How Wednesday Continues Charles Addams’ OG Addams Family Show Complaint

Wednesday has put a unique spin on the Addams Family, but its depiction of key characters continues Charles Addams’ complaints surrounding the original sitcom. Before Wednesday, a series of movies, and various other TV projects, there was only Addams’ cartoon creations in The New Yorker.

Believe it or not, Charles Addams’ inspiration for The Addams Family didn’t come from a dark family history. In fact, over the course of his career, he was vocal about having a positive upbringing. Still, Addams was drawn to the macabre, which evidently helped spawn The Addams Family in the 1930s.

Fast-forward nearly 90 years, and the franchise is still going strong, with even more Addams Family projects on the way, including Wednesday season 3. Despite the franchise’s continued success, it’s interesting to look at how much the characters have evolved, especially in comparison to Addams’ original concept.

Charles Addams Criticized The 1960s Addams Family For Being “Half As Evil” As His Characters

Gomez looking lovingly at Morticia in The Addams Family original show

When The Addams Family TV show debuted in 1964, Charles Addams’ fictional family was introduced to an entirely new audience. The increased popularity was great for Addams’ net worth. However, Addams acknowledged that the sitcom made his characters “half as evil,” according to Linda H. Davis in her book Charles Addams: A Cartoonist’s Life.

While ABC’s The Addams Family kept the foundational aspects of the family intact, such as the gothic aesthetic, the show shifted into the comedic nature of its characters. This strengthened its comparison to The Munsters, which also followed a horror-leaning family while presenting them through a comedic lens.

In doing so, The Addams Family show didn’t fully embrace the depravity that Charles Addams had in mind when developing his cartoons for The New Yorker, at least in his opinion. Some examples of that “evil” behavior included transporting the kids in pet carriers, admiring severed human heads on platters, and pleasantly witnessing vultures eat their prey.

In one cartoon created by Charles Addams, Wednesday and Pugsley were shown building a large fire in the fireplace in the hopes that Santa Claus would be in for a surprise. Interestingly, one holiday episode for the ’60s sitcom included that same scene, but that kind of sinister fun played for laughs didn’t exactly match what Addams had in mind when creating the family.

Wednesday Makes The Addams Family Darker, But Not Any More Evil

Addams Family at Nevermore in Wednesday season 2

As the live-action movie adaptations from the ’90s may have tapped more into Charles Addams’ “evil” characters, Wednesday mostly repeats the path of the TV show from the ’60s. In many ways, members of the Addams Family depicted in Wednesday are darker than the original show, but they likely aren’t at the level of “evil” that Addams once intended.

Wednesday season 2, in particular, showed a darker side of Wednesday, Pugsley, Morticia, and Gomez, as they each battled their own struggles with identity and family conflict. The strain within the family also unearthed some shockingly dark twists involving the core characters, as they brought more secrets to light by Wednesday season 2’s ending.

That said, the depiction of the characters didn’t imply that they lacked morals more than anyone else in the show. While all members of the family faced dark threats in Wednesday season 2, they still held onto the macabre and kooky persona that was more in line with the sitcom version of the Addams Family.

The Addams Family’s Themes Work Better With The Characters Not Being Evil

First and foremost, there wouldn’t be an Addams Family without Charles Addams. As “evil” as he intended them to be, it’s important to acknowledge that they were always lovingly evil in their own strange way, at least when it came to one another. That hasn’t been lost in the live-action shows and movies.

At the end of the day, each member of the Addams Family goes out of their way to protect and support each other, as repeatedly seen throughout Wednesday and other titles in the franchise. While there’s a wicked side to all of them, the fact that Addams Family projects haven’t truly embraced Charles Addams’ idea of “evil” depiction has mostly paid off.

The themes on display within the Addams Family franchise have found intriguing ways to balance drama and humor, especially in Wednesday. Even if the original cartoon versions of the characters didn’t come across as vile as some would expect based on Addams’ critiques, the spooky and kooky approach hasn’t detracted from the deeper themes of family and identity.

There’s been some criticism aimed at the depiction of the core family in Wednesday, specifically regarding the conflict between Wednesday and Morticia. In other iterations, there’s a stronger bond and more direct evidence of Wednesday’s respect for her mother. Then again, Wednesday is a coming-of-age tale that centers on a teenage version of the titular character still learning life’s biggest lessons.

Each version of the Addams Family has had its differences to some degree, which makes sense considering all have aimed to achieve something different. Whether it’s a sitcom aimed at casual viewers, family-friendly animated movies, or Wednesday, a streaming show centered on the most woeful character, Charles Addams still deserves the ultimate credit for the characters he created.