Every Member Of The Addams Family Ranked From Normal To Creepiest

"Normal" and "creepy" are relative terms, especially when discussing the mysterious, spooky, and altogether ooky Addams Family. First introduced in the pages of The New Yorker in 1938, Charles Addams' series of macabre and hilarious single-panel cartoons became the foundation for one of America's most popular — and most enduring — fictional families. Television shows and movies, both live-action and animated, have featured the family's morbid antics since 1964, with a new Netflix series debuting later this year.

If there's anything the Addams Family teaches us, it's that "normal" is in the eye of the beholder and that looks can be deceiving. At the same time, part of the fun of the Addams Family is that they allow us to get in touch with our own darkness, our own weirdness, and celebrate the creepier side of life. While there are many extended family members in the Addams clan, this list will stick to the major players, ranking them in order from most normal to creepiest.

Loyal butler Lurch is only an honorary Addams, but his intimidating stature and penchant for stony, gloomy silence make him one of the more unsettling members of the family. The 2019 animated film gives him a backstory as an escapee from an institution for the "criminally insane," which in many other stories would automatically land him near the top of this list. 

However, the Addams Family teaches us that being different is not the same thing as being bad; if the outside world had its way, most (if not all) of the Addamses would be found criminally insane, though many of them are generally harmless. It's no coincidence that Lurch resembles Frankenstein's monster: Both are gentle, well-meaning figures who are judged for their unconventional appearance and speech patterns rather than any malicious actions. A dedicated servant and one heck of a harpsichordist, Lurch is, surprisinglym the least creepy Addams.

Though his small stature and hirsute appearance are unconventional, Itt is a friendly and personable member of the Addams Family. That makes him far more "normal" than some of his relatives. He's frequently described as a ladies' man, catching the eye of Morticia's sister, Ophelia, in the '60s sitcom and Margaret Alford (Dana Ivey), the unhappy wife of Gomez's lawyer, in the 1991 live-action film. 

While Itt's bubbly chatter is unintelligible to the audience, he is clearly understood by both family members and open-minded outsiders alike, proving that the biggest barrier to communication is the refusal to try. Though Itt's hobbies and modes of transportation may seem odd at times (he hides out in the Addamses' chimney and drives a tiny car) they're perfectly appropriate for a person of his size. Itt keeps his long tresses deep-conditioned and can rock a bowler hat with the best of them. There's nothing creepy here!

A talented witch who's often present on the periphery of the family, Grandmama (Gomez's mother) is eccentric but not creepy by Addams standards. She's one of a few Schrödinger's cats of the Addams clan. She's alive in some adaptations and dead in others, which does increase her creep factor. She's the genial older relative in the original sitcom, while in Barry Sonnenfeld's live-action films from the '90s, she is buried in a grave in the family cemetery, having been killed by an angry mob. 

So much of the Addams Family mystique comes down to suggestion. What did Mother and Father Addams do to draw the ire of an angry mob? Each incarnation of the family hints at their sinister deeds, but they also suggest that the Addamses are harmless kooks persecuted by crowds of people who fear nonconformists. As one of the least creepy Addamses, Grandmama probably did nothing wrong... Probably.

Pugsley is often seen engaging in more "normal" activities than the rest of the family (becoming interested in joining the Boy Scouts, playing with puppies — the usual things that seem natural to many outsiders but horrify his parents). When he's not showing an interest in normal activities, he usually goes along with the family's sinister plans unwittingly like playing games in which Wednesday repeatedly tries to kill him, all with a guileless smile on his face, making him more of a good-natured accomplice than a full-fledged creep. 

The creepiest thing about Pugsley may not even be canon. Pubert, his younger brother who only appears in 1993's "Addams Family Values," disappeared from the franchise just as quickly as he arrived. Wednesday tells a visitor in the 1998 sitcom reboot that "there were three of us, but Pugsley ate the little one." While fratricide and cannibalism are undoubtedly creepy, they don't tip the scales enough with this family to earn Pugsley a higher spot on the list.

