Viewers tend to focus on those two long black braids. Summon almost any image of the iconic Addams Family daughter, and there is that signature hair. One recent animated film iteration even terminated each braid with a tellingly ominous noose.
Yet the real secret, honestly, was always in the eyes.
Within America’s “first family” of macabre comedy, those distinguishing peepers were in evidence as far back as 1938, when these altogether ooky-kooky cartoon characters debuted in the New Yorker magazine, as rendered by creator Charles Addams.
On the page, the parents in this Gothic menagerie, eventually named Morticia and Gomez Addams, had eyelids. Son Pugsley, too, had white space surrounding his pupils, as did Grandmama and Uncle Fester – and even their butler Lurch.
Daughter Wednesday Addams, though, was always…
