Pugsley Pubert Addams is a member of the fictional Addams Family, created by American cartoonist Charles Addams.
Cartoons
Pugsley is depicted as a devious, young, brilliant boy in Charles Addams's original cartoons. He is often shown releasing sailboats in the park with other children, except his boats were more macabre in nature.
Depictions and characteristics
Pugsley was represented as being the oldest child of Morticia and Gomez Addams in the original series: he is a young boy (his age is given as eight years old in the pilot episode, The Addams Family Goes to School, but is changed to 10 years old in the second episode) who is almost always seen wearing a striped T-shirt and shorts. Originally unnamed (as were all of the family members), the character who was apparently the prototype for Pugsley first appeared in the Charles Addams cartoons in The New Yorker during the 1930s. In this first incarnation, he was portrayed as a deviant child with a vicious nature, shown committing deplorable acts with his sister. In all incarnations, he is overweight. In the original series, Pugsley is 4'7" tall and weighs 112 pounds. In the television series, Pugsley usually eats over five pieces of cake at birthday parties.
When the characters were given names for the television series, he was originally going to be called "Pubert" (a derivation of the word puberty, possibly a reflection of his age, which has consistently remained either 12, 13, or 14, making him a young teenager) but it was rejected as it sounded too sexual, and the name Pugsley was chosen instead. (The name Pubert was later used when Gomez and Morticia have a third child in the film Addams Family Values.) The Lurch Files' Addams Family Tree lists Pugsley's middle name as Pubert, probably as an homage to Charles Addams' original suggestion.
In the American television series, Pugsley is played by child actor Ken Weatherwax. This incarnation of the character is more jovial and inventive; he displays outlandish engineering skills, including the invention of a disintegrator gun, an anti-gravity gun, and other devices. He and Gomez created a computer named Whizzo and a robot named Smiley (played by Robby the Robot) together. Pugsley and his younger sister Wednesday often play together, rarely exhibiting signs of sibling rivalry; they share an interest in spiders, dynamite, guillotines, and other dangerous "toys" and often play with them together. At Wednesday's request, Pugsley often guillotines Wednesday's beloved Marie Antoinette doll.
In an early episode, "Morticia and the Psychiatrist", the rest of the family is concerned that Pugsley is engaging in behavior they consider "odd": wearing a Boy Scout uniform, playing with a puppy, etc. When sent to a psychiatrist, Pugsley tells of boyhood incidents involving hangings, machine guns, and grenades, with no clue that others might find these accounts unusual. However, no other episodes portray him this way, and he remains more interested in the dark and disturbing side of inventions and science.
In most incarnations of the character, Pugsley had an unusual hobby of stealing road signs, which he used to adorn the walls and door of his bedroom. This may have evolved from an original Addams cartoon in which, rather than road signs, he would steal and decorate his room with cautionary signs, such as high voltage and shallow water signs, thus leading others into danger. He also has a pet octopus named Aristotle; in the animated 2019 film and 2020 sequel, Aristotle has a half-sibling named Socrates, who is Wednesday's pet squid.
In the 1970s, there was an animated series about the family, in which Pugsley was voiced by an actress Jodie Foster. Foster voiced that same character in an episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In the second animated series, Pugsley was voiced by Jeannie Elias. These depictions remain more faithful to the originals.
In the 1977 TV movie, Ken Weatherwax played a grown-up Pugsley, who has become a witch-doctor. In the interval between the original TV series and this movie, his parents have had two more children, who look just like the original Pugsley and Wednesday, and as such are called Pugsley Jr. and Wednesday Jr., respectively. In all incarnations, he generally has a close relationship with his father and Uncle Fester, who wants to help him get girls in some versions. He is known as Pericles Addams in Spanish-speaking countries and in Brazil (Portuguese) as "Feioso", meaning "Ugly".
In the 1998 series The New Addams Family, Pugsley is played by Vancouver native Brody Smith in a very similar portrayal to the 1960s incarnation, although he is stated to be younger than Wednesday.