The ultimate wife guy, Gomez loves fencing, knife-throwing, and romancing Morticia. Despite outward appearances, especially John Astin's heaving, leering, unblinking stare during the opening credits for the original sitcom, he's actually a pretty normal guy. His main priority is taking care of his family, but he's also a very generous philanthropist who cares about his community. He donates expensive treasures and then bids exorbitant amounts for them at charity galas as in 1991's "The Addams Family." When a pair of thieves visit his house on Halloween (including the legendary Don Rickles) on the '60s sitcom, Gomez happily gives them fistfuls of money because he thinks that's a polite thing to give trick-or-treaters. 

Gomez is the best kind of rich person — one who doesn't mind giving his money away to people who need it. He's also the best kind of husband, showing Morticia undying loyalty, lust, and devotion. Gomez is far from creepy. In fact, the world would be a better place for all of us if people like Gomez Addams were the norm.

Just like Grandmama, Granny Frump (Morticia's mother) is a witch who usually stays on the sidelines. She seems to have more talent for witchcraft than Grandmama, though, and that power makes her far creepier. She's another Schrödinger's Addams: Morticia communicates with her in the spirit world in the 2019 animated film, but Granny Frump (or Mama, as Morticia calls her) is the living grandmother to Pugsley and Wednesday in the Barry Sonnenfeld films. 

In 1991's "The Addams Family," Granny Frump tries to catch a cat or a dog for dinner, and she frequently serves unidentifiable meals that move around on the family's plates. In the sequel, "Addams Family Values," she hands a skull to Fester's new wife, the seemingly sweet but sinister Debbie (Joan Cusack), and places a curse on her. Granny Frump knows plenty of baleful magic and isn't afraid to use it, making her one of the creepier Addamses.

Morticia seems less daffy than Gomez and more deliberately in tune with the sinister side of life. In "Addams Family Values," she laments not being able to "seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade" more often, so she definitely has a strong creepy side. She's a witch just like her mother, with a lineage going back to Salem. There is, of course, nothing inherently creepy about being a witch, and it is delightfully morbid and hilarious when Morticia traumatizes a group of children in 1991's "The Addams Family" by asking them to put themselves in the witch's shoes as she recounts the tale of Hansel and Gretel. 

Still, it's a little creepy to see her put images of burning flesh in the minds of young children, even though she has a point about how witches are unfairly depicted in fairy tales. Morticia's passion for carnivorous and poisonous plants adds an extra layer to her creep factor. Like so many of the family members on this list, Morticia has the potential to do a lot of damage with her talents and interests, and therein lies the danger and the creepiness.

Though Pubert's birth is announced at the end of 1991's "The Addams Family" when Morticia shows Gomez a knit baby garment with space for a few too many limbs, viewers don't meet the youngest Addams until the 1993 sequel. Pubert is the spitting image of Gomez, with his slicked-back black hair and pencil-thin mustache, which is disconcerting enough for a baby. Add in his talent for producing flaming arrows out of nowhere and you've got yourself a pretty darn creepy baby. 

Pubert's true creepiness doesn't come through until he becomes ill. Distressed by family upheaval, he turns "normal." Pubert gains a cherubic, mustache-free face and golden curls, and he develops a taste for Dr. Seuss and cheery nursery decor rather than the dark and sinister room he had before he fell ill. The contrast between the "normal" Pubert and the rest of the family is highly unsettling as is his preternatural ability for avoiding death at the hands of his jealous siblings. Though Pubert may have met an untimely demise in Pugsley's stomach, he was already one of the least predictable and creepiest Addamses as an infant. Imagine what he would have been like as an adult!

With her blonde hair and wreath of daisies, Morticia's sister, Ophelia Frump, has a cheery but lovelorn demeanor that makes her a wacky outlier in the family. Her head is usually in the clouds, but her penchant for judo throwing her suitors makes her even less predictable than the rest of the Addams clan. Ophelia's flower child-meets-swamp witch appearance is disconcerting in a Miss Havisham-Baby Jane Hudson kind of way, and that makes her a sly contender for the title of creepiest Addams. 

