History Headscratchers / TheAddamsFamily

*** In the episode where Gomez and Morticia tell how they fell in love, Gomez is absolutely laid out by his sinuses. It's his passion for Morticia that fixes the problem. Maybe she was worried about a relapse?
*** It's likely this is just a joke playing into the Addams' typical inverted logic: she doesn't worry about her husband playing with dynamite, wrestling bears, or doing other insanely dangerous things--but a ''cold!'' Heaven forbid!

How come Wednesday's the youngest, except for in ''Values'', when she's the oldest? And how come in the musical, she's gotten older but Pugsley hasn't?

** Generally, if people have never tried to do something, never learned how to do something, practiced doing something, or had any remote contact with the thing, they assume they can't do it. Most people, for instance, are pretty certain they can't swim across the Pacific without actually attempting to swim across the Pacific first.

** According to the 60's TV series, Fester is Morticia's uncle. We never see Gomez's father, however. Does anyone have an idea on that?
** It is strongly implied that Gomez's mother Grandmama lives with them because she's a widow; this was a fairly common real-life situation at the time the series first aired.
*** Grandmama bounces back and forth between being Gomez's mother and being his mother-in-law (Morticia's mom).
** It's different depending on the property you're watching. As stated by the troper above, in the original TV series, he's Morticia's uncle. In the movies, he's Wednesday and Pugsley's uncle (Gomez's brother).

* ^ not quite. In the 60s TV show, Morticia is a Frump, she is the daughter of Hester Frump (who appears only in a couple of episodes and in ''Halloween with the Addams Family'') and sister of Ophelia Frump who is Morticia's identical sister. Fester is Morticia's uncle (notice that Fester is never ever referred to as Fester Addams in the show) therefore if he's Hester's brother then his last name is probably whatever maiden name Hester had or if he's Morticia's paternal uncle then he must be Fester Frump (again, his last name is never told). Now, this would make Fester the great-uncle of Pugsley and Wednesday and technically should be called "great-uncle Fester" by them, however is not uncommon in some families to call great-uncles as just "uncles" for the economy. Grandmama is Gomez's mother in this version and is indeed a widow. This structure is kept more or less in the 70s animated show.\\

Finally in the musical, a recurring gag is that nor Gomez nor Morticia knows who is Grandmama's mother as they both thought she was each other's mom.\\
So to sum up: Fester is Gomez' brother in all versions except the original show and Grandmama is Gomez' mother in all versions except the 90s movie (and is left ambiguous in the musical) which I hope answers your question.\\
Basically, what we can take from all this is that in all these universes there's an entire subculture of goth-looking sadomasochistic bizarre-loving people with some inhuman abilities from different families which often intermarry or (in the case of Lurch) work for them.

** In the TV series, each Addams seems to have an individual talent for ignoring some part of ordinary reality (in addition to the family's general invulnerability to things that would kill regular human beings). Fester had his electricity, Morticia could produce smoke curling outward from her body, Ophelia grew flowers atop her head, Gomez produced cigars from his pockets that were already lit, etc.

** In truth, whether or not people ''liked'' ''Reunion'' wasn't what mattered. The point the producers were trying to get across was that the big-budgeted look of the Paramount movies could reproduce for the small screen. ''Reunion''... did that, I guess, to a sufficient enough extent for the go-ahead on ''The New Addams Family'' to be given. As far as the difference in reception goes, ''The New Addams Family'' simply tried to be more like the original 1960s series, which did -- and still does -- get a fair bit of praise. ''Reunion'', however, just suffered from bad writing, horrible jokes, and an overall misguided attempt to combine the madcap, cheesy '60s-type humor of the original series with the more sophisticated, laid-back tone of the Paramount movies.

Why do fans act like the Addams were so progressive as the only happy, healthy family of their time? The only real "wife bad" show back then was ''Series/TheHoneymooners''. Lots of sitcoms like ''Series/Bewitched'', ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'', ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'', and the notable other creepy family, ''Series/TheMunsters'' all featured loving, attentive parents and couples that doted on each other. People act like the Addams Family invented that though.[[/folder]]

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Why do fans act like the Addams were so progressive as the only happy, healthy family of their time? The only real "wife bad" show back then was ''Series/TheHoneymooners''. Lots of sitcoms like ''Series/Bewitched'', ''Series/IDreamOfJeannie'', ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'', and the notable other creepy family, ''Series/TheMunsters'' all featured loving, attentive parents and couples that doted on each other. People act like the Addams Family invented that though.

