I remember asking my dad this exact question as we were going to see the first Addams Family movie. He said no, they’re just weird. Not much of a cite, but I think it’s clear they’re just bizarre, not undead or anything.
Nah. Addams’s first drawing in The New Yorker was “I forgot my skates,” in 1935. He came on board full-time after the infamous “Downhill Skier,” published in 1940.
The first “Family” cartoon was “Oh! For a moment you gave me quite a start,” with Morticia and Lurch. In 1937.
The Addamses are not undead, but they are beyond merely weird. They’re not quite human; “ghouls” is the best term I can think of.
This “Morticia’s Morgue” site () not only covers the TV series but gives some examples of Addams’ New Yorker cartoons.
Before Gary Larson, there was Gahan Wilson. Before Gahan Wilson, there was Chas. Addams.
I had heard that she had died. I could be completely wrong.
It’s worth noting that Uncle Fester was never part of the family in the Charles Addams cartoons – he was just a creepy little guy who served his own purpose in one-panel gags elsewhere. One of his better ones has an old lady feeding pigeons popcorn in the park looking nervously at the next bench… where Uncle Fester is feeding carrion to vultures.
I do seem to recall that Charles Addams did name the characters on the TV series, though. “Pubert” was his original choice for the little boy, but network executives nixed it, so it became “Pugsley.”
Sorry, here’s the link: http://www.morticiasmorgue.com/addams.html
Also:
http://www.geocities.com/~cousin_itt/charles.htm
http://www.illustration-house.com/bios/addams_bio.html
[Wednesday]Does it matter? [/Wednesday]
PS - John Astin (Gomez from the TV series) is very much alive, and currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University. His son Sean Astin played Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movies. (Although I think recently DNA testing revealed that Sean isn’t John’s biological son.)
For me, he was the guy who read my story, Patron for its audio publication.
What does he teach? Acting?
I remember one where a neighbor is looking with bemusement at Fester who is tending to the iron fence around his house (a ancient mansard-roofed Queen Anne, just like Gomez and Morticia’s house) – by sharpening the spikes with a file. And there’s one where Fester is sitting in a movie audience – everybody is crying, except for Fester, who is grinning.
the addams family are:
creepy and spooky,
mysterious and ooky,
altogether kookie,
they really are a scream!
neat, sweet, petite.
undead was not mentioned.
Acting and directing.
Cite (scroll to the bottom), although that was back in 2001, so he might have moved on.
(BTW, rocking chair, the proper order is ‘creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky, altogether ooky’)
Some cable channel (Nickelodeon?) had a song parody asking this question, sung to the tune of The Munsters theme song:
(I can’t remember the first line)
*A vampire and a Frankenstein, giving birth to a little wolf boy
Grampa is a vampire who goes out in the sun
And Marilyn, you’re normal, where the heck did you come from?
It seems that genetics don’t apply
To the Munsters
To the Munsters*…
Is it just my imagination, or is there a scene in one of the movies where Morticia and someone walk through the graveyard envying the dead?
Isn’t one of the main plot points of the second movies Fester’s wife trying to kill them? It doesn’t prove anything, but I remember them all looking pretty concerned when she was holding the gun in front of them.
-Lil
Yeah, but earlier in the movie she threw a radio in the tub where he put the bulb in his mouth, to light up the room.
And then she set a bomb to go off in the house, and he runs outside all black, obvious the bomb went off in his hands.
Those two instances should have killed him.
[QUOTE=Master Wang-Ka]
Slight hijack:
When he died in the early seventies, his live-in girlfriend inherited everything. She had him cremated and put in an urn. She later buried the urn in the back yard of the house they shared.
[QUOTE]
He actually died in 1979.
And man, they had the best pinball game EVER.
Yeah, and in the movie, Wednesday electrocutes Pugsley - and there’s probably some other stuff. It doesn’t seem that they can be killed by normal means, but I don’t think they’re dead - just weird and, you know, fictional. 
Heck, even the baby was able to stop a speeding guillotine blade with his fingertips. There’s definitely a Wile E. Coyote aspect to this family.