The Addams Family: Encyclopedia II - The Addams Family - Premise

The Addams Family - Premise

The Addamses are the descendants of a very long line of witches, serial killers, freaks, ghouls, and other assorted social outcasts and monsters. The family that the cartoons, movies, and shows are based around are said to be but one surviving branch of the Addams clan. Many other "Addams families" exist all over the world. Their family credo is "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc" (We gladly feast on those who would subdue us).

Gomez Addams studied to be a lawyer, but rarely practices while taking absurd pride in losing his cases. He is wealthy from inheritance and extensive investments, though seems to have little regard for money. Gomez is of Castilian origin and loves to smoke cigars and play destructively with his model trains. Though head of the household, he is also the most naïve and childish member of the family, with a short attention span and endless optimism. Gomez is married to Morticia Addams (née Frump), a vampish woman who dresses only in black and loves to cut the buds from roses, leaving only the thorny stems. She too comes from a long line of maniacs and monsters.

Gomez and Morticia have two children, Pugsley and Wednesday. Wednesday, whose middle name is Thursday, was originally -- as her name suggests -- a quiet, somewhat pathetic child, full of woe. In the TV show she was a sweet-natured, happy child, largely concerned with her pet spiders. A favorite toy was her Marie Antoinette doll, which she had guillotined and which she often showed to visitors. The movies gave her yet another personality, serious and with a deadpan wit, and a morbid fascination with trying to murder her brother (she was seen strapping him into an electric chair, for example, and preparing to pull the switch). She is apparently often successful, but Pugsley never dies. Like most members of the family he seems to live in a semi-immortal state. For his part, Pugsley is largely either oblivious of the harm his sister tries to inflict on him, or an enthusiastic supporter of it. Pugsley's first incarnation, originally called Pubert, was that of the ultimate demon child next door. In the show, he was a devoted older brother and an inventive and mechanical genius, although his brilliance was lost in the movies, in which he appears to be of below-average intelligence. In Addams Family Values, Gomez and Morticia had a third son, also named Pubert (voiced by Cheryl Chase), a moustachioed and seemingly indestructible baby with the ability to breathe flaming arrows.

Other members of the family who live with Gomez and Morticia include Uncle Fester and Grandmama. In the original television series, Fester was Morticia's uncle, and therefore technically not an Addams, although at times he claims the family name as his own. In all other animated and filmed content, Fester became Gomez's older brother, and therefore the uncle of Wednesday and Pugsley. Grandmama is Gomez's mother in only the live-action TV serieses and the animated TV series (Starring John Astin,Nancy Lanri,Rip Taylor, Jim Cummings, and Carol Channing). In all animated content, the comics, and the movies, Grandmama is Morticia's mother (in fact, both animated TV serises have one episode each where Grandmama's surname is mentioned as "Frump")

The family has a pet disembodied hand named "Thing" and a tall, ghoulish manservant named Lurch ("Lurch" was revealed during the original TV series to be a surname. His given name is still yet to be revealed). Gomez's Cousin Itt often visits the family. He is a four-foot tall hairball who speaks in a squeakish language that only the family understands, and in the second animated series, Itt was a super-spy for the US Government. Other guests include Morticia's older sister Ophelia (also played by Carolyn Jones) and Morticia's mother, Hester Frump (played by Margaret Hamilton, best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz). Mentioned, but not shown, are the Addamses' many eccentric cousins.

The Addamses are a close-knit and loving family. Morticia and Gomez remain passionately in love, and are deeply concerned with the well-being of their children. Though they all share an obsession and interest in death, dying, and other gothic and macabre subjects, the Addamses are not evil people (in several of the TV episodes, Gomez is willing to donate large sums to worthy causes, to the shock of the already shell-shocked visitors), and usually restrict their ghoulish activities to within their own family. Most of the Addamses' neighbours are less than understanding, however. Within the larger community, the Addamses are viewed as oddballs, dangerous, or worse. Both the TV shows and movies deal with outsiders attempting to understand and "correct" the behavior of the family, and remain frustrated and horrified by the things that the Addamses find amusing. The Addamses for their part are just the opposite, and are often shocked and horrified at the actions of "mainstream" society. The underlying moral premise of the series thus seems to be a message against being judgmental and trying to impose universal standards of morality.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Premise", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki