On its face, Addams Family Values is one of the most ghoulish family comedy films ever made. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, Wednesday Addams, iconically played by Christina Ricci, commits the following acts:
- She buries her cat alive.
- She throws her baby brother off the roof.
- She attempts to decapitate said baby after it survives the fall.
But in the world of Charles Addams, murder attempts are childish hijinks that never result in death or even mild injuries. The Addamses are living cartoon characters; they are only in mortal danger when the plot conveniently deems it so.
In this context, Addams Family Values (1993)--just like its predecessor, The Addams Family (1991)--is incredibly wholesome. That's the satire--that within their world, the Addamses do a better job of embodying traditional American family values than the "normal" hypocrites they're surrounded by.
The movie delights in subverting expectations, and the undisputed high point of the film is when Wednesday hijacks the Camp Chippewa Thanksgiving play, gives a mic-drop speech about colonialism, and burns the Pilgrim village to the ground. It delighted a generation of kids who felt like they were hearing a truth they weren't supposed to and solidified Ricci's place as a millennial icon. And to think, this was the subplot of the movie, not the main storyline!
To celebrate the film's 30th anniversary, here's a holiday-appropriate look back at Addams Family Values, along with 27 Easter eggs and trivia bits you might have missed along the way. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
1. A Familiar Tune
Lurch plays the Addams Family theme on the organ in the movie's opening scene--a winking fourth-wall break. And it's not the last time we hear the theme in the movie. When Gomez and Morticia dance the tango at the restaurant, we hear the theme again, this time with a live violin and castanets as accompaniment.
2. Separate Lighting
Morticia has separate lighting from the rest of the cast. You'll notice this especially in the more shadowy scenes. There's usually a white band of light across her eyes, which gives her an ethereal quality.
3. RIP Gomez
Addams Family Values was the final Raul Julia film released during the actor's lifetime. His final role was M. Bison in the Street Fighter movie, which opened two months after his death.
4. Dr. David Hyde Pierce
David Hyde Pierce, most famous for playing Niles in the classic sitcom Frasier, has a cameo as the doctor who delivers Morticia's baby.
5. Meet Pubert
Pubert, the name of the baby, is a holdover from the 1960s, when Charles Addams considered giving that name to Pugsley for the TV show. It ultimately fell by the wayside over concerns that the name was too sexual for network television.
6. Marie Antoinette
For the failed decapitation attempt, Wednesday and Pugsley dress Pubert as Marie Antoinette, who also wore a white dress to her execution by guillotine in 1793. Due to its frequent use, the guillotine became widely known as a symbol of the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror.
7. Cynthia Nixon, Babysitter
The first babysitter candidate for Pubert is played by a young Cynthia Nixon, who would later become famous for playing Miranda on Sex and the City.
8. Hole in the Floor
Near the beginning of the movie, Wednesday and Pugsley try to drop an anvil on Pubert. It misses and punches a hole through the floor. When Morticia and Gomez walk down the stairs moments later, you can see them stepping around the hole rather than over it, even though they're on the very edge of the frame. Points for consistency!
9. Chained
If you look closely during the scene where Debbie rifles through Fester's stocks and bonds, you can see that she shackled Pubert to a ball and chain, to make sure he didn't wander off. The novelization of the movie is more specific about this and makes it clear that Debbie mistreats Pubert when the family isn't watching.
10. Chippewa Translation
Despite Wednesday's quip, Chippewa does not translate to orphan. It is the name of an indigenous tribe native to the areas around Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Ontario, Canada.
11. A Familiar Face
If the actress playing Amanda Buckman looks familiar, it's because she had a bit part in the first movie, where she played a Girl Scout who wanted to buy Wednesday's lemonade. The actress, Mercedes McNab, would later have a supporting role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel.
12. Director Cameo
Director Barry Sonnenfield has a cameo in the film as Joel's concerned father.
13. Wednesday's Poison
Both Addams children make it abundantly clear that they do not want to stay at Camp Chippewa. Wednesday drinks poison…
14. Pugsley's Noose
… And Pugley attempts to hang himself with a noose. This gag occurs in the background, so it's easy to miss. It occurs when Joel and Wednesday meet for the first time.