* Why Debbie's final gambit in ''Addams Family Values'' is to try to kill the Addamses with an array of electric chairs? First, the first movie established that the Addamses [[HarmlessElectrocution electrocute each other]] [[TooKinkyToTorture for fun]] all the time, so one hardly thinks they were in any danger to begin with. Fine, let's admit that Debbie wouldn't necessarily know this, so even if it makes for a kind of weak climax, it still makes ''sense'' from her point of view. Except… no. Her very first murder attempt on Fester was also with electricity, and she ''did'' find out about Fester's inexplicable immunity. So what did she expect the electric chairs to ''do''?
** Considering the amount of electricity she used to the point that she was turn into ashes when it backfired, is likely that she took extra measures to be sure it will annihilate them, I mean, the charge was so high that she clearly expect them to be turn into ashes, was not just a regular electrocution. On the other hand they do seem genuinely worry (Fester begs her to let the other go and Gomez and Morticia say good by to each other whilst holding hands) thus you can argue that even them suspected that the electricity dosis would be lethal even for them.

** The Addams family are not supposedly to be direct allusions to movie monsters like their counterparts, the Munsters. They're just supposed to be a supernaturally goth family that enjoys things "normal" people find horrifying (death, rotting, pain, the occult, darkness and nightmares, etc).

** I figured he was meant to be a werewolf, based entirely on that intense stare he gives in the intro. It just didn't come through very well during performance.

* So on ''America's Most Disgusting Unsolved Crimes'' early in ''Addams Family Values'', [[Film/{{Airplane}} Captain Oveur]] says that the Black Widow targets wealthy men, seduces them, marries them, and then kills them on the wedding night for the insurance/inheritance. But then later during her slideshow Debbie makes it pretty clear that she marries for love (or whatever) and stays with it for a couple years before killing her husband when he really pisses her off.

*** 2) Debbie is a sociopath who does indeed get emotionally attached and then responds to the smallest slights with murder, but since she hasn't been caught by the police yet, the news is only reporting the current accepted theory about her motivations.

** Isn't kind of implied, or at least left ambiguos, that he is Gordon Craven and he made-up the amnesia thing in order to stay with the Addams? He looks at the camera when Wednesday is telling the story like sarcastically and we see him shaving the head even as Fester is shown in the old family tapes to be naturally hairless. If that's the case that could explain the differences between what young Fester Addams and Fester!Gordon sexual experiences.

*** It seems that according to WordOfGod he did intended Fester to be Gordon Craven who makes a HeelFaceTurn at the end, but the actors prefered it to be the actual Fester, and to some degree you can see the clues for Sonnenfeld's original ending, so I guess both options are left to the viewers' discretion.

* One thing that seems baffling is the relation that the widely-contested Addams Family Reunion has with The New Addams Family. One, how did The New Addams Family get picked up for a series? It is true that Addams Family Reunion was the pilot for The New Addams Family, but it was a major flop. Where there just enough people who actually liked it that The New Addams Family became a full-fledged series? The other confusing matter is that if Addams Family Reunion failed, how come The New Addams Family gets a lot of praise, and without the classic Vic Mizzy theme?

** ''The New Addams Family'' is probably no one's favorite version, but it has the heart in the right place, charismatic actors doing their best and was as close to the 60s show as it can get. Is hard to hate it because probably for most fans is at least harmless. ''Reunion'' on the other hand is mean spiritted and lazy with an underuse cast that is clearly not invested and a failed effort to mimic the dark humor of the movies that missed the mark epically.

* At the end of Family Values, whose hand was it that popped out of Debbie's grave, and what happened to the nerdy kid afterwards?

** Back in the 1960s when the original TV series aired and then during its heyday in re-runs in the 1970s, a common fan theory was that Thing was a [[EldritchAbomination multi-armed Cthulhuan entity in a pocket dimension]] and the hand we saw was the only part of him that extruded into our reality. There was even fan art of what Thing actually looked like in his native dimension. This was used to explain why Thing could teleport from box or box or even into a mail box or tree bore, why Thing was sometimes a left hand and sometimes a right hand, why Thing sometimes included an entire forearm, and how Thing always seemed to be aware of what was going on around him and the location of the nearest box or container. However, that fan theory has pretty much disappeared from public memory at this point in time.
** well episode "Morticia Meets Royalty" shows there's an entire species of disembodied hands around: Thing meets Lady Fingers who is the literal handmaiden of Gomez' aunt who is royal by marriage, and is later (for a while) replaced by an older and uglier hand. Answering the headscratcher at least in the TV show for what we can take from Thing's and other of his species movements and reactions they see through their finger tips. Things are more murky in the movies were the "sight" seems to be located around the wrist.

