

Christopher Lloyd, already famous as Doc Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, returned as Fester for Addams Family Values in 1993.

Which rapper voiced the hair-covered Cousin Itt in the 2019 animated film The Addams Family and its 2021 sequel?

Snoop Dogg's Itt is a playboy who turns up on a jet ski in the sequel, and he is drawn smaller than ever: shorter even than Pugsley.

Which language does Morticia Addams only have to speak for Gomez to start frantically kissing her on the arm?

French sets Gomez off whatever the words mean: any few words will do, and the 1964 series made his frenzy a running joke.

A 1992 Bally game based on the film The Addams Family is the best-selling solid-state machine of which arcade type?

Pinball: the Addams Family table sold more than 20,000 units, and the actor who played Gomez in the film recorded new speech just for the game.

Which famous screen witch played Morticia's mother in three episodes of the 1964 series The Addams Family?

Margaret Hamilton was the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, a role the American Film Institute ranks as the greatest female villain in film.

Which pop star recorded a nearly finished song for Addams Family Values that never made it into the film?

Michael Jackson's song was called Family Thing, and he still made the film: his poster in the Harmony Hut horrifies one of the campers.

In the 1991 film The Addams Family, where is Uncle Fester said to have been lost for 25 years?

The Bermuda Triangle is the story, complete with a rescue from tuna nets, and by the end of the film it turns out Fester really did vanish there.

Wednesday Addams's favourite toy in the 1964 series The Addams Family is a headless doll named after which queen?

Marie Antoinette is the doll, and it lost its head to a guillotine worked by Pugsley, at Wednesday's own request.

Wednesday Addams got her name from a line in which fortune-telling nursery rhyme, at a poet's suggestion?

Monday's Child gives a baby a fortune for each day of birth, and Wednesday's is a gloomy one; an actress and poet who knew the cartoonist offered the idea.

Which New Jersey town of Victorian mansions and old graveyards was the hometown that inspired the Addams Family?

Westfield is where the family's creator grew up, and police once caught him breaking into one of the houses said to have inspired the mansion.

Which animated sitcom parodied the Addams Family in November 1964 with spooky new neighbours called the Gruesomes?

The Flintstones named its scary couple Weirdly and Creepella Gruesome, and brought them in only weeks after the live-action Addamses reached television.

Which Oscar-nominated actress played Morticia in both seasons of the 1964 sitcom The Addams Family?

Carolyn Jones earned her Oscar nomination for The Bachelor Party, and playing Morticia brought her a Golden Globe nomination as well.

In most versions of The Addams Family, what does Pugsley steal to decorate the walls and door of his bedroom?

Traffic signs are Pugsley's trophy of choice; in an early cartoon he took warning signs instead, leading other people into danger.

In the 1964 series The Addams Family, the bell pull that summons Lurch with a house-shaking gong takes what form?

A hangman's noose hangs ready as the bell pull, though Lurch is so prompt that he sometimes arrives before anyone has tugged it.

Which Absolutely Fabulous star joined season two of Wednesday as Hester Frump, the mother of Morticia Addams?

Joanna Lumley, who won two BAFTA TV Awards as Patsy Stone, arrived as a recurring guest playing Wednesday's grandmother.

In the series Wednesday, what kind of creature is Enid Sinclair, the colourfully dressed roommate of Wednesday Addams?

A werewolf, played by Emma Myers: Enid becomes the best friend who slowly softens the stoic Wednesday over the course of the series.

Which instrument does Wednesday Addams play in the series Wednesday, including a cover of Paint It Black?

Cello covers run through the soundtrack, from the Rolling Stones to Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, and the lead actress learned the instrument for the part.

Morticia's uncle in the 1964 series The Addams Family, Fester is which relation to Gomez in the 1990s films?

Brother to Gomez, and the elder one: the 1991 film turns on that, because it makes Fester the legal owner of the whole Addams estate.

The tubby cartoon Gomez of the original Addams Family drawings was based on which Republican presidential nominee?

Thomas E. Dewey, the New York governor who lost the 1944 and 1948 elections, lent the cartoon Gomez his look; Morticia was drawn first and Gomez followed later.

Which silent-film star did the creator of the Addams Family say he had often seen a little of in Morticia?

Gloria Swanson was as close as he came to naming a model: he insisted Morticia was not patterned on anyone, yet the women he later married resembled her.

Which 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller name-checks the creator of the Addams Family during its auction scene?

North by Northwest has Cary Grant invoke the cartoonist by name; Hitchcock was a friend who owned two pieces of his original art.

In the closing credits of the 1964 series The Addams Family, which name is listed as the performer of Thing?

Itself is the billing at the end of every episode, a running joke for a character that popped out of a box in each room and the mailbox outside.

Which of his toys does the cigar-loving Gomez Addams take delight in crashing in the 1964 series The Addams Family?

Toy trains exist to be crashed as far as Gomez is concerned; he is also an accomplished juggler and knife thrower.

The title of Addams Family Values pokes fun at a speech by which American vice president?

Dan Quayle had blamed the 1992 Los Angeles riots on a breakdown of family values, and writer Paul Rudnick borrowed the phrase with tongue in cheek.

Christopher Hart, whose hand played Thing in the 1990s Addams Family films, has which stage profession?

