The Addams family has been on TV since September 1964
Tim Burton’s new series Wednesday has only been on Netflix five days but it’s already beaten an Addams Family record.
The comedy series, released on the streaming service last Wednesday, follows the Addams Family’s only daughter, Wednesday Addams, as she attends Nevermore Academy.
There Wednesday, played by Jenna Ortega, tries to master her psychic abilities, thwart a killing speed and solve the mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago.
Read also: Fans are praising ‘genius’ casting in Netflix’s new top show
Fair to say, Wednesday has a pretty full schedule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73UhUTs6y0&feature=emb_imp_woyt
On Rotten Tomatoes fans have given the series a score of 88 per cent. The critics score isn’t much lower, at 72 per cent. The Top Critics scored dipped slightly, at 68 per cent.
The score makes it the highest rated Addams Family property to date.
The Guardian said Netflix had “absolutely smashed this fantastic Addams Family revamp”, while the Independent was less convinced, with their reviewer writing:
“For a show about vampires and werewolves, it has very little bite.”
The viewers score on the film-ranking website that any Addams Family production has ever seen, Unilad noted.
The creepy family have been on the small screen since 1964, having first come to life as a New Yorker cartoon.
Even though it only ran for two seasons – airing from September 1964 to September 1966 and finished 23rd in the ratings racxe on CBS – it remained a huge part of pop culture thanks to its regular re-runs.
Attempts were made to reboot the show in 1992 and 1998, but none of those series have been reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes.
The TV series was followed by a host of movies, but none of them did that well.
There were three different live-action films; The Addams Family, which got a rating of 66 per cent, Addams Family Values ranked slightly lower, at 63 per cent, and 1998’s Addams Family Reunion in 1998 tanked, with just 33 per cent.
In the last three years the family has returned to the big screen again, in animate form. With 2019’s The Addams Family, and 2021’s The Addams Family 2. They both failed to break the 70 per cent mark.
Viewers of the latest incarnation have been particularly impressed with the casting.
While Ortega plays Wednesday, there’s are also star turns from Luis Guzmán as her father Gomez Addams and Catherine Zeta-Jones as mother Morticia. Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1990s Addams Family film series, even makes a star turn as one of Wednesday’s school teachers.
But the character that’s made the biggest impression is uncle Fester, who is played by Saturday Night Live star Fred Armisen.
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