** Well, if blood was thinner than water, when you cut someone it would all just come gushing out way too fast, you wouldn't have time to enjoy it. Plus it would probably throw off the consistency of various cooking.

** The way I see it, Gomez must have overcommited to the role. After all, Gomez is rather passionate on staying in a role. (remember Lurch's mother?) The first thought that came to Morticia's mind was that on some level, Gomez meant what he was saying. She's upset, not angry. And the next day, they manage to make up, with Gomez admitting he's been a cad, and Morticia admitting she's been a fool.

*** In the episode where Gomez and Morticia tell how they fell in love, Gomez is absolutely laid out by his sinuses. It's his passion for Mortica that fixes the problem. Maybe she was worried of a relapse?

** According to the 60's TV series, Fester is Morticia's uncle. We never see Gomez's father, however. Anyone have an idea on that?
** It is strongly implied that Gomez's mother Grandmama lives with them because she's a widow; this was a fairly common real life situation at the time the series first aired.

** Its different depending on the property you're watching. As stated by the troper above, in the original TV series, he's Morticia's uncle. In the movies, he's Wednesday and Pugsley's uncle (Gomez's brother).

* ^ not quite. In the 60s TV show Morticia is a Frump, she is the daughter of Hester Frump (who appears only in a couple of episodes and in ''Halloween with the Addams Family'') and sister of Ophelia Frump who is Morticia's identical sister. Fester is Morticia's uncle (notice that Fester is never ever referred to as Fester Addams in the show) therefore if he's Hester's brother then his last name is probably whatever maiden name Hester had or if he's Morticia's paternal uncle then he must be Fester Frump (again, he's last name is never told). Now this would make Fester the great-uncle of Pugsley and Wednesday and technically should be call "great-uncle Fester" by them, however is not uncommon in some families to call great-uncles as just "uncles" for economy. Grandmama is Gomez' mother in this version and is indeed a widow. This structure is kept more or less in the 70s animated show.\\
Of course this raises the question of who are the Frumps and how they have the same bizarre behavior than the Addams, but the same can be say about Lurch who is not from any of both families. \\
Now in the 90s movies this changes a lot. Fester is Gomez' brother and therefore uncle of Wednesday and Pugsley, also Morticia's brother-in-law, Grandmama is Morticia's mother and Gomez mother-in-law and Gomez and Fester parents are both dead (died together lynched by a mob). Almost all other versions (including ''Reunion'', the 90s animated show which is based on the movies and ''The New Addams Family'' kept Fester as Gomez' brother, however in the animated show and in ''New'' Grandmama is back to be Gomez' mother (in fact ''The New Addams Family'' brought back the Frumps including Hester and Ophelia (also played by the same actress who played Morticia as in the original show).\\
As in the example before, in the 90s movie although Morticia's and Grandmama's last name is never told, we are still showed that at least two families of strange people collide (three if you count Margaret when she joins the Addams clan through Cousin Itt).\\
Finally in the musical a recurring gag is that nor Gomez nor Morticia know who is Grandmama's mother as they both though she was each other's mom.\\
So to sum up: Fester is Gomez' brother in all versions except the original show and Grandmama is Gomez' mother in all versions except the 90s movie (and is left ambiguos in the musical) which I hope it answer your question.\\

Okay, this might sound like a weird question, but I once dreamt that the Addams family all got colds and because I'm someone who hates sickness and is a little afraid of it, I didn't like that dream at ''all'', but it got me thinking...''can'' an Addams catch a cold?

In "When You're an Addams", Gomez says that Addamses must have a sense of humour, however when they sing the "Keep your X" lyrics, where X is something the Addamses are known to dislike, one of them is "Keep your laughter". So do Addamses have humour or not? Not to mention that Gomez has laughed a few times in the series.

* Morticia wishes she had more time "to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade." Naturally Gomez will do anything to make his wife happy, so he hired the nanny to give Morticia some extra freedom. And since the Addams' were initially a parody of eccentric Old Money families, it wouldn't be uncommon for such a family to employ a nanny even if other adults in the household could theoretically look after the kids.

