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• Adaptation Displacement: Of the original cartoons by the TV series. Also, of the TV series by the movies for even younger audiences.
• Angst? What Angst?: Fester is so torn up about "failing" Debbie that he seems perfectly willing to let her kill him. When the tables are turned, he seems positively gleeful as she's electrocuted into a pile of dust. Could practically count as a Brick Joke or Ironic Echo of Gomez's romantic musing about Morticia in the first movie:
  "I would die for her. I would kill for her. ... Either way, what bliss."
• Awesome Music: In the movies. Each of the two cinematic releases gets its own.
  • The Mamushka, of course; Gomez in a Cossack hat, dancing to a Hungarian Czardas, with Morticia on violin, and knife-juggling
  • The tango scene in Addams Family Values, where both the waltz theme from the first movie AND the theme music from the TV series are strung together to make a thoroughly incredibly piece of Latin dance music. The fact that Morticia gets spun about fast enough to become a blur, not to mention literally setting fire to the dance floor, makes it all the better. Ending, naturally enough, with a symbolic popping of every last champagne cork in the building.
    • Watch the scene here. It's awesome.
• Crazy Awesome: Gomez whenever he has to defend his family.
• Creepy Awesome: All the Addamses.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Mostly in the original New Yorker cartoons.
• Ear Worm: Come on, be honest. What do you remember most about The Addams Family? Lurch's "you rang?" Fester's lighting a lightbulb in his mouth? Thing? Wrong. Anyone who's only ever even heard of The Addams Family will perk up at any mention of that famous "duh-nuh-nuh-nuh * snap snap* ."
  • This, oddly, is what led to the movies getting made - the minds behind it were riding in a car and someone started whistling the theme song.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: John Zmirak once explained his tongue-in-cheek theory that the Addams clan represents "(A)n aristocratic, trad-Catholic homeschooling family trapped in a sterile Protestant suburb".
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans despise "Addams Family Reunion" and, by extension, "The New Addams Family".
• Finger Worm: Admit it, you snap your fingers whenever the theme song comes up. Even if you can't.
• Freud Was Right: Charles Addams' original name for "Pugsley" was "Pubert," but the TV network wouldn't allow the name. It was used as the baby's name in the second Addams Family film.
• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment: Morticia's comments on the fragile state of her family in the second half of Addams Family Values includes the woeful line "My husband is dying." Raul Julia would do just that a little less than a year later. In the movie, he is even seen lying sick in bed feebly singing "Swing low, sweet chariot."
  • What's more, when Gomez is horrified that his son is turning normal, he calls out to God, "Take me!"
    • In 2011, Hurricane Irene struck the east coast of the United States. In the Addams Family film, the book Fester uses at the end is titled Hurricane Irene.
• Genius Bonus: In Addams Family Values Joel says that he has all the cards in the serial killer trading card series, except for "Jack The Ripper and that Zodiac Guy". Funny because a) No one knows who they were, so there would be no pictures for the card and b) Even the cards of them can't be caught.
  • Also, Debbie says no woman "in her right mind" could love Fester. What's the name of the woman who catches Fester's eye towards the end of the movie? Dementia.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In Addams Family Values, after being irritated by Gomez, a police officer asks him, "Who are you? What are you?" The officer was played by Nathan Lane, who would play Gomez on Broadway almost twenty years later.
• Mary Sue: Parodied in The Movie.
  • Festerman is an in-universe example.
• Moe: Wednesday cameos this at the summer camp in Addams Family Values.
• One-Scene Wonder: Cousin Itt in both movies.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Played straight with the console versions, but the first film also lended itself to a superb pinball machine (featuring magnetic elements and new speech from the film actors). It's the best-selling pinball machine of all time and considered one of the greatest ever made.
  • Also averted with the Game Boy Color game based on The New Addams Family. It is a very fun take on the classic point-and-click adventure, though it is hard to beat the game when you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing.
• Retroactive Recognition: Mercedes McNab (Harmony in the Buffyverse) appeared as a girl scout in the first movie and had the larger role of Amanda in Addams Family Values.
• The Scrappy: The Normanmeyers are considered this to some fans of the 90's animated series.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Many of the TV Family's "weird" affectations (home computing, alternative medicine, being Goth).
• Tastes Like Diabetes: The summer camp in Addams Family Values, which of course makes it a living hell for Wednesday and Pugsley.
  • A little girl explaining how her mommy got a baby, invoking every trite and saccharine "where babies come from" myth of the past few centuries. And it leads to Wednesday's Crowning Moment of Deadpan Snarkery.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Debbie. C'mon people, Malibu Barbie!