15. Lecter Baby
While in his crib, Pubert wears a distinctive mask. It's the same one that Hannibal Lecter wears in the Oscar-winning thriller The Silence of the Lambs.
16. King of Pop
There's a poster of Michael Jackson hanging up in the Harmony Hut. Michael Jackson originally wrote a song called "Family Thing" for the film, but it was canceled over a contractual dispute. The full song demo leaked online in January 2023. You can listen to it here.
17. Fiddler on the Roof
The song that Lurch plays at the wedding, right before the traditional wedding march, is "Sunrise, Sunset" from the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. In the play, Tevye and Golde sing the song during their daughter Tzeitzel's wedding.
18. Coffin Shapes
There are little macabre touches in even the smallest props. When Margaret is pushing Cousin It's baby around in a stroller (the baby's name is What), you'll notice that it's shaped like a casket, complete with the white inner lining.
19. Light Bulb
When Debbie tries to electrocute Fester in the bathtub, she finds out that he conducts electricity, much to her chagrin. The Fester light-bulb gag goes all the way back to the 1960s TV show, but the '90s movies give an in-canon reason for Fester's conductivity: As a young man, he visited the Bermuda Triangle, where a bolt of lightning during a storm also caused him to lose his memory.
20. Mixology
The combination of a raw egg, vodka, and Worcestershire sauce is known as an Amber Moon, which can be used as a hangover cure. It is alternatively known as Hair of the Dog, which is why Gomez refers to it as "Hair of the Pup" when he pours some into Pubert's baby bottle.
21. Endangered Species
Pugsley shoots down a bald eagle with his bow and arrow, which leads to a joke about it going extinct. The bald eagle was placed on the Endangered Species list in 1967, but its population rebounded after the banning of the pesticide DDT. The bald eagle was taken off the Endangered Species list in 1995, two years after this film debuted.
22. Amy Fischer?
The name is misspelled (perhaps intentionally?). In real life, 17-year-old Amy Fisher gained notoriety in 1992 as the "Long Island Lolita," when she shot Mary Jo Buttafucco in the head on the porch of the Buttafucco home. It later came out that Fisher was sleeping with Mary Jo's husband, Joey Buttafucco, starting when she was 16. Joey Buttafucco would later plead guilty to statutory rape. Fisher would plead guilty to first-degree assault. And Mary Jo, who survived the shooting, went on to become an author and motivational speaker.
23. Officer Nathan Lane
Broadway and stage actor Nathan Lane plays the role of the police officer, who places Gomez under arrest at the station house. Lane would later originate the role of Gomez Addams in the musical comedy The Addams Family, which debuted on Broadway in 2010.
You'll notice he has an open bottle of Pepto Bismol on his desk. Apparently, dealing with the Addamses is hard on the stomach.
24. Happy Thanksgiving!
In the years since the film's debut, the climactic Thanksgiving play has been identified as a cultural flashpoint for many young Native Americans, who felt seen and recognized at a time when the prevailing Thanksgiving narrative was extremely biased towards the Pilgrims. Writing for the Huffington Post, indigenous writer Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe watched the movie when she was 10 years old, and recalled:
"Looking like the Land of Lakes Indian Maiden, match in hand and eyes wide, [Ricci] looked into the camera and promised to burn the pilgrim village to the ground, and I cheered. I don’t think the writers knew what they were doing. This wasn’t just another dark remark, pointing to the character’s fascination with all things morbid. This was a statement about Indigenous identity."
25. Two Weeks
The entire Thanksgiving sequence took two weeks to shoot. That the Camp Chippewa kids were putting on a Thanksgiving play in the middle of summer was apparently a non-issue.
26. Carrie Tribute
At the end of the movie, Debbie's hand reaches out from her grave and grabs Joel's arm. This jump scare is a direct homage to the end of Carrie (1976), where Carrie's bloodied hand reaches out of her grave and grabs Sue's arm.
27. Addams Family (Whoomp!)
The song that plays over the end credits was written and performed by Tag Team, the rap duo best known for their hit single "Whoomp! (There It Is)," which hit #2 on the Billboard charts. "Addams Family (Whoomp)" peaked at #84.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.