Random Dark And Morbidly Funny Behind-The-Scenes Stories From The '90s 'Addams Family' Films (14 items)

• 

  (#1) Raul Julia's Eye Fell Out Of Its Socket - But He Caught It

  Raul Julia, who played Gomez Addams, went out to unwind after a day of filming The Addams Family. During the excursion, his eye fell out of its socket. Apparently, a blood vessel had burst. Luckily, Julia caught the eyeball and put it back in place.

  Hearing of the incident, the crew decided to tease Julia a little bit the day after. Anjelica Huston shared, "I called up every joke store in LA and bought every pair of those joke glasses on springs, where the eyeballs fall out. So the next morning, when Raul walked onto the set, the entire crew was wearing these glasses. He laughed... It was serious, but it was also really bizarre."
• 

  (#2) Director Barry Sonnenfeld Was So Stressed Out, He Fainted On Set

  Apparently, nerves overtake director Barry Sonnenfeld whenever he's on set. He gets sick, he gets emotional, and sometimes he even he passes out. Sonnenfeld made The Addams Family his directorial debut, but the anxiety of taking on such a large project weighed heavily on him. A few weeks into the shoot, he fainted on set and almost derailed the entire movie. He noted: 

  "I had four espressos - one, two, three, four - and as I'm looking at the monitor, I think, 'This is weird, someone's blowing up a balloon inside my chest,' and then I say to myself, 'I'd better sit down.' Then I say to myself, 'But I'd better not walk to the chair. I'd better just sit for a moment. On the floor here.' And then I hear, ‘GET A BLANKET! SOMEONE GET A BLANKET!’"

  When Sonnenfeld woke up, he did not want producers to send anyone home. He said, "If we have to stop every time I faint or start to cry, we'll never get this movie done." 
• 

  (#3) Anjelica Huston's Costume Required A Metal Corset

  Anjelica Huston made Morticia equally cold and motherly, but her recognizably slender frame was hard to create. To get the Morticia look, Huston wore a metal corset, had her chin tucked, and temporarily lifted her eyes with gauze.

  The physical demands put her through the wringer. “The eye lifts got tighter and tighter, and the temples started to throb,” she claimed. "It could leave you more wasted than having a very emotional day on the set."
• 

  (#4) The Original Production Studio Went Bankrupt

  Figuring out who owned the rights to the movies proved challenging. Orion Pictures started The Addams Family, but the studio went bankrupt in the middle of production. Instead of waiting out the huge financial windfall from Barry Sonnenfeld's movie, the heads of the studio were forced to act out of self-preservation.

  Paramount stepped in and bankrolled the rest of the picture, which eventually made almost $200 million worldwide. 
• 

  (#5) Test Audiences Thought Wednesday Killed Amanda

  During the Thanksgiving play finale in Addams Family Values, Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci) makes her acquaintances affix Amanda Buckman (Mercedes McNab) to a post. Then, the 12-year-old puts an apple into her nemesis's mouth, pours gas, and flicks a match. Apparently, test audiences thought this scene was excessive, especially since in an initial cut of the film, Amanda never returned to the screen.

  McNab noted the producers "didn't want kids watching the movie to think [Amanda didn't make it] because that obviously doesn't really look too good for them to be out there killing off children, no matter how awful the child is."

  To appease the masses, Amanda appeared in the movie a final time: She was with her parents, flying home from camp.
• 

  (#6) Carol Kane's Prosthetics Weighed Her Down

  Carol Kane stepped into the part of Grandmama in Addams Family Values, taking over for Judith Malina. Her friendships with Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia made the role even more appealing, and she had worked with Christopher Lloyd on Taxi.

  Kane had a lot of fun, but her prosthetics made shooting a challenge. She discussed the cosmetic process, noting, "I had to do everything short of pray to talk them out of using prosthetics on me. They did their very best to make me very old, but you know, they wanted more than old: They wanted hundreds of years old!"

  Her fake visage took four hours to apply and one hour to remove. Plus, her wig weighed five pounds.
• 

  (#7) Animating Thing Was Incredibly Difficult

  Christopher Hart, the actor/magician who played Thing in both Addams Family films, got into some weird situations to portray a living hand. To get the correct posture for the character, he had to lay face down on a dolly, wearing a black leotard, while crew members pushed him around set. Hart was digitally edited out later.

  More complex effects required the use of stop-motion animation - a time-consuming process. Consequently, a 10-second scene where Thing jumps between lily pads took eight hours to film.
• 

  (#8) Christopher Lloyd Thought He Was Going To Get Fired After An Early Screen Test

  Christopher Lloyd loved the original The Addams Family TV show and Uncle Fester's character in childhood. He remembered, "When I first got the role of Fester, I was so excited. I was an avid fan of Charles Addams's cartoons when I was an adolescent. Fester was a favorite of mine. I loved his mischievous personality. Decades later, I got a call to be in the film, to be Uncle Fester. I was blown away: What are the odds!"

