Grandmama (The Addams Family)

Grandmama
First appearance	The New Yorker cartoon, (1938)
Created by	Charles Addams
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Family	Gomez (son in law), Morticia (daughter), Pugsley (grandson), Pubert (grandson), Fester (uncle), Itt (cousin)
Nationality	American

Grandmama is a fictional character within The Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams.

Grandmama is the grandmother of the Addams children, Pugsley and Wednesday Addams, although her relationship to the other family members is somewhat inconsistent in the various incarnations of the family. In Charles Addams' original The New Yorker cartoon strips, the character was referred to as Grandma Frump, therefore making her Morticia's mother. For the original television series — as well as The New Addams Family, in which she is named Eudora Addams — her relationship to the family is retconned and she becomes Gomez's mother. However, both the feature films and animated television series conform to Charles Addams' original concept of Grandmama as Wednesday's and Pugsley's maternal grandmother. In the first film, Morticia and Gomez discuss how "Mother and Father Addams" were killed by an angry mob, removing any possibility that Grandmama could be Gomez's and Fester's mother. In the third film, in which she is named Esmeralda, she is again implied to come from Morticia's family. The character is simply referred to as Granny in the two animated series. In the second episode of the 1992 series, Grandmama introduces herself with the line, "the name's Granny Frump", while the following episode references Gomez's parents, Mother and Father Addams.

Grandma Frump is foolishly good-natured... A closely knit family, the real head being Morticia — although each of the others is a definite character — except for Grandma, who is easily led. Many of the troubles they have as a family are due to Grandma's fumbling, weak character.

— Charles Addams

Grandmama is known for her cynical—and sometimes morbid—sense of humor and her recreational interest in the occult. She is often shown concocting various potions, spells and hexes for a multitude of purposes, and even dabbles in fortune-telling. 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 does not consider herself 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.

Sitcom

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 never received a first name in dialogue and was apparently deceased (or at least misplaced) by the 1960s) lived in Spain at least until Gomez was six, when Gomez was promised in marriage to a family friend's daughter, although both Gomez and Grandmama had forgotten this by the 1960s. 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.

Little else is known of Grandmama's past save that she first voted in 1906. When Fester pointed out that there was no women's suffrage in 1906 (implying Grandmama lived in the U.S. at the time), she cryptically declared "That didn't stop me!"

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

Grandmama was given a more positive image in the 1989 game Fester's Quest, where the instruction booklet says her psychic powers foretold the alien invasion that would come and abduct all the people in the city, so she invoked a curse on the Addams family mansion. As a result, when extraterrestrial scouts scanned the Addams residence for life forms they found none, thanks to Grandmama's curse.

Grandmama was most famously played by Blossom Rock in the original television series, and was later played by Jane Rose, Judith Malina, Carol Kane, and Alice Ghostley in the subsequent films. In the second television series, she was played by Vancouver actress Betty Phillips. In the first animated series, Janet Waldo played Grandmama just as she played Morticia. In the second series, Carol Channing did her voice. In the Broadway musical, she is played by Jackie Hoffman. Here it is not entierly sure whose mother Grandma is. Morticia explains to Gomez how, as she sais, your mother came to visit and, apparently, never left. To which he replies: "I thought she was your mother!"