Wednesday: You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides; you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the Pilgrims … especially Sarah Miller.”
Amanda: Gary, she’s changing the words!
Wednesday: … And for all these reasons, I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
edit 11/24/11: Several months ago I screencapped the hell out of a gorgeous, HD version of AFV with subtitles. Then my desktop hard drive crashed. I’ve been limping along on the strength of my laptop as I attempt to reconstruct the desktop with the help of others, but I hadn’t realized the breadth of my little tragedy until I went to put together my hotly anticipated Wednesday Thanksgiving post and brokenheartely remembered that batch of files hadn’t been transferred on to my external hard drive (which I frequently updated as a backup to both systems in the face of just such an eventuality as this). Sad. I’m sad about this.
It’s important to get hands-on with arithmetic lessons.
So besides going back to school for some masochistic post-grad-work (I couldn’t stay away forever), I’ve also been teaching mathematics to below-level fourth and fifth graders. I really like it. But it’s kept me busy. These are students who dislike math and need new ways to connect with their material: I’m trying to use a lot of concrete examples.
Anyone had a disconnect with math in their youth and recall lessons which resonated more strongly than the ol’ drill and kill? I’ve got ideas of my own but, with these scamps, I can’t have enough.
Sorry for the prolonged absence, but I’ve got this family wedding coming up, and I think the only way to make sure that everyone lets my whole “almost-dying” thing go is to look super-amazing and fit and healthy. So I’ve been exercising like a demon.
Preview of coming attractions: Linda Vargas, Miss December 1957.
However, even while working up a sweat, I’ve been thinking about the change of season — snuggling up in warm blankets, getting cozy in front of comfortable, crackling fires — and I have created “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” your warm and fuzzy, specially curated parade of Playmates hailing from nights in the lonesome Autumn and Winter months. (Don’t worry; The Girls of Summer will make their triumphant return around May.) I will try to get the Inaugural Edition of that going today. Even-steven?
Wednesday: You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides; you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d’oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, “Do not trust the Pilgrims … especially Sarah Miller.”
Amanda: Gary, she’s changing the words!
Wednesday: … And for all these reasons, I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
This day has been heavily skewed toward Christina Ricci, not only because I like her version of Charles Addams’ character best, which I know owes more to writing and direction than to anything she did, but also because I think as an adult she is an adorable teensy tiny pocket rocket, a “little looker,” if you will (I will!). Seriously, do you know how freaking small she is? That is so fucking cute to me, I find super-tiny women fascinating. Okay, on with the show.
It should surprise no one that, in the wake of the success of the Barry Sonnenfeld movies, the network which stepped up to create a television series and make a quick buck off America’s renewed interest in the Addams Family’s spooky hijinks was Fox. Nicole Fugere played Wednesday, seen here with Pugsley, played by Brody Smith.
The show was cancelled after two seasons on the then-fledgling Fox Family Channel, which was still trying to find its legs, programming-wise. (They run classy fare now like stuff about teenagers having sex, because it is a family channel — duh.)
(“Do not be alarmed, for we are only little children.” I hella remember watching that episode way back when on a b&w portable TV I got to have in my room when I was sick!)
Old school: adorable Lisa Loring, whose version of the character was quite sweet actually, was the Wednesday of the original television series, a little winsome and dark, but not much teeth; mainly of the lisping and precocious child star variety that was popular at the time (Opie, Beav, etc).
This is Jennifer Suprenant as Wednesday Friday Addams, Jr., who along with a Pugsley, Jr. (Ken Marquis) appeared alongside their
1964 series counterparts Lisa Loring and Ken Weatherwax as a second set of Addams children, ones that Gomez and Tish apparently popped out after the “senior” children left the nest, in the 1977 made-for-TV special Halloween with the New Addams Family.
This has been your Wednesday Wednesday! Thank you and good evening!
Girl Scout: Is this made from real lemons?
Wednesday: Yes.
Girl Scout: I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown, with no preservatives. Are you sure they’re real lemons?
Pugsley: Yes.
Girl Scout: Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy a cup if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout cookies. Do we have a deal?
Wednesday: Are they made from real Girl Scouts?
What’s got two thumbs and is a lifetime member of the Girl Scouts? This flyass bitch right here, posting up all this shenanigans, THAT’S WHO! Yeah, I know, right? You’d think they’d have kicked me out a long time ago. But I’m not the only one. Sarah-fina, Miss D, Franci, and many, many other dear ol’ friendohs can say the same. It’s pretty kickass to be in the Girl Scouts, not gonna lie.
Though she is credited as merely “Girl Scout” in the first film, Mercedes McNab most assuredly returned as Amanda “Sarah Miller” Buckman in Addams Family Values.
Addams Family – Ballroom Waltz
This number, not the Russian dance nor the tango in the sequel, has always been my favorite from the Addams Family movies. For some reason it gets in my head when I do the dishes. If someone can offer an explanation, please do.
At first I thought that would be the actual scene, but I can’t seem to find it. So it’s the music and a series of stills. Doesn’t really take off ’til around 1:13. I realize a minute does not seem like so long to wait when you read it written out, but if your attention span is anything like mine, just skip straight to there.
Child of woe is wane and delicate…sensitive and on the quiet side, she loves the picnics and outings to the underground caverns…a solemn child, prim in dress and, on the whole, pretty lost…secretive and imaginitive, poetic, seems underprivileged and given to occasional tantrums…has six toes on one foot… — Charles Addams (qtd in wiki)
“In Charles Addams’s cartoons, Wednesday and other members of the family had no names. When the characters were adapted to the 1964 television series, Charles Addams gave her the name “Wednesday”, based on the well-known nursery rhyme line, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”. In the Spanish language version, her name is Merlina Addams. In the Brazilian version (Portuguese), her name is Wandinha” (wiki).
Wednesday: Pugsley, sit in the chair.
Pugsley: Why?
Wednesday: So we can play a game.
Pugsley: What game?
Wednesday: [strapping him in] It’s called, “Is There a God?”
Morticia: Children, what are you doing?
Wednesday: I’m going to electrocute him.
Morticia: But we’re late for the charity auction.
Wednesday: But, Mother…
Morticia: I said no.
Pugsley: Pleeaaaase?
Morticia: Oh, all right.
The Thought Experiment 