

In a couple of cartoons, the mother is said to be pregnant. These were given the Thing's name and role in the TV show. Disembodied hands reaching out from strange places had appeared in Addams's art before, but they were connected with the family when one cartoon showed two arms reaching out of a phonograph to change the records (see the page image).But then, it started to appear in the background of many of the family's scenes, such as this one ◊. It first appeared in this ◊ cartoon, unrelated to the family. They are shown visiting the family a lot. ◊ In the cartoon shown, they even have a baby, who looks exactly like both of them - in that it has two heads, which are exact copies of the parents'.


These characters proved to be so popular that a 1960s TV sitcom was based off of them, and their popularity only grew from there.

They were joined in subsequent cartoons by a father, a son, a daughter, a hinted-at-but-never-shown baby, a grandmother, and a recurring bald man whose relationship with the family was ambiguous, but became known as an uncle. The first members of the family depicted were the mother, the butler, and the "Thing", making their debut in this 1938 cartoon ◊. While these were standalone - and, typically, quite macabre - gag-a-week jokes, there were a few recurring characters: namely, a creepy family of loners who were dark opposites of the idealized American family. For many, many years, Charles Addams drew single-panel cartoons for The New Yorker.
