History Film / TheAddamsFamily

The first film, directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld and released in 1991, focuses on the family's search for Gomez's missing brother, Fester (Creator/ChristopherLloyd). Fester's return leads to a joyful reunion between the brothers. However, all is not as it seems: "Fester" is actually an imposter, and his scheming mother Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson) is working with a money hungry lawyer Tully Alford (Creator/DanHedaya) on a plot to steal the family's fortune. This causes problems for the family and HilarityEnsues.

*** When Abigail tries to break into the house after Gordon leaves for the kids' performance, she says to herself, "I never should have used ''him''." And right before Gordon turns on her at the end, she says "I should have left you where I found you!, hinting that her story about finding Fester was actually the truth.

The first film, directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld and released in 1991, focuses on the family's search for Gomez's missing brother, Fester (Creator/ChristopherLloyd). Fester's return leads to a joyful reunion between the brothers. However, all is not as it seems: Fester's scheming mother Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson) is working with a money hungry lawyer Tully Alford (Creator/DanHedaya) on a plot to steal the family's fortune. This causes problems for the family and HilarityEnsues.

* AndYourLittleDogToo: In the second movie when Fester escapes from Debbie's mansion with Thing, we have this gem:

-->'''Debbie:''' What?!\\

* JewishMother: Joel's mother in ''Values'', and how.

-->'''Pugsley:''' We don't hate him. We just wanted to play with him.
-->'''Wednesday:''' Especially his head.

-->'''Debbie:''' Just a single, I will be a widow then.
-->'''Clerk:''' (stares silently)

* KickTheDog: The judge from earlier in the movie ruling in favor of Gordon/Fester as owner of the Addams property "with no small amount of personal satisfaction", except for one exception -- Gomez's bucket of golf balls, which he dumps out in front of him while cackling madly.

* BondOneLiner: An ambiguous one at the movie's climax. [[spoiler:As the villains Craven and Tully are thrown out of the Addams Family's manor by a hurricane, they lands in the graveyard, straight into a pair of coffins ready for them, which close up and drop down their tombs. Then the camera moves up to reveal Pugsley and Wednesday holding shovels, ready to complete the burial.]]

* {{Bookends}}: The beginning and ending are both based on one of Charles Addams' original comics in the New Yorker (specifically the opening with the family pouring boiling oil on Christmas carolers and the part at the end where Gomez is amazed to see Morticia knitting a onesie with tentacles, [[{{Foreshadowing}} implying that she is pregnant]]). Doubles as a MythologyGag.

%%* CalvinBall: "Wake The Dead" seems to be some variety of this.

* DisneyVillainDeath: Unless they did manage to survive [[spoiler:(only to be buried alive), Tully and Craven were caught in a hurricane and thrown at least fifty feet in the air. It's very possible that death came for each just by landing in the coffins.]]

* EasyAmnesia: Decades before the movie begins, Fester Addams became an amnesiac as a result of his unspecified experiences in the Bermuda Triangle. His memory is restored by being hit in the head by lightning coming out of the PortalBook ''Hurricane Irene''.

* JustForPun: About half the times that anyone talks to Thing, they make some sort of hand-related pun.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Played for (ironic) horror when Gomez and Morticia's infant son contracts a disease that turns him from pale-skinned and mustachioed into a stereotypically cute baby with a healthy complexion and curly blond hair. Granny tells the parents that the condition might be incurable.
-->'''Granny:''' He could stay this way for years, perhaps forever...He could become a lawyer...An orthodontist...President.\\
''[Gomez screams in anguish.]''

* ThanksgivingTurkey: {{Parodied|Trope}} in the Thanksgiving play at Camp Chippewa, where the children are stuffed into turkey costumes to sing a cheerfully insipid song about eating them. When Wednesday sends the play OffTheRails, one of the turkeys stuffs an apple into the mouth of a pilgrim on a pyre.

Wednesday:''' Does it matter?

* AsYouKnow: Occurs at the end of the film; [[spoiler:Gomez explains to Cousin Itt exactly how Fester came to be 'Gordon', having been found 25 years ago by Abigail Craven with amnesia; the explanation and dialogue suggests this has been detailed before in the seven months between dispatching Tully and Craven and Halloween]].

* BookEnds: The beginning and ending are both based on one of Charles Addams' original comics in the New Yorker (specifically the opening with the family pouring boiling oil on Christmas carolers and the part at the end where Gomez is amazed to see Morticia knitting a onesie with tentacles, [[{{Foreshadowing}} implying that she is pregnant]]). Doubles as a MythologyGag.

