It's not really a surprise that Tim Burton's Wednesday takes spooky aesthetic cues from The Addams Family — Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons, the '60s sitcom, and the '90s movies — but it's a delight to see some deeply specific references hidden in the second season to the 1991's The Addams Family.
A monochromatic beacon of comedy in the early '90s, Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family and its superb sequel The Addams Family Values were on repeat in our house. Suffice to say, I've watched the film on VHS enough times to spot a niche reference when I see it.
Wednesday Season 2 includes a handful of references to the film through production design, blink-and-you'll-miss-it scenes, and one gloriously chaotic casting choice. Here's what I could spot:
Wednesday's octopus bed
In The Addams Family, Wednesday (Christina Ricci, who plays science teacher Marilyn Thornhill in Wednesday) is obsessed with the Bermuda Triangle. She studies it. Extending this marine mystery mania to her bedroom decor, Wednesday's bed is adorned with a large octopus. In Wednesday Season 2, episode 1, when our stormy protagonist (Jenna Ortega) is about to leave for Nevermore Academy from the Addams mansion, you can see her bed also has an octopus on it. Reader, I need this bed.
Pugsley's traffic shenanigans
In Wednesday Season 2, episode 1, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) is bullied by his sister Wednesday to use his electricity powers to zap a stop sign on their way to Nevermore Academy. It causes a major pileup. To me, it's possibly a reference to the stop signs pilfered by Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) in The Addams Family, which cause a traffic accident we hear but don't see onscreen.
Thing lends a hand — as a golf tee
If you don't remember the iconic Raul Julia as Gomez Addams, consider this your homework. In The Addams Family, whenever Julia's Gomez needs a a bit of R&R, he hits golf balls from his roof right into his neighbour's windows. Thing, ever courteous, acts as a tee in these scenes. In Wednesday Season 2, we see Thing re-enacting this moment in episode 2, during a montage of Thing being treated like a servant by Morticia and Gomez (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán). This time, Gomez hits Thing instead of the golf ball, sending the poor dude flying into a tree.
Morticia and Gomez's dance
The perpetually lusty heads of the Addams Family love a tango, with Morticia (the iconic Anjelica Huston) and Gomez quite literally setting the floor ablaze in The Addams Family Values. In Wednesday Season 2, episode 3, Zeta-Jones and Guzmán cut a rug of their own, with choreography that pays tribute to their predecessors.
The camp episode
Wednesday Season 2, episode 3, sees the Nevermore students off to Camp Jericho aka Camp Outcast in what seems to be a nod to The Addams Family Values. In the sequel film, Wednesday and Pugsley are shipped off to Camp Chippewa, sheer torture for them both (and not the good kind). But in Wednesday, the camp is made for Outcasts, with dagger throwing, a pitch black watchtower, and coffin-shaped s'mores.
Honorable mention: It's Christopher Lloyd!
Watching Addams icon and Movie Wednesday Christina Ricci join the cast for Wednesday was a delight for The Addams Family fans. In Season 2, we get another Addams casting treat: the great Christopher Lloyd, whose melodramatic performance as Uncle Fester in the '90s movies is all-time. Lloyd plays a Futurama-style floating head in a jar, Nevermore science professor Dr. Orloff, who meets Wednesday in episode 2. Poor Orloff is the perpetual target of student pranks at Nevermore — have some respect!
Did you spy any more references to the Addams Family movies? Or perhaps the '60s sitcom? Let us know in the comments.
Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Part 2 lands on Sept. 3.