* Why did Wednesday have a problem when Debbie called Pubert a brat? She's an [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Addams]] for crying out loud? They like pain and express their love through torture at each other and admire evil deeds. The baby's name is Pubert which is dirty on it's own and the parents thought of other sinister names before this one. Shouldn't the word brat be a compliment for their standards? Yes Debbie doesn't actually love Pubert and Wednesday might've been suspicious at her, but the word brat still shouldn't piss Wednesday off.
** Because the Addams having utterly inverted values isn't viable, and thus can't be portrayed consistently. Portrayed consistently, the Addams inverted values would result in them grinning and torturing each other to death "Event Horizon" style in the first minute of the movie. So they love pain and death, except when they don't. They float from harmless goth types with morbid aesthetic tastes to psychopathic mystical horrors from moment to moment depending on whether the plot needs them to be relatable or darkly funny.
** Probably because someone ''hired'' specifically to care for him shouldn't be disparaging him. Just because the Addams' are strange doesn't mean that some of them don't know how the world works. Wednesday goes to a regular school and probably understands the job of a nanny.
** Also, it’s part of the joke; while the Addams Family “play” with extreme torture devices and try to kill each other, they all see it as in perfectly good fun. Emotional pain isn’t really their cup of tea: Wednesday and Pugsley try to kill each other, but to them, it’s the equivalent of playtime, and we rarely see them actually trying to hurt each other’s feelings, because if they did that then it’s no longer playtime and just an argument, which is never pleasant, no matter what. It’s why whenever the Adamses argue or feel betrayed, it’s taken more seriously than when they try to maim each other. After all, to the Adamses, guillotines and electrocution are fun and games, but calling someone a brat is just [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking plain rude.]]

** Also, it’s part of the joke; while the Addams Family “play” with extreme torture devices and try to kill each other, they all see it as in perfectly good fun. Emotional pain isn’t really their cup of tea: Wednesday and Pugsley try to kill each other, but to them, it’s the equivalent of playtime, and we rarely see them actually trying to hurt each other’s feelings, because if they did that then it’s no longer playtime and just an argument, which is never pleasant, no matter what. It’s why whenever the Adamses argue or feel betrayed, it’s taken more seriously than when they try to maim each other. After all, to the Adamses, guillotines and electrocution are fun and games, but calling someone a brat is just [[ArsonMurderAnJayWalking plain rude.]]

* This troper simply cannot make sense of why Debbie's final gambit in ''Addams Family Values'' is to try to kill the Addamses with an array of electric chairs. First, the first movie established that the Addamses [[HarmlessElectrocution electrocute each other]] [[TooKinkyToTorture for fun]] all the time, so one hardly thinks they were in any danger to begin with. Fine, let's admit that Debbie wouldn't necessarily know this, so even if it makes for a kind of weak climax, it still makes ''sense'' from her point of view. Except… no. Her very first murder attempt on Fester was also with electricity, and she ''did'' find out about Fester's inexplicable immunity. So what did she expect the electric chairs to ''do''?

* This troper simply cannot make sense of why Debbie's final gambit in ''Addams Family Values'' is to try to kill the Addamses with an array of electric chairs. First, the first movie established that the Addamses [[HarmlessElectrocution electrocute each other]][[TooKinkyToTorture for fun]] all the time, so one hardly thinks they were in any danger to begin with. Fine, let's admit that Debbie wouldn't necessarily know this, so even if it makes for a kind of weak climax, it still makes ''sense'' from her point of view. Except… no. Her very first murder attempt on Fester was also with electricity, and she ''did'' find out about Fester's inexplicable immunity. So what did she expect the electric chairs to ''do''?

** Also, it’s part of the joke; while the Addams Family “play” with extreme torture devices and try to kill each other, they all see it as in perfectly good fun. Emotional pain isn’t really their thing: Wednesday and Pugsley try to kill each other, but to them, it’s the equivalent of playtime, and we rarely see them actually trying to hurt each other’s feelings, because if they did that then it’s no longer playtime and just an argument, which is never pleasant, no matter what. After all, to the Adamses, guillotines and electrocution are fun and games, but calling someone a brat is just [[ArsonMurderAnJaywalking plain rude.]]

* This troper simply cannot make sense of why Debbie's final gambit in ''Addams Family Values'' is to try to kill the Addamses with an array of electric chairs. First, the first movie established that the Addamses [[HamrlessElectrocution electrocute each other]][[TooKinkyToTorture for fun]] all the time, so one hardly thinks they were in any danger to begin with. Fine, let's admit that Debbie wouldn't necessarily know this, so even if it makes for a kind of weak climax, it still makes ''sense'' from her point of view. Except… no. Her very first murder attempt on Fester was also with electricity, and she ''did'' find out about Fester's inexplicable immunity. So what did she expect the electric chairs to ''do''?
** Considering the amount of electricity she use to the point that she was turn into ashes when it backfired, is likely that she took extra measures to be sure it will anihilate them, I mean, the charge was so high that she clearly expect them to be turn into ashes, was not just a regular electrocution. On the other hand they do seem genuinely worry (Fester begs her to let the other go and Gomez and Morticia say good by to each other whilst holding hands) thus you can argue that even them suspected that the electricity dosis would be letal even for them.