The first film, directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld and released in 1991, focuses on the family's search for Gomez's missing brother, Fester (Creator/ChristopherLloyd). Fester's return leads to a joyful reunion between the brothers. However, all is not as it seems: Fester's scheming mother Abigail Craven(Elizabeth Wilson) is working with a money hungry lawyer Tully Alford(Creator/DanHedaya) on a plot to steal the family's fortune. This causes problems for the family and HilarityEnsues.

* OedipusComplex:
** In ''Values'', Gomez pulls out a magazine from Fester's bed, opens to one of the centerfolds, and the two fondly say "Mom!".
** The relationship between the amnesiac Fester and his "mother" in the first movie has shades of this. [[AllThereInTheScript In the script, it was a]] ''[[AllThereInTheScript lot]]'' [[AllThereInTheScript less subtle.]]

* OedipusComplex: An Electra complex of sorts. At the end of ''Values'', Joel is dining with the Addamses, dressed in a similar manner to Gomez. Wednesday comments that he's looking "disturbing". Being an Addams, that may have been meant as a compliment.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: Pubert's pale makeup is visibly smudged and thin in places. Since the actor is a baby it's understandable.

** A promotional TV spot for the film features a character on a movie screen screaming at the Addamses in the audience, a gag taken from an Addams cartoon where the scary audience member(s) is unseen.

* HangingJudge: When Tully Alford files a restraining order against the Addamses, awarding custody to Fester[=/=]Gordon, Gomez appeals the order, only for Judge Womack to maliciously rule against the Addames. He then dumps a bucket of golf balls at Gomez's feet, since several times in the movie Gomez is seen hitting golf balls through his windows.

* HangingJudge: When Tully Alford files a restraining order against the Addamses, awarding custody to Fester[=/=]Gordon, Gomez appeals the order, only for Judge Womack to maliciously rule against the Addamses, dumping the golf balls that entered his house and yard with Gomez who hit them there and caused Womack great annoyance.

The first film, directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld and released in 1991, focuses on the family's search for Gomez's missing brother, Fester (Creator/ChristopherLloyd). Fester's return leads to a joyful reunion between the brothers. However, all is not as it seems: Fester's scheming "mother" (Elizabeth Wilson) is working with a money hungry lawyer (Creator/DanHedaya) on a plot to steal the family's fortune. This causes problems for the family and HilarityEnsues.

* AncientTradition: The movie treats the Mamushka as one of these, taught to them by Cossack cousins so long ago they no longer remember when. And since Gomez explicitly states that they danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, that means the Addams family has been around for at least nineteen centuries, and has documented enough of their family history to know exactly what they were doing the night of July 19, 0064. ''That's'' how old that traditional dance is.

* ColdHam: Anjelica Houston as Morticia - she's serene, calm, and the only thing that gets her to alter the pitch of her voice at all is [[HappilyMarried Gomez]]. This does not stop her from being a ''tour de force'' that complements Raul Julia's [[LargeHam significantly more exhuberant performance]] perfectly. Witness in the opening of the sequel, where a simple "''Oui''" from her wrings out enough characterization to show her TooKinkyToTorture, HappilyMarried, and TheStoic all while keeping up with Gomez's frantic attention.

** The first film has a scene at the beginning of a cuckoo clock - a scale model of the Addams mansion with moving mannequins of the family. The mannequin of Gomez is apparently kissing the mannequin of Morticia on her breasts.

* EnfantTerrible: Pubert breathes fire, can catch blades with his tiny baby hands and [[spoiler: killed Debbie]].

** Applies to the entire Addams clan, naturally - much to [[BlackWidow Debbie's]] chagrin.

* AsYouKnow: Occurs at the end of the film; [[spoiler: Gomez explains to Cousin Itt exactly how Fester came to be 'Gordon', having been found twenty-five years ago by Abigail Craven with amnesia; the explanation and dialogue suggests this has been detailed before in the seven months between dispatching Tully and Craven and Halloween]].

* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Gordon, [[spoiler:before his amnesia is cured and he realises he is in fact Fester after all]], decides to side with the Addams family and betray his mother after she belittles him one time too many. [[spoiler:He stops Gomez picking the book from the bookshelf that opens the vault, and instead picks one that creates a violent storm in the room to incapacitate his mother and the lawyer - by accident this also gives him his true memories back.]]

