The Addams Family

Origins and The New Yorker cartoons (1933–1964) Charles Addams began as a cartoonist in The New Yorker with a sketch of a window washer that ran on February 6, 1932. Addams first drew the then-unnamed Morticia some years before her first published appearance in The New Yorker . Some sources give a date of 1933, while Addams himself when asked in interview suggested "around 1937." Media speculation at the time often connected Morticia to Charles Addams' first wife Barbara Jean Day , but he had yet to meet her. In an interview in 1981 he acknowledged that Morticia reflected the qualities he was attracted to. Because of this, the women he married later on resembled the character. He described Morticia as "not patterned after anyone in particular, although I've often thought there was a little Gloria Swanson in her." The first Addams Family cartoon was published in 1938, in a one-panel gag format. Charles Addams became a regular contributor to The New Yorker and drew approximately 1,300 cartoons between then and his death in 1988. 58 of these would feature the Addams Family, almost all of which were published in the 1940s and 1950s. Members of the family were introduced one by one, with Morticia first, Gomez (based on Thomas E. Dewey ) joining four years later, Pugsley, and finally Wednesday and Fester shortly after. Addams indicated that Fester resembled himself, "plus a little more hair." A Christmas 1946 strip, showing the family pouring boiling oil on carolers, was well received and was later sold on Christmas cards. Outside of The New Yorker , Addams also published several collections, the most notable being Dear Dead Days: A Family Album in 1959. In 1946, Addams briefly collaborated with science fiction writer Ray Bradbury , planning out an illustrated book about a supernatural family named The Elliotts , similar to The Addams Family . There was difficulty finding a publisher however, and the two went their separate ways. These stories were eventually anthologized in From the Dust Returned (2001), with a connecting narrative, an explanation of their collaboration, and the artwork Addams had created for the project in 1946. Beginning in the early 1960s, the development of the television series affected the comics. For one thing, it is claimed that Wednesday was first given her name in reference to the nursery rhyme Monday's Child , where "Wednesday's child is full of woe". Actress and poet Joan Blake offered Charles Addams the idea for the name and the others were eventually named ahead of the series' debut. Some suggestions from series showrunner David Levy were introduced into the last comics of the era, including the addition of Thing and Cousin Itt. Itt was an invention of Levy's, while Thing was an expansion on a disembodied hand that had appeared in a 1954 strip. The comics ceased publication in The New Yorker in 1964, as the editor William Shawn banned the characters. He was concerned about the image of the publication, and did not want it associated with a mainstream sitcom. Smithsonian Magazine called him "snooty" for the decision.