Who created The Addams Family?

Comic origin and history explored

The Addams Family packs a power punch of nostalgia, be it their creepy and their kooky theme song
or their mysterious and spooky shenanigans. The weird family ruled the television and the silver
screen with their successful TV show and movies, both animated as well as live-action. However,
many young fans are clueless about the family’s history and origin.

The creepy family living in the haunted house had their humble beginnings in 1938 in the comic
panels of The New Yorker. Created by the talented cartoonist Charles Addams, the first artwork saw
a salesman trying to sell a vacuum cleaner to the residents of the haunted mansion, who seem as
creepy as their house.

Charles Addams designed the Addams family as the stark contrast of a perfect American family with
ghastly elements. The earlier single-panel comics in New Yorker saw the residents of the haunted
manor find happiness in unpleasant things. From decorating a dead tree for Christmas to borrowing
a cup of cyanide from the neighbors, the gags were loved by the readers.

Throughout his career as Cartoonist, Charles drew more than 1300 carton strips and panels in the
New Yorker out of which only 58 of them were of the creepy family. In the time when newspapers
were the primary source of entertainment, Charles’s Addams Family both spooked and amused the
readers.

The Addams Family includes Parents Gomez and Morticia, Kids Pugsley and Wednesday, and more.

While the characters of the family were introduced in the comic panels, they stayed anonymous
until the first television show in 1964. The show was well received by the viewers and to date has a
cult following. It dropped the dark undertones of the comics for a more upbeat family-friendly gags.
Author Stephen Cox says about the show:

“The TV show wasn’t as dark as the strips, it was more zany than spooky, but it captured the flavor
of what Charles Addams was doing in the New Yorker,”

The members of the Addams Family include the father Gomez Addams, the eccentric patriarch of
the Gomez household who is very much in love with his skinny, pale skinned almost dead-eyed wife
Morticia.

The kids of the household are Wednesday who just like her mother has an air of melancholy around
her and her enthusiastic younger brother Pugsley whose curiosity always gets the better of him.
Uncle Fester who has a penchant for antics is a member of the creepy family. Originally, Fester was
the brother of Morticia Addams but was later retconned as the brother of Gomez.

The other members of the family are Grandmama, Gomez’s mother who is often seen performing
witchcraft and playing with potions, the dismembered hand named Thing, the butler Lurch with an
uncanny resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster, and a hairy gibberish-speaking being named cousin
Itt.
What began as a single comic panel on page nine of New Yorker that earned the artist a sum of 85
dollars is now multi-million-dollar intellectual property with multiple tv shows and feature films
under its name including their multiple appearances in animated cartoons of Hanna-Barbera.

The family will soon find their new home on Netflix with the release of a show titled Wednesday. The
horror comedy series produced by MGM will be helmed by Tim Burton as executive producer and
the director of 4 out of 8 episodes. The Burtonesque series is the perfect art style for the series and
seems to be inspired by the creator Charles Addams himself.

The series will be released in late 2022 and stars Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Catherine Zeta-Jones as
Morticia, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday, and Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley.