THE ORIGINAL
(1938-88)
The Addams Family started off as a single-panel comic strip in The New Yorker. Cartoonist Charles Addams began regularly submitting his work to the magazine in 1933, and became known for his grim, horror-themed comics featuring visual gags, dark humor, and supernatural elements. The settings for these comics were inspired by the Victorian mansions and archaic graveyards in his hometown of Westfield, New Jersey.
The Addams Family
(1964-66)
The family was given the surname Addams, after their creator. The married couple was named Gomez and Morticia, while their daughter was named Wednesday and their son Pugsley. There was also Morticia's uncle Fester, the giant butler named Lurch, and the grandmother known as Grandmama. While she was Morticia's mother in the comics, in the show she's Gomez's mother, Eudora Addams. Morticia's sister Ophelia, who occasionally appeared in the comics, was featured in a few episodes.
The Addams Family Fun House
(1973)
The Addams Family Fun House was the unsold pilot of a musical variety show produced by ABC in 1972. This pilot consisted of comedic skits, musical numbers, dance routines, and some gags involving blue-screen effects. When it wasn't picked up as a regular series, ABC aired it as a TV special the following year.
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
(1972-73)
In 1972, the Addams family made their first animated appearance in the third episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, a show which featured famous guest stars meeting the mystery-solving Scooby-Doo gang. In the episode, entitled "Wednesday is Missing," the Scooby gang's van breaks down near the Addams mansion, and they're taken in by the family. A ransom note is soon found, saying Wednesday has been kidnapped, and the gang helps find her.
The Addams Family
(1973)
Hanna-Barbera produced their own animated sitcom adaptation the following year, with Coogan and Cassidy reprising their voiceover roles. It ran for one season on NBC and featured the family on a cross-country road trip. Throughout sixteen episodes, they travel across the United States in a Victorian-style RV that resembles their mansion, causing mayhem and accidentally becoming involved in criminal schemes.
Halloween with
the New Addams Family
(1977)
The film takes place several years after the sitcom. Wednesday is now attending a music academy and Pugsley has gone to Nairobi to become a witch doctor. Gomez and Morticia now also have two younger children, Wednesday Jr. and Pugsley Jr. The older children return to the mansion for the family's annual Halloween party, along with Gomez's brother Pancho. Pancho tells the story of Cousin Shy, a legendary figure who carves pumpkins and delivers presents to good children on Halloween.
The Addams Family
(1991)
This black comedy film begins with Gomez grieving the loss of his brother Fester, who disappeared 25 years prior. A loan shark in league with Gomez's lawyer realizes her son Gordon resembles Fester, so she has him pose as Fester as part of a scheme to steal the Addams's family fortune. Gordon shows up at the Addams manor, claiming he was lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Though initially overjoyed at Fester's return, the family starts to suspect he's an imposter, while Gordon questions his loyalties upon bonding with Wednesday and Pugsley.
The Addams Family
(1992-93)
While the family's macabre nature was toned down for a younger audience, the contrast between their morbid, eccentric qualities and the bright, cheerful town they live in, called Happydale Heights, serves as the basis for both comedy and conflict. The Addams's antagonistic neighbors, Norman and Normina Normanmeyer, consider them an affront to suburban life, and disapprove of their son's friendship with Wednesday and Pugsley. They and other recurring villains often try to either force the Addamses out of their home or take them hostage for criminal purposes.
Addams Family Values
(1993)
Addams Family Values begins with the birth of the Addams's third child, a boy named Pubert. (Pubert was the name that Charles Addams originally suggested for Pugsley when discussing the sitcom adaptation of his comics.) Due to Wednesday's and Pugsley's jealously over their new brother, Morticia and Gomez hire a nanny, Debbie, who's secretly a black widow who plans to marry and then murder Uncle Fester to obtain his fortune. When Wednesday starts catching on to her scheme, Debbie sends the children to summer camp so she can freely pursue Fester.
Addams Family Reunion
(1998)
Addams Family Reunion (1998) begins with Gomez discovering that his grandparents are stricken with "Waltzheimer's disease," which is taking away their eccentric qualities and turning them normal. Gomez arranges a family reunion to see if any relatives know of a cure for this disease. But due to a misspelling, they arrive at a reunion for the ordinary Adams family, who are feuding over a monetary inheritance.
The Addams Family Musical
(2010)
The plot revolves around Wednesday, now eighteen years old, inviting her ordinary boyfriend and his parents to the Addams mansion, resulting in a culture clash. Morticia and Gomez worry about Wednesday's changing ways, such as wearing a bright yellow dress as opposed to her usual black, while Pugsley is concerned his sister won't partake in their pastime of torture anymore. Meanwhile, Fester seeks advice from the ghosts of the Addams's ancestors.
The Addams Family
(2019)
The first animated Addams Family film was produced by MGM Pictures and distributed domestically by United Artists Releasing and internationally by Universal Pictures. The directors hired were Conrad Vernon of DreamWorks Animation and Greg Tiernan of Nitrogen Studios. In the film, following Morticia and Gomez's wedding, the family moves to Westfield, New Jersey, where they build their family mansion out of an abandoned asylum on a hill. Thirteen years later, reality show host Margaux Needler sets out to redesign the neighborhood on camera to her own liking. Seeing the Addamses as a threat to her vision, she becomes determined to run them out of town, and turns their neighbors against them. Meanwhile, Margaux's daughter Parker befriends Wednesday, and they're both met with parental disapproval as they try to merge their drastically different cultures.
The Addams Family 2
(2021)
Like the 1973 animated series, this film features the family on a cross-country road trip. Morticia and Gomez decide to take a vacation to reconnect with their growing children. Before they leave, they're approached by a lawyer, Mr. Mustela, who tells them Wednesday was switched at birth and is not their biological daughter. They initially dismiss him, but later become concerned, while Mustela secretly pursues them on their trip.
Wednesday
(2022)
In this series, Wednesday, played by Jenna Ortega, gets expelled from high school for siccing piranhas on the water polo team in retaliation for them bullying her brother Puglsey. Gomez and Morticia decide to enroll her in their old school, Nevermore Academy, which boasts a student body of supernatural beings. There, Wednesday hones her psychic abilities and becomes embroiled in a decades-long murder mystery.
