Pugsley Addams

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Pugsley Addams is a member of the fictional Addams family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams.

Pugsley was the oldest child of Morticia and Gomez Addams. He was a pre-teen boy almost always shown wearing a striped t-shirt and shorts. Originally unnamed, as were all of the family members, the character who was no doubt the prototype for Pugsley first appeared in the Charles Addams cartoons in The New Yorker magazine in the 1930s. In this first incarnation, he was portrayed as a deviant child with a vicious nature, often shown committing various deplorable acts with his sister.

When the characters were given names for the television series, The Addams Family he was originally going to be called "Pubert" (a derivation of the word puberty, possibly a reflection of his age) but it was rejected as it sounded too sexual, and the name Pugsley was chosen instead. (The name Pubert was later used when Gomez and Morticia have a third child in the film Addams Family Values.)

In the television series, he was played by Ken Weatherwax. This incarnation of the character was a much more jovial, fun-loving boy. He was an inventive child displaying excellent mechanical skills, having invented a disintegrator gun, an anti-gravity gun, and other devices. He and Gomez created a computer named Whizzo and a robot named Smiley (played by Robby the Robot). In an early episode, "Morticia and the Psychiatrist," the rest of the family is concerned that Pugsley is engaging in behavior they consider "odd" (wearing a Boy Scout uniform, playing with a puppy, etc.), but even in this episode he mostly adhered to his family's unique standards; for example, when questioned by a psychiatrist, he said that Uncle Fester (odd-looking by most conventional standards) looked "fine," and he told the psychiatrist of incidents in his boyhood involving hangings and grenades, with no indication that he thought these experiences unusual. In most episodes, however, he more or less adheres to the same macabre values as everyone else in his family, with his own individualistic idiosyncrasies. He and his younger sister Wednesday play together fairly often, sharing a devotion to dynamite, spiders, and other such entertainments. At the beginning of the series, he was eight years old, two years older than Wednesday.

In the 1970s, there was an animated series about the family, in which Pugsley was voiced by actress Jodie Foster. In the second animated series, Pugsley was voiced by Jeannie Elias.

In the film series, Pugsley is portrayed as a much less intelligent character, (played by Jimmy Workman), generally shown as an unwitting accomplice to his sister Wednesday in her various attempts to inflict harm upon him.

In most incarnations of the character, Pugsley had an unusual hobby of stealing road signs, which he used to adorn the walls and door of his bedroom. He also has a pet octopus named Aristotle.

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)