The Evolution of Wednesday Addams

The Evolution of Wednesday Addams

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re discussing The Evolution of Wednesday Addams.

For this video, we’ll be looking at how the character has changed over the past 80+ years, from the New Yorker to Netflix.

Do you have a favorite Wednesday Addams? Let us know in the comments.

A Child Full of Woe

The Addams Family first appeared in cartoonist Charles “Chas” Addams’ 1938 comic strips for The New Yorker. The characters weren’t always together, but by the 1940s, they were established as the strange clan. None of them had names until they were brought to life on screen in the 1964 sitcom. This is when Charles Addams gave them each a name and fleshed out their personalities. Passionately married couple Gomez and Morticia, their mischievous children, Pugsley and Wednesday, their very tall butler Lurch, Uncle Fester, and Grandmama.

The character who would come to be known as Wednesday was drawn as a little girl in a black dress with a white collar and long, dark pigtails framing her oval-shaped head. Her name has origins that are appropriately mournful and poetic. Charles Addams described her as a solemn, imaginative child but in the family-friendly sitcom, the character was more on the sweet side.

The first live-action portrayal of Wednesday was by Lisa Loring. The adorable 6-year-old seemed the least weird in her family of weirdos. But she still donned the black dress and pigtails, spoke very matter-of-factly, and had strange interests like beheading dolls. Many of these attributes would follow the character throughout her various iterations. Of course, Loring’s Wednesday is best known for her scene showing Lurch how to dance in season two. She also taught the lumbering butler ballet in the first season.

Cartoonish & Colorful

“The Addams Family” ended after just two seasons. But the kooky clan returned in animated form in 1972 when they appeared in “The New Scooby-Doo Movies.” Many of the original cast voiced their characters but Cindy Henderson took over as Wednesday. The episode titled “Wednesday Is Missing” sees Mystery Inc. searching for the little girl while babysitting at the Addams’ spooky mansion. Oddly, she wore a pink dress and had a noticeably cheerful attitude. However, she kept her pet spider Homer from the 1960s sitcom and continued beheading her dolls.

In the 1970s, Hanna-Barbera made the Addams Family more kid-friendly in a self-titled cartoon series on NBC. Instead of their regular mansion, the family traveled around in a Victorian-style RV. Everyone maintained a colorful wardrobe similar to what they wore in the Scooby-Doo episode, including Wednesday’s sunny demeanor.

But the Addams Family were never as vibrant as they were in their 1992 animated series. Debi Derryberry lent her voice to this iteration of Wednesday, who wore a blue dress with red tights. Still aimed at younger audiences, the Addams’ ghoulishness was decidedly toned down. Wednesday enjoyed torturing Pugsley, but was surprisingly affectionate at times. She was lively and expressive, and more mischievous than she was devilish.

A Goth Icon

After an absence in the 1980s, the Addams Family re-entered the zeitgeist, returning to their macabre roots, in director Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1991 live-action dark comedy. And 11-year-old actress Christina Ricci cemented Wednesday Addams as a true goth icon. She spoke in a monotone voice, delivering deadpan one-liners and had a penchant for terrorizing Pugsley, who was now her younger brother. Gone were the zany child-like shenanigans. The siblings preferred much more sinister schemes.

Ricci portrayed Wednesday with the solemnity that Charles Addams had in mind, perhaps making her a touch darker. In the 1993 sequel, “Addams Family Values”, Wednesday went from a supporting character to one of the leads. Her intimidating level of knowledge and disturbing fascination with death only grew with age. As a child, Ricci had already established Wednesday as an unconventionally wicked little girl from a bizarre, subversive family. But as a preteen, she became an individual separate from her family, literally. After trying to get rid of their new baby brother Pubert, she and Pugsely spend most of the movie at Camp Chippewa among perky normies.

Christina Ricci’s performance showed Wednesday Addams as an actual child of woe, something previous incarnations were lacking. She set the standard by making the character her own and is the version most people are familiar with.

In 1998, a direct-to-video movie “Addams Family Reunion” was released with an entirely different cast. And even though the film was poorly reviewed, it led to a short-lived TV series called “The New Addams Family” that same year. Nicole Fugere stepped into the role of Wednesday for both projects. It’s a tough act to follow, but the actress maintained the darkness of Ricci’s portrayal.

Grown Up & Toned Down (2010-16)

While Wednesday Addams has mainly been portrayed as an adolescent over the years, a grown-up Lisa Loring reprised her role in the 1977 TV special “Halloween with the New Addams Family.” However, it was the 2010s that offered multiple older versions of the character.

In spring 2010, Broadway welcomed “The Addams Family Musical” to the stage. The first performer to play Wednesday was Krysta Rodriguez, who won the 2010 Broadway.com Audience Award for “Favorite Breakthrough Performance.” The production wasn’t based on any on-screen adaptations but rather the original New Yorker comic. In a very similar plot to “Hotel Transylvania”, an 18-year-old Wednesday introduces her eccentric family to her very normal boyfriend and his parents. Gomez and Morticia are concerned over their daughter’s desire to live a normal life, getting rid of her pigtails, and ditching black for bright yellow dresses. The Broadway show put on over 700 performances before coming to a close in December 2011.

In 2013, actor/writer Melissa Hunter debuted a thirteen-episode web series called “Adult Wednesday Addams.” With Hunter in the title role, the series followed Wednesday living on her own in Los Angeles, interacting with regular Angelenos, calling out sexist behaviors, and generally making people feel uneasy. She received international praise for the season two episode “Wednesday vs Catcallers.” However, Hunter was forced to end the series due to a copyright violation.

It’s All About Wednesday (2019-)

Following in the footsteps of “Addams Family Values”, the 2019 animated feature “The Addams Family” made a teenage Wednesday a vital part of the plot. Voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz, this Wednesday went back to basics with a likeness similar to Charles Addams’ original drawings. A notable aspect of her appearance is that her signature pigtails are styled like hangman nooses at the end. Moretz’s Wednesday is heavy on the melancholy, sharing some of Ricci’s dryness but mainly speaking in a wistful, almost poetic voice. In the first movie, Wednesday is a fish out of water in a new school, where she makes a new friend in Parker. The two change up their styles to rebel against their moms and Wednesday experiments with pink much to Morticia’s horror, and not in a good way.

For years, Tim Burton was connected to an Addams Family project but it was never realized. But when writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar approached the legendary filmmaker with a series revolving around Wednesday, he came aboard. Premiering on Netflix in November 2022, the record-breaking series was an instant hit with audiences. This is largely due to Jenna Ortega’s widely praised performance as a 16-year-old Wednesday Addams attending boarding school after a violent prank gets her expelled from normie school. This iteration is a fully realized character with a range of emotions. And while her overall vibe is still aloof, she’s forced to deal with the unexpected as she’s thrown into a new environment and a murder mystery, .

Like Moretz, Ortega’s Wednesday is also at odds with her mother, trying to get out of her shadow and create her own path. Her wardrobe stays true to the character while giving her a modern edge with sneakers and hoodies. She’s extremely intelligent, and has several hobbies like fencing, playing cello, and writing a novel, not to mention psychic abilities And for the first time in the history of the Addams Family, Wednesday is portrayed as Latinx, which was previously only represented by Gomez.

Jenna Ortega continues to portray Wednesday Addams as the gloomy goth girl with a biting wit previously established by Christina Ricci, who also appears in the series as a teacher. Many came before her, but we know Ortega’s more than capable of carrying the legacy of Wednesday on her perfectly postured shoulders, taking the beloved character to new heights.