Magician Christopher Hart came well prepared: as a teenager he dug graves for extra money, and his tall, lanky frame earned him the nickname Lurch.

Which British actor took over as Gomez in the 1998 direct-to-video film Addams Family Reunion?

Tim Curry starred opposite Daryl Hannah's Morticia, and his Gomez was the one thing critics singled out for praise in a poorly received film.

In the 1991 film The Addams Family, how does Thing let Gomez know that Morticia has been captured?

Morse code from Thing sends Gomez racing to the rescue; earlier in the film, with the family out of its home, Thing takes a job as a courier.

Which Oscar-winning actress voiced Morticia in the 2019 animated film The Addams Family and its 2021 sequel?

Charlize Theron voiced Morticia opposite Oscar Isaac as Gomez, with Bette Midler as the family's grandmother.

In the 2019 animated film The Addams Family, what kind of abandoned building do Gomez and Morticia make their home?

An asylum on a New Jersey hilltop becomes the family home, and it is where they meet Lurch, an escaped patient they recruit as their butler at once.

In the Broadway musical The Addams Family, the family mansion stands in which New York City green space?

Central Park is the musical's address for the mansion, a change from the 1964 series, which set it beside a swamp in an unnamed American town.

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the creators of Wednesday, earlier made which superhero series that ran for a decade?

Smallville, their Superman prequel, ran from 2001 to 2011, though the pair themselves left in 2008 after seven seasons.

In which country was the first season of Wednesday filmed, around the Carpathian mountain town of Bușteni?

Romania hosted the first season, with the show's fictional Vermont town built at Buftea Studios, before filming moved to Ireland for season two.

Which actress plays Larissa Weems, the shapeshifting principal and former roommate of Morticia, in the series Wednesday?

Gwendoline Christie's Weems clashes with Wednesday from the start, then returns in season two as the girl's spirit guide.

Which Lady Gaga album track from 2011 went viral on TikTok when fans set the dance from Wednesday to it?

Bloody Mary was never a single in 2011, but the trend sent it to radio as one eleven years later, and Gaga posted her own version of the dance.

In the series Wednesday, coffee-shop barista Tyler Galpin, the sheriff's son, is later revealed to be which creature?

A Hyde is the secret of Tyler, played by Hunter Doohan, who admits it to Wednesday in private after she and her classmates kidnap him to force a confession.

Which actor joined season two of Wednesday as Principal Dort, the fire-wielding new head of Wednesday's school?

Steve Buscemi plays Dort as a pyrokinetic who succeeds Weems and puts Morticia to work as a fundraiser while he looks after his own interests.

In the 1964 series The Addams Family, Morticia's family tree is traced back to which old Massachusetts town?

Salem suits her: Morticia is described as a witch, wears a pointed black hat in one episode and can give off smoke with no cigarette in sight.

At which crime magazine did the creator of the Addams Family once work, retouching blood from photos of corpses?

True Detective took him on in its layout department in 1933, and he grumbled that a lot of the corpses were more interesting the way they were.

Morticia Addams is often seen in the 1964 series The Addams Family freely strumming which stringed instrument?

A shamisen from Japan is one of Morticia's gentler pastimes; she also snips the buds off her roses and keeps only the stems.

Which young star of another spooky 1964 sitcom played Pugsley in the 1973 pilot The Addams Family Fun-House?

Butch Patrick had been Eddie in The Munsters, and the musical variety pilot he joined as Pugsley was never picked up as a series.

Which Broadway star voiced the family's grandmother in the 1992 animated series The Addams Family?

Carol Channing, who created the lead in Hello, Dolly! on Broadway, voiced Granny alongside the original television Gomez, back in his old role.

Which actress played Debbie Jellinsky, the serial-killing bride of Uncle Fester, in Addams Family Values?

Joan Cusack, twice an Oscar nominee, made Debbie a lasting favourite: decades on, the performance still inspires memes and tribute videos.

Which musical dance number in the 1991 film The Addams Family was cut down after test audiences reacted badly?

The Mamushka was much longer in the original cut, and an extended version of the sequence finally reached home video in 2021.

Which country saw a 1980s Addams Family craze, complete with a Morticia dress boutique, after reruns of the 1964 series?

Australia fell so hard for the reruns that surviving cast members gave a satellite-linked interview to its television audience.

The Addams Family appeared in a 2007 advertising campaign launching a dark chocolate version of which candy?

M&M's turned its candy characters into the Addamses for the launch, in a campaign that ran through 2007 and 2008.

In the 1991 film The Addams Family, what do Wednesday and Pugsley sell when the family has to find jobs?

Lemonade, and a toxic batch at that; meanwhile their mother tries her luck as a preschool teacher after the family is shut out of its home.

What kind of family holiday does a worried Gomez plan in the 2021 animated sequel The Addams Family 2?

A road trip across the United States is his cure for children drifting away from their parents, and the film was also released with Road Trip as its subtitle.

In the series Wednesday, the school for outcasts attended by Wednesday Addams stands in which Vermont town?

Jericho is where Wednesday sees her therapist, and she presses Thing into helping her solve the mysteries of the town.

The cast of the 1990s Addams Family films appeared in character in 1994 Japanese television adverts for which carmaker?

Honda hired the family to sell its Odyssey, and the spots showed the Addamses speaking Japanese, Gomez and Morticia most of all.