Wednesday Addams is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. Addams gave her the name “Wednesday”, based on the well known nursey rhyme line, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”. The idea for the name was supplied by the actress and poet Joan Blake, an acquaintance of Addams. The character has also appeared in television, film, and in video games, in both the live-action and animated formats. Wednesday Addams is a 7 Year old who is obsessed with death. Wednesday does most of her experiments on her brother Pugsley Addams for fun or for punishment. Wednesday has tried to kill Pugsley many times. She likes raising spiders and doing ballet. She might creep someone out. Wednesday’s most notable features are her pale skin and long, dark braided pigtails. She seldom shows her emotions and is generally bitter. Wednesday usually wears a black dress with a white collar, black stockings and black shoes.
Earlier this year, I discovered Melissa Hunter’s Adult Wednesday Addams on YouTube. It’s a collection of short videos featuring Melissa playing a grown-up version of the iconic Addams Family character. In each video, Melissa dresses up like Wednesday Addams (black dress, long braids, pale skin, and deadpan attitude) and plays out everyday occurrences (like interviewing to be someone’s roommate and going to work) while embodying the Wednesday Addams character. She is a talented, smart, and funny writer.
Every episode revolves around Wednesday experiencing some facet of 21st-century LA life and responding to it in her signature style. The series lasted for two seasons and grew to be quite popular. It even attracted the attention of The Huffington Post and The AV Club thanks to the episode in which Wednesday punishes some catcallers.
One of the problems with getting older is that the characters we hold so near and dear to our hearts don’t age with us, making it harder and harder to relate to them and their troubles. But that’s where comedian Melissa Hunter, who looks remarkably like Wednesday Addams, comes in and saves the day.
Hunter was sent a Cease & Desist from the estate of Charles Addams/The Tee & Charles Addams Foundation, who left behind explicit instructions not to allow any unauthorized use of his characters under any circumstances. Consequently the series was cancelled permanently.
