Today would have been Charles Addams’ 100th birthday, and the Google homepage is celebrating with an image of the creepiest and kookiest family ever. The image, courtesy of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, depicts Morticia, Gomez, Cousin Itt, Pugsley, Wednesday, Lurch, and Uncle Fester standing in front of their mysterious and spooky mansion.
According to PCMag, Charles Addams was born in New Jersey on January 7, 1912. He became an artist for The New Yorker, with the first Addams family cartoon appearing in 1938. In 1964, a producer approached Addams and asked him to turn the comics into a television series. The series only ran for two years, but people have constantly discovered it and re-discovered it due to syndication.
I’ve always been a huge fan of the television series, having seen nearly every episode. They had some interesting residents of the household. Remember their pet lion named Kitty? And Morticia’s plant Cleopatra? I seem to recall an iron maiden in the children’s playroom, and Gomez loved blowing up trains. Gomez is one of the greatest characters of the show . . . his childlike enthusiasm, his love for Morticia (particularly when his Cara Mia speaks French!), his penchant for standing on his head . . . it all combined to make him extremely fascinating.
I think Cousin Itt truly stole the show whenever he appeared, however. The hairy cousin who only spoke gibberish had a bit of a temper, and he brought even more weirdness to the ooky family. Thing also seemed to have a lot of character . . . for a hand.
The Addams Family made it to the big screen in the early 90’s in a film called unsurprisingly The Addams Family, starring the late Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston. Christopher Lloyd was impressive in his role as Uncle Fester, but Christina Ricci brought the character of Wednesday to life in an entirely new way. Her lack of emotion and chillingly calm lines offered sharp contrast to the exuberance and passion of Gomez.
The movie proved popular enough to earn a sequel, and Addams Family Values premiered in 1993. A revival of the television show hit the air in the late 90’s, with the original Gomez John Astin portraying Grandpapa Addams. An animated series and a direct-to-video movie also contributed to the franchise, and now even a musical is currently touring the nation after initially running on Broadway.
Charles Addams created characters that have thrived for over half a century. His dark humor and portrayal of family relationships has not aged or lost relevance in this day and age. So, happy birthday to a creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, altogether ooky artist.
*snap snap*