Morticia's Girl

Before the movies and TV show, there was an Addams family lurking out in the wider world, just waiting to captivate us. Their inventor was a man named Charles Addams (1912 – 1988) who created the Addmas family with a single cartoon in 1938, published in The New Yorker. He didn’t know it then, but that one cartoon (featuring Morticia, Lurch and the Thing) was going to grow into an empire—and inspire not only films and TV, but God knows how many people who loved his macabre sense of humor.

I don’t know where I was when I first found the cartoons. I remember liking the TV show, but not knowing much about what it was based on. Then someone (at a party? Dentist office? Friend’s house)? –showed me a book of cartoons, centered around a cadaver-like woman who seemed deliciously dark and witty. I fell in love.

Addams said he named his female character Morticia after a phone book listing for morticians. The cartoon I most remember showed her and her short, squat husband in a classic haunted house on a rainy day. She was saying something about loving the gloom, which gave my young-girl self permission to enjoy a less-than-wholesome view of the suburban world I was growing up in.

Bravo, Morticia. She was, in fact, another inspiration for my Ruby girl in the Beat on Ruby’s Street. Morticia wore tight, dark dresses and her dark hair was loose and long. She didn’t seem to walk so much as to slink around, and you never got the impression that she did much of anything in a hurry. She was a perfect heroine for generations of rebels – and her family was, too.

But there was a little more to the story, too. My friend Susan once told me how her father came down on her for always watching the Addams family on TV. (I'm not sure what else he wanted her to be doing -- chores, maybe?) 

In any case, Susan told me why she loved the show so much, and it had nothing to do with rebels or spooky stories. "They were like the family I always wanted, but never had," she explained, and I could see that; the Addams family did pretty much everything together, which most families hardly do any more. Plus they were kind to each other, and the parents genuinely seemed to be in love.

While I did enjoy the TV show and movies, I think my favorites will always be the original cartoons. Addams managed to make them both creepy and funny, which is in fact my favorite combination for just about any fiction or theater piece. Movies, too.

When my son was younger and saw the movies, he was as fascinated as I was. And while I wasn’t ready to share the scariest movies I liked, the Addams family seemed just fine – and in its own way, made for kids (aged 10 and up) as much as for adults. We found some Addams books in the local bookstore and brought them home—and they quickly became favorites at our house.

The latest book out there (The Addams Family:An Evilution, published in 2010) apparently has 50 cartoons that haven’t been published yet, so it looks like I’ll have to spring for that too. If you’re a Morticia & family Addams lover, you’ll probably want to check it out. And if you tend to like old houses, horror movies, black dresses and witty ladies, and suburbs, pink-ribboned pigtails and nicely trimmed lawns don't inspire you, this family is a perfect distraction. I promise.

Addamses: Clinton Steeds