Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Addams

Wednesday, as portrayed by Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values
First appearance The New Yorker cartoon, (1938)
Created by Charles Addams
Portrayed by Lisa Loring,
Cindy Henderson,
Christina Ricci,
Debi Derryberry,
Nicole Fugere,
Krysta Rodriguez,
Rachel Potter
Lauren Revere,
Melissa Hunter
Information
Gender Female
Family Gomez (father)
Morticia (mother)
Lucas (husband)
Pugsley (brother)
Pubert (younger brother)
Fester (uncle)
Grandmama (grandmother)
Itt (cousin)
Nationality American

Wednesday Friday Addams is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Charles Addams in his comic strip The Addams Family. The character has also appeared in television and film, in both the live action and animated formats.

Wednesday

In Addams' cartoons, which first appeared in The New Yorker, Wednesday and other members of the family had no names. When the characters were adapted to the 1964 television series, Charles Addams gave her the name "Wednesday", based on the well-known nursery rhyme line, "Wednesday's child is full of woe". She is the sister of Pugsley Addams (and, in the movie Addams Family Values, also the sister of Pubert Addams), and she is the only daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams.

Appearance and personality

Wednesday's most notable features are her pale skin and long, dark twin braids. She usually has an irritated look on her face, though does smile, occasionally. Wednesday usually wears a black dress with a white collar, black stockings and black shoes.

In the 1960s series, she is significantly more sweet-natured, although her favorite hobby is raising spiders; she is also a ballerina. Wednesday's favorite toy is her Marie Antoinette doll, which her brother guillotines (at her request). She is stated to be six years old in the television series' pilot episode. In one episode, she is shown to have several other headless dolls as well. She also paints pictures (including a picture of trees with human heads) and writes a poem dedicated to her favorite pet spider, Homer. Wednesday is deceptively strong; she is able to bring her father down with a judo hold.

In the 1991 film, she is depicted closer to the original cartoons. She shows sadistic tendences and a dark personality, and is revealed to have a deep interest in the Bermuda Triangle and an admiration for an ancestor (Great Aunt Calpurnia Addams) who was burned as a witch in 1706. In the 1993 sequel, she was even darker: buried a live cat, tried to kill her brother Pubert, destroyed Camp Chippewa and (presumably) scared her boyfriend Joel to death.

Wednesday has a close kinship with the family's giant butler Lurch. In the TV series, her middle name is "Friday".[1] In the Spanish version, her name is Miércoles (Wednesday in Spanish); in Latin America she is Merlina; in the Brazilian version she is Wandinha (little Wanda in Portuguese); and in Italy her name is Mercoledì (Wednesday in Italian).

Child of woe is wan and delicate...sensitive and on the quiet side, she loves the picnics and outings to the underground caverns...a solemn child, prim in dress and, on the whole, pretty lost...secretive and imaginative, poetic, seems underprivileged and given to occasional tantrums...has six toes on one foot...[2]
— Charles Addams

In the animated series and Canadian TV series The New Addams Family from the 1990s, Wednesday retains her appearance and her taste for darkness and torture.

In the Broadway musical The Addams Family: A New Musical, she is 18 years old and has short hair rather than the long braids in her other appearances. Her darkness and sociopathic traits have been toned down, and she is in love with (and revealed to be engaged to) Lucas Beineke.

In the parody web series Adult Wednesday Addams, Wednesday, as played by Melissa Hunter, recovers her dark, sociopathic and sadistic nature and her long braids, connecting with the events and the depiction of the movies and the original comic-book. This Wednesday deals with being an adult after moving out of her family home.[3] The web series gained media attention with the third episode of Season 2 in which Wednesday punished a pair of catcallers.[4]

Legacy

Portrayals

Over the years, Wednesday has been portrayed by a variety of actresses, on television, the movies, and stage:

References

  1. ↑ "Wednesday Leaves Home" (20 November 1964) Season 1, Episode 10, at 06:30
  2. ↑ "Tee & Charles Addams Foundation". Charlesaddams.com. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  3. ↑ Carrie, Stephanie (March 6, 2015). "A Christina Ricci Doppelganger Creates a Series About Wednesday Addams As an Adult". LA Weekly. Retrieved March 16, 2015.
  4. ↑ "How Wednesday Addams Would React To Catcalling". Huffingtonpost.com. 2015-02-13. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  5. ↑ "The Addams Family Movie page". Web.archive.org. 2009-10-28. Archived from the original on 28 October 2009. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  6. ↑ "Wednesday Addams". Enjoy-your-style.com. 2013-03-21. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  7. ↑ "Cortney Wolfson". Cortneywolfson.com. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  8. ↑ "Adult Wednesday Addams". YouTube.com. 2015-03-12. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
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