Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Friday 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
Information
Gender	Female
Family	Gomez (father) Morticia (mother) Pugsley (brother) Pubert (younger brother) Fester (great-uncle, but uncle in the films) Grandmama (paternal grandmother) Itt (cousin) Ophelia Frump (aunt)
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 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 is originally a pale, dark-haired, grim-looking little girl who is fascinated with death and the macabre. She seldom smiles. She is explicitly stated to be six years old in the television series' pilot episode. 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. 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 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.

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-language version, her name is Merlina Addams (Latin America) or Miércoles Addams (Spain [Wednesday in Spanish]). In the Brazilian version her name is Wandinha (Little Wanda in Portuguese) and in Italy her name is Mercoledì (Wednesday in Italian).

In the Broadway play The Addams Family: A New Musical, she is 18 years old and has short hair rather than the long braids in her other appearances. She is in love with (and revealed to be engaged to) Lucas Beineke. Krysta Rodriguez and Rachel Potter played Wednesday on Broadway from 2010 - 2011. Cortney Wolfson] [formerly in the National Tour of Legally Blonde and now in the Broadway cast of "Kinky Boots"] played her in the U.S. National Tour cast in 2011 - 2012.

Laura Lobo plays her in the Brazilian Tour cast.

Legacy

• Bridget Marquardt, from The Girls Next Door, has named her dog Wednesday after the character.
• Musician Wednesday 13 derived his moniker from the character.

Portrayals

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

• Lisa Loring (Live-action TV 1964–1966, 1977)
• Cindy Henderson (Animated TV 1972–1974)
• Christina Ricci (Live-action movies 1991, 1993)
• Debi Derryberry (Animated TV 1992–1994)
• Nicole Fugere (Live-action movie 1998, Live-action TV 1998–1999)
• Krysta Rodriguez (Broadway musical 2010)
• Rachel Potter (Broadway musical 2011)
• Cortney Wolfson (2011 First National Broadway Tour)
• Laura Lobo (2012 First Brazilian Cast)
• Frankie Lowe (2012 UK National Tour)
• Jennifer Fogarty (2013 Asian Tour)

• 

  Lisa Loring as Wednesday in The Addams Family original series.

• 

  Christina Ricci as Wednesday in The Addams Family.

• Wednesday is played by Lisa Loring in the original TV series. In the first animated series from Hanna-Barbera, her voice was done by Cindy Henderson. Henderson voiced that same character in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In the second animated series from Hanna-Barbera, she is voiced by Debi Derryberry.

• The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993),^[3] portray Wednesday more malevolent than her television self. Wednesday's personality is severe, with a deadpan wit and a morbid interest in trying to inflict harm upon her brothers, first Pugsley and later Pubert. In both films, she is played by Christina Ricci. In the movie Addams Family Values (1993), Wednesday is sent to a summer camp for "privileged young adults" called Camp Chippewa, where Joel Glicker (played by David Krumholtz), takes a liking to Wednesday. She refuses to participate in Gary Granger's play, a musical production of the first Thanksgiving. She, Pugsley, and Joel are locked in the "Harmony Hut" and forced to watch upbeat family films to curb their antisocial behavior. On emerging from the hut, Wednesday feigns perkiness and agrees to play the role of Pocahontas. However, during the play, she leads the other social outcasts—who have all been cast as Native Americans—in a revolt, capturing Gary, Becky, and Amanda and leaving the camp in chaos. Before she leaves, Wednesday and Joel kiss. Joel is a neurotic, allergy-ridden Jewish boy with an overbearing mother. In one scene in the film, she smiles, which ends up scaring the campers, as well as her blonde arch-nemesis.^[4] At the end of the film, it is suggested that Wednesday, though she obviously likes Joel, purposely tries to scare him to death after he brings up the subject of marriage.

• In the 1977 television holiday-themed special, Halloween with the New Addams Family, Lisa Loring plays a grown-up Wednesday, who mostly entertains their party guests with her flute, and can hear and understand coded help messages by bound-up members of the family, and dispatch help to free them. In the time interval between the original TV series and this television movie, her parents had two more children who look just like the original Pugsley and Wednesday.

• Wednesday is portrayed by Nicole Fugere in the straight-to-video movie Addams Family Reunion and Fox Family Channel's television series The New Addams Family, which were both produced in 1998.

• In April 2010, The Addams Family: A New Musical, debuted on Broadway. Krysta Rodriguez played Wednesday. The character is now 18 years old, has "become a woman", and to that effect no longer sports her signature pigtails. The musical is based on the characters as created by Charles Addams. In March, 2011, Krysta Rodriguez was replaced with Rachel Potter as Wednesday in the Broadway cast. Starting in September, 2011, the production begins its First National Tour. Cortney Wolfson has been cast in the Wednesday Addams role. In the Broadway production, she was the understudy for Wednesday and performed as the Dead Bride/Ancestor.^[5]

References