Ophelia is doubly weird in that she stands out among so-called "normal" people, but she doesn't quite fit in with the Addamses either. They accept her as part of the family because nothing is more important to an Addams than family. Still, she's an oddball among oddballs. It's a precarious situation that earns Ophelia a great deal of empathy, but there's no way around it, Ophelia is an odd duck.

Fester has some of the strangest collections in the family (he always has a weapon handy), and his unexplained ability to conduct electricity makes you wonder what else he can do. Fester's ambiguity lands him very high on the creepy ranking. He started on the original sitcom as Morticia's uncle, but since then he's been depicted as Gomez's brother. In the 1991 film, he eyes a centerfold that, according to Gomez, turns out to be their mother. Fester's shifting (and troubling) lineage makes him one of the most mysterious members of the Addams Family, which is saying a lot for a family with so many secrets. 

That mystery only increases when you take into account the fact that he got lost in the Bermuda Triangle for years, setting the events of the 1991 film into motion. Though the Addams Family repeatedly proves that appearances can be deceiving, Fester undeniably has one of the most demented looks in the family, with his sunken yet impossibly wide eyes and his unsettling grin. His expression seems to hide nothing and everything all at once, making him even more enigmatic and much, much creepier.

A connoisseur of Girl Scout cookies made from real Girl Scouts, Wednesday has the potential to be the deadliest member of the Addams Family. She's usually the mastermind behind the dangerous games she plays with Pugsley, and she leads the efforts to murder their baby brother, Pubert. She may even have goaded Pugsley into eating him, though that is entirely conjecture. Like many other members of her family, including her father, she's been accused of murder — but never convicted. 

Despite her youth, Wednesday seems to be the most observant Addams with the most piercing intellect. She sees through the lies and deception around which both of the Barry Sonnenfeld films' plots revolve, and she delivers an epic and eloquent rebuke to the rich white racists at the summer camp she's exiled to in "Addams Family Values." Bringing rich jerks down a peg or two is the opposite of creepy, but Wednesday's deadly predilections and clear ability (and eagerness) to follow through on them definitely earn her a high spot on this list.

A disembodied hand skittering around of its own volition? Thing is definitely one of the creepiest people (?) on this list. He is a servant and honorary Addams like Lurch, and though he does share many of Lurch's finer qualities, like loyalty and a clear devotion to the family, it's impossible to look past Thing's creepy appearance. The horror genre explores the unknown to creep people out, and Thing is nothing but unknowns. Though Charles Addams' original cartoons conceived of Thing as having a body that was too horrible to be seen, later incarnations turned Thing into a disembodied hand (or hand and forearm, as seen in the original sitcom). Thing emerged out of small boxes scattered throughout the Addamses' home to do things like fetch the mail, ring the dinner bell, or play the castanets so that Morticia and Gomez could dance. 

So many questions arise. What exactly is Thing? How did his mother and father (shown in the original sitcom as a pair of hands embracing in a wedding photo) conceive Thing? Where did he learn to drive? Whatever the answers are, one fact remains: a disembodied hand running around like a spider and appearing where you least expect it is very, very creepy.

Debbie Jelinsky, Fester's gold-digging wife from "Addams Family Values," is the only confirmed serial killer on this list, which automatically makes her the creepiest Addams despite the brevity of her tenure in the family. A black widow extraordinaire, Debbie trawls the pages of "Lifestyles of the Rich & Freakish" to find her next victim, and she giddily watches true crime reports of the murders she's committed as she eats bonbons in bed. When she convinces Fester to propose to her, she digs up Fester's mother to collect her engagement ring, proudly showing Gomez and Morticia the shovel she used. 

As a literal grave-robber, Debbie has no respect for the dead, unlike the other Addamses, who revere their ancestors. She kills any way she can — whether by arson, axe, or car — and she does so over the slightest provocation. She began her murderous career by offing her parents for getting her the wrong Barbie doll. Though Debbie is a fan favorite thanks to Joan Cusack's committed and campy performance, she is also the creepiest member of the Addams Family by far. She will kill whomever, whenever, and however she can, and she'll do it while wearing pastels.