Wednesday Addams has experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity recently thanks to the debut of Netflix’s Wednesday. From the brilliant gothic mind of Tim Burton comes a new Addams Family adaption that focuses on Wednesday (Jenna Ortega). The TV series broke the record for the most-watched series on Netflix in one week and also proved that Wednesday is the perfect Addams family character to get their own series. She goes against the mold of what women are expected to be with her taste for the macabre, abhorrence of emotion, and streak of independence. Wednesday is a true gothic heroine for the ages.

However, Wednesday has been around since long before Ortega masterfully portrayed her. Wednesday has a long history onscreen, as well as offscreen. She and her macabre family have been around for about 84 years. All of the Addamses have become household names in America. While they initially started as cartoons in which Charles Addams channeled his own dark humor and love of the bizarre, over the years, they became something more.