* VillainousMotherSonDuo: Abigail and Gordon Craven, a mother and son team of grifters, loan sharks and scam artists, who seek to defraud the Addamses and steal their vast fortune by passing Gordon off as long lost family member Fester, who Gordon happens to bear a very strong resemblance to. Gordon mostly acts as Abigail's enforcer, and she is very controlling and even abusive to him at times, but despite him starting to identify with and even genuinely love the Addams clan, he stays loyal to his mother, up until the point Abigail orders the ColdBloodedTorture of family matriarch Morticia. Gordon then pulls a HeelFaceTurn, helping free Morticia and putting a stop to Abigail's schemes. It is later revealed that Gordon [[spoiler: isn't even Abigail's real son- he's actually Fester Addams, whom Abigail discovered years ago shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, suffering from amnesia]].

--->'''Gomez''': The nightmare.
--->'''Morticia''': The nerve.

* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: The "Harmony Hut" at the summer camp. It's a hut filled with posters of kittens, in which Joel & the Addams' kids are forced to sit and watch upbeat Disney movies. And when they're caught trying to sneak out of the camp, Becky states that they won't be punished - Gary agrees, deciding that they should all sing "Kumbaya" for them instead, to Wednesday's obvious dismay.

* FreudianExcuse: Played for laughs and satirised as it is revealed that the reason that turned [[spoiler: Debbie]] into a psychopath was that her parents... gifted her a ''Malibu'' Barbie instead of a ''Ballerina'' Barbie that she wanted for her tenth birthday.

** The most flagrant example being the camp counselors, Gary and Becky. Not for the way they treat Wednesday and Pugsley (that is, until they force them to watch saccharine movies and they return - apparently - converted to their upbeat philosophy), but the way they heavily favor the rich, white, blonde kids over the minority campers, even casting the latter group as the "savage" Native Americans in Gary's play. Becky can't even pronounce two of their names, Consuela and Jamal.

* SeriousBusiness: Getting the wrong kind of Barbie doll for her birthday was enough to convince [[spoiler: Debbie]] to murder her parents.

* StepfordSmiler: {{Enforced}} at Camp Chippewa - even if you're not actually perky, you'd damn well better act like you are or suffer a CoolAndUnusualPunishment.

-->'''Nanny''': (''Speaking with a handpuppet'') Hello kiddies, I'm Polly the Puppet. What shall we do today? I know! Let's all clean our rooms!\\
'''Wednesday''': (''Pulling out a Satan puppet'') Hello, Polly. I'll clean my room... [[DealWithTheDevil in exchange for your immortal soul]]. (''Puppet!Satan starts HandRubbing'')

* WouldHurtAChild: It's implied--if not flat-out clear--that the camp counselors abuse the minority children. While rehearsing Gary's play, he gets frustrated and roughly grabs one of the kids and takes her off-stage. She later shows up in a ''wheelchair''. [[spoiler: Debbie also tries to kill all the Addamses at the climax of the movie, including Wednesday and Pugsley]].

* WouldHurtAChild: It's implied--if not flat-out clear--that the camp counselors abuse the minority children. While rehearsing Gary's play, he gets frustrated and roughly grabs one of the kids and takes her off-stage. She later shows up in a ''wheelchair''.

'''Morticia:''' Gomez, take those out of his mouth.

* AdaptationDistillation: Lovingly matches each character to superb actors in their prime having the time of their lives, adds fantastic scenery and special effects that ride the line between blockbuster spectacle and SoBadItsGood like Seattle Slew, then [[{{Troperiffic}} plays every trope to the hilt]] and [[DoingItForTheArt polishes the entire macabre masterpiece to a mirror shine.]] Then they do it ''again'' with the next movie. Then Gomez suffered Actor Existence Failure when Creator/RaulJulia succumbed to cancer. Even ''Creator/TimCurry'' had trouble filling ''those'' shoes. The best part is that it not only uses the show, but it also uses a number of the darker gags from the original New Yorker cartoons.

** ''Family Values'' in general is rather direct about sex, such as Wednesday bluntly telling a young girl who believes in the DeliveryStork where babies ''really'' come from, the fact that Fester watches Gomez and Morticia having sex through keyholes, and being offered Thing as a way to [[ADateWithRosiePalms stave off loneliness]]. Not to mention the CenterfoldGag of ''[[ParentalIncest their mother]]''.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* JewishAndNerdy: Joel Glicker (David Krumholtz) in ''Addams Family Values''.