Grandmama (Addams Family)

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Grandmama Addams a fictional member of The Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams.

Grandmama (pronounced "GRAND-ma-MA") is the grandmother of the Addams children. Although her relationship to the other family members is somewhat inconsistent in the various incarnations of the family. She is Gomez Addams' mother and Pugsley and Wednesday's paternal grandmother in the Addams Family television series (1964 to 1966) and film (1991). However, in the cartoon, she was Morticia's mother and Pugsley and Wednesday's maternal grandmother.

Grandmama is known for her cynical—and sometimes morbid—sense of humor and her recreational interest in the occult. She is is often shown concocting various potions, spells and hexes for a multitude of purposes, and even dabbles in fortune-telling; however, in the episode "Halloween, Addams Style," when a neighbor claims to have seen a witch on the family's roof, she declares this untrue as she was just up there herself and saw no one, indicating that she is not a "witch" by the standards the family follows. One of her favorite hobbies is wrestling alligators. She is probably best recognized for her gray frizzy hair and her shawl.

Per the 1960s sitcom, Grandmama is of partially French descent; her Great-Great-Grandmother Slice was "the Belle of the French Revolution," and Grandmama sometimes regaled Pugsley and Wednesday with tales of that era, prompting Wednesday's hobby of decapitating her dolls. However, Grandmama herself was apparently born in Spain, which she later refers to as "the old country." She and her husband (referred to only as "Mr. Addams," he was never referred to by his first name and was apparently deceased by the 1960s) lived in Spain at least until Gomez was six. She is the daughter of Grandpa Slurp, Gomez's maternal grandfather (Gomez's paternal grandfather, Grandpa Squint Addams, is mentioned in several episodes.). Described in the episode "The Addams Family Tree," Slurp was a two-headed man distinguished by his buck teeth and receding chin; "He was a handsome devil!" declared Gomez.

Grandmama received neither given name nor maiden name in the 1960s series, although as a fortune teller she used the aliases "Madame Bovary," "Madame de Pompador," and, following her arrest for fraud, "Madame X." In various other media she is known as Granny, Grandmama Frump, Esmerelda Frump, Mrs. Eudora Addams or Grandma Addams.

Grandmama was most famously played by Blossom Rock in the original television series, and was later played by Judith Malina, Carol Kane, and Alice Ghostley in the subsequent films. In the first animated series, Janet Waldo played Grandmama just as she played Morticia. In the second series, Carol Channing did her voice.

The Addams Family
Characters
Gomez Addams | Morticia Addams | Pugsley Addams | Wednesday Addams | Uncle Fester | Grandmama | Lurch | Thing | Cousin Itt
TV
The Addams Family | The New Addams Family
Films
The Addams Family (1991) | Addams Family Values (1993) | Addams Family Reunion (1998)
Games
Fester's Quest (1989) | The Addams Family (pinball) (1991) | Addams Family (1992) | The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (1993) | Addams Family Values (1994) | Addams Family (1994)