  However, Lloyd felt discouraged after an initial screen test in which he wore heavy prosthetics. When he was called in to speak to the producers, he was convinced he was going to be replaced - but that wasn't the case at all. The creative team just wanted him to act without all the extra makeup.
• 

  (#9) Raul Julia Had Cancer During Filming Of 'Addams Family Values' And Passed Shortly After Its Release

  Raul Julia had stomach cancer while filming Addams Family Values; he succumbed to the disease about a year after the film's release.

  Carol Kane (Grandmama) recalled Julia's commitment to his work, specifically during one scene. Kane noted, "I thought Raul was very beautiful when he sang ["Swing Low Sweet Chariot"] when his character was dying and everything. I think he may have already been sick at that time, so looking back at that, I think about how brave he was. He was quite a genius."
• 

  (#10) Barry Sonnenfeld Had A Twisted Sense Of Humor

  The Addams Family is a film with fun sensibilities. Gomez and Morticia get intimate in a graveyard, and Wednesday sprays her elementary school chums with fake blood. It's ghoulish, it's grim, but somehow the comedic timing seems perfect. And according to screenwriter Paul Rudnick, director Barry Sonnenfeld had a lot of fun getting into the Addams spirit. 

  Rudnik mentioned, "I remember there was one moment on set when Barry called his wife gleefully and said, 'Guess what? Today I threw a baby off a roof!'"
• 

  (#11) 'Addams Family Values' Almost Got Its Own Michael Jackson Tune

  The production team booked Michael Jackson to make the theme song for Addams Family Values. In the music video for the song, Jackson's neighbors chase him from his home in the Addams family mansion with pitchforks. The whole project imploded, though, when the singer encountered legal issues. MC Hammer released a song for the film instead.

  Even though producers cut ties with Jackson, they left a joke in the movie at his expense. Writer Paul Rudnick explained:

  “There's a moment in the film when Wednesday, Pugsley, and Joel, to discipline them, were placed in the Harmony Hut. It's the most sparkly, wholesome, vanilla place imaginable. Joel starts screaming uncontrollably and then the camera cuts to a poster of Michael Jackson on the wall, which was a good joke when we began and then, after the scandal, it became an enormous laugh. It was just so in the air at the time.”
• 

  (#12) Christina Ricci Solved The Film's Uncle Fester Conundrum

  There's an ambiguous nature to Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. Is he actually an Addams family member or is he Gordon Craven? Eventually, the film reveals his true identity: He's Fester, but he lost his memory at sea in the Bermuda Triangle.

  That wasn't always the case, though. According to screenwriter Paul Rudnick, Christopher Lloyd's character was still undecided during the script drafting process. Luckily, a young Christina Ricci offered some guidance to the screenwriter.

   “If I remember correctly, Christina Ricci explained why Fester should be the real deal, and she, as always, made perfect sense and was extremely helpful,” Rudnick said. "I think she pointed out that it was simply more emotionally satisfying and necessary to have the real Fester return to his loving and odd family."
• 

  (#13) Mercedes McNab Appeared In Both Films - But As Different Characters

  If you pay close attention, you may notice Mercedes McNab appears in both The Addams Family and its sequel - as different characters. In the first film, she's a Girl Scout who inquires about whether or not Wednesday and Pugsley's lemonade comes from real lemons. In turn, Wednesday asks if her cookies come from real Girl Scouts.

  In the sequel, McNab returned to play Amanda Buckman, the enthusiastic camp kid Wednesday takes down in a Thanksgiving play.

  Even though it looks like a natural progression on screen, McNab had to audition for the second role. She explained, "Obviously, they remembered me from the first movie and loved that scene, but it wasn't as though the part had been written as a continuation of that character. So I had to fight to get the job again."
• 

  (#14) Partway Through The 'Addams Family' Shoot, Barry Sonnenfeld Had To Pull Double Duty As Director And Cinematographer

  In most cases, movie directors control the overall film set, but they leave the technical aspects of capturing images to a cinematographer. But Barry Sonnenfeld handled some of those duties on The Addams Family himself after Owen Roizman, the credited director of photography, left early to work on another project.

  Gale Tattersall briefly assumed the role, but medical situations rendered him unavailable.

  It makes sense, of course, that Sonnenfeld was able to easily slide into the cinematographer's chair. Prior to his still-burgeoning directorial career, he had been one of the most successful cinematographers in the business, having shot each of the Coen Brothers' first three films, as well as Misery, When Harry Met Sally…, and Big.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking