From a cartoon to a TV show, to films, stage productions, and animated films, The Addams Family has come a long way in many forms from its original conception as a cartoon strip to Netflix's newly-released TV series Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams and full of Easter eggs referencing its many incarnations. Named after the cartoonist Charles Addams, who first published his cartoons in The New Yorker, the Addams family is the inverse of the All-American, WASP, middle-class suburban family. Instead of having white picket fences, a blonde and bored housewife, a husband who resents his work all day and his wife all evening, and children who are held to high expectations but receive little emotional support, the Addamses are the exact opposite in both appearances and family dynamics.
Despite their fascination with death, suffering, and all things morbid of the sort, the Addams family are loving and supportive to each other, unbound by social niceties and the expectation to present proper appearances. The Tim Burton produced Wednesday, however, strays from the themes of the original Addams Family canon slightly, presumably to update the context of teenage angst for the modern viewer. Instead of family drama, the show focuses on Wednesday's coming-of-age, shifting the relationship between Wednesday and her parents to give her a character arc of claiming her autonomy. Moreover, Wednesday and her peers are given superpowers. Despite the discrepancies between the reinvented series and the original films, Wednesday still peppers callbacks to The Addams Family canon throughout the show.
Where Wednesday's Name Came From
Originally, all the characters in the Addams family had no names. The title of Wednesday episode 1, which Morticia explains in the episode, is an Easter egg of where creator Charles Addams first found inspiration for Wednesday's name when his nameless cartoon characters were to be adapted for television. Befitting her macabre character, Wednesday's name came from a nursery rhyme with the line "Wednesday's child is full of woe." First printed in 1838, the entire poem by an anonymous writer is as follows:
Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child is loving and giving
Saturday's child works hard for his living
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
Christina Ricci Returns In Netflix's Wednesday
Before Ortega took on the role of Wednesday Addams for Netflix's show, 9 actresses have either portrayed Wednesday on screen or voiced the character for animation before her. Christina Ricci, in particular, established the most iconic on-screen image of the gothic little girl. First starring as Wednesday in the original 1991 The Addams Family film and its 1993 sequel Addams Family Values, Christina Ricci returns in Netflix's Wednesday 29 years later to rejoin the Addams Family universe in its newest incarnation. Christina plays the role of Marilyn Thornhill in the new Wednesday series, Ophelia Hall's "dorm mom", aka Wednesday's residence monitor, as well as botanical sciences teacher. The first and only "normie" teacher to join the staff at Nevermore Academy in the school's entire history, Marilyn Thornhill is friendly, shy, and mostly keeps to herself, but she hides a sinister secret about her background that nobody at the school or in the town knows.
The Scooby Doo Crossover Episode
In Wednesday season 1 episode 4, Jericho's town sheriff makes a Scooby Doo reference that returns the favor for The New Scooby Doo Movies featuring the Addams family in a crossover episode in 1972. “Listen Velma," Sheriff Donovan Galpin tells Wednesday, "why don't you and the Scooby gang stick to your homework and leave the investigating to the professionals?” In the original crossover episode from the 1972 series, titled "Wednesday Is Missing", Gomez and Morticia go on a second honeymoon, leaving the mystery-solving group to house sit for the Addamses, but Wednesday goes missing, forcing the gang to solve her case before Gomez and Morticia return.
Wednesday’s Pet Spider Homer
Wednesday season 1, episode 6 has a flashback to past birthday parties of Wednesday’s, including a scene where Wednesday cracks open a piñata full of spiders. The spiders scare the other children at the party away, but crawl all over a calm and collected Wednesday. In the 1964 TV series The Addams Family, Wednesday did in fact have a pet spider named Homer, whom she kept in a box. Although Homer does not appear in Wednesday, Wednesday’s love of the creepy crawlies takes the form in another childhood pet of hers. In a rare bonding moment between Wednesday and her roommate Enid, Wednesday mentions that she had a pet scorpion, Nero, when she was 6 years old that was tragically killed by a couple of cruel boys who bullied her.
Cousin Ignatius Itt
Another Easter egg in Wednesday is the portrait of Cousin Ignatius Itt in the basement of the secret society of the Nightshades, behind which lies a safe holding a crucial document that serves as a clue to Wednesday's case. Ignatius Itt, as Gomez's brother Uncle Fester introduces to Wednesday, is part of the original lineup of Addams family members in the first TV rendition of The Addams Family. Cousin Itt, though biologically related to the Addamses, does not appear to be human, but is composed entirely of blond hair that reaches from his head to the ground. He additionally wears a bowler hat and round sunglasses, and speaks incomprehensible gibberish.
Wednesday's Dorm Is Named After Her Aunt
Like Cousin Itt, a few more supporting characters in the extended Addams family make official and unofficial appearances in the show. Uncle Fester and Grandmama Addams are brought up a few times, for instance, usually by Wednesday in threatening little anecdotes as a scare tactic. Seemingly Wednesday's favorite family member, Uncle Fester makes a short appearance in episode 7, while Grandmama Addams does not appear in Wednesday season 1 at all. Ophelia Frump, Morticia Addams's sister and Wednesday and Pugsley's aunt in the original The Addams Family TV series from 1964, is not mentioned by any of the characters in Wednesday by name, but the writers named Wednesday's dorm at Nevermore Academy after Ophelia as another hidden Easter egg for audiences in the know.