It is probably not a shock that Tim Burton’s Wednesday takes spooky aesthetic cues from The Addams Household — Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons, the ’60s sitcom, and the ’90s motion pictures — but it surely’s a delight to see some deeply particular references hidden within the second season to the 1991’s The Addams Household.
A monochromatic beacon of comedy within the early ’90s, Barry Sonnenfeld’s The Addams Household and its very good sequel The Addams Household Values had been on repeat in our home. Suffice to say, I’ve watched the movie on VHS sufficient instances to identify a distinct segment reference after I see it.
Wednesday Season 2 features a handful of references to the movie by manufacturing design, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scenes, and one gloriously chaotic casting selection. Here is what I may spot:
Wednesday’s octopus mattress
Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday has the identical mattress as Christina Ricci’s Wednesday and I like it.
Credit score: Jonathan Hession / Netflix
In The Addams Household, Wednesday (Christina Ricci, who performs science instructor Marilyn Thornhill in Wednesday) is obsessive about the Bermuda Triangle. She research it. Extending this marine thriller mania to her bed room decor, Wednesday’s mattress is adorned with a big octopus. In Wednesday Season 2, episode 1, when our stormy protagonist (Jenna Ortega) is about to depart for Nevermore Academy from the Addams mansion, you possibly can see her mattress additionally has an octopus on it. Reader, I want this mattress.
Pugsley’s visitors shenanigans
Pugsley’s cease signal stash in “The Addams Family.”
Credit score: Barry Sonnenfeld Orion/Paramount USA Scene Nonetheless Comedy La famille Addams
In Wednesday Season 2, episode 1, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) is bullied by his sister Wednesday to make use of his electrical energy powers to zap a cease signal on their option to Nevermore Academy. It causes a significant pileup. To me, it is presumably a reference to the cease indicators pilfered by Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) in The Addams Household, which trigger a visitors accident we hear however do not see onscreen.
Mashable Prime Tales
Factor lends a hand — as a golf tee
Factor: At all times useful.
Credit score: Courtesy of Netflix
If you happen to do not keep in mind the enduring Raul Julia as Gomez Addams, think about this your homework. In The Addams Household, each time Julia’s Gomez wants a a little bit of R&R, he hits golf balls from his roof proper into his neighbour’s home windows. Factor, ever courteous, acts as a tee in these scenes. In Wednesday Season 2, we see Factor re-enacting this second in episode 2, throughout a montage of Factor being handled like a servant by Morticia and Gomez (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán). This time, Gomez hits Factor as a substitute of the golf ball, sending the poor dude flying right into a tree.
Morticia and Gomez’s dance
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán in “Wednesday.”
Credit score: Jonathan Hession / Netflix
The perpetually lusty heads of the Addams Household love a tango, with Morticia (the enduring Anjelica Huston) and Gomez fairly actually setting the ground ablaze in The Addams Household Values. In Wednesday Season 2, episode 3, Zeta-Jones and Guzmán reduce a rug of their very own, with choreography that pays tribute to their predecessors.
The camp episode
Camp Outcast > Camp Chippewa
Credit score: Helen Sloan / Netflix
Wednesday Season 2, episode 3, sees the Nevermore college students off to Camp Jericho aka Camp Outcast in what appears to be a nod to The Addams Household Values. Within the sequel movie, Wednesday and Pugsley are shipped off to Camp Chippewa, sheer torture for them each (and never the great variety). However in Wednesday, the camp is made for Outcasts, with dagger throwing, a pitch black watchtower, and coffin-shaped s’mores.
Honorable point out: It is Christopher Lloyd!
An icon: Christopher Lloyd’s Fester Addams.
Credit score: Snap / Shutterstock
Watching Addams icon and Film Wednesday Christina Ricci be part of the forged for Wednesday was a delight for The Addams Household followers. In Season 2, we get one other Addams casting deal with: the nice Christopher Lloyd, whose melodramatic efficiency as Uncle Fester within the ’90s motion pictures is all-time. Lloyd performs a Futurama-style floating head in a jar, Nevermore science professor Dr. Orloff, who meets Wednesday in episode 2. Poor Orloff is the perpetual goal of scholar pranks at Nevermore — have some respect!
Did you spy any extra references to the Addams Household motion pictures? Or maybe the ’60s sitcom? Tell us within the feedback.
Wednesday Season 2, Half 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Half 2 lands on Sept. 3.
