Skip to main content

tv - Who built "Lurch", the Addams family's butler?


As I caught an episode of The Addams Family on Retro TV last night, it finally dawned on me that Lurch may have been a Frankenstein Monster. Is there any evidence beyond Lurch's outward appearance that cartoonist Charles Addams, the creator of the Addams Family comic strip, intended us to believe Lurch had been created by Dr. Frankenstein? Who was supposed to have built Lurch, the Addams family's faithful butler?



Answer



There isn't a lot of info on Lurch's backstory, but here's what seems known:




  • He has a mother, or at least someone who he referred to as mother; 'Mother Lurch', who appeared in the episode 'Mother Lurch Visits the Addams Family'(S1E17); she addresses him as Sonny, but it's not definitive that this means he is her biological offspring.
    (Cute episode; it's where Gomez and Morticia pretend to be servants to help Lurch impress his mother. They end up fired.)

  • He has a father. Nothing mentioned about him that I recall, except for Lurch commenting (with a smile, even) that "He put me together."

  • In 'Addams Family Reunion' it is indicated that he is part Addams; his heart is Addams. Although not expounded upon, this was most likely literal.

  • In 'The New Addams Family' (which seems to play slightly free with Canon), Morticia is asked where she dug him up, and comments that she can't remember which cemetery, and later, that he has two left feet.


I get the impression that Charles Addams didn't really intend to provide a full backstory to Lurch; every demented family just needs a strange, over-powered, loyal family retainer.


Anyway, yes -- it looks like he's meant to be a Frankenstein's Monster type creation, although built, at least partially, with some Addams in him.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

Which Doctor Who works are canon?

I have been watching a Doctor Who documentary and they mentioned that Paul McGann did audio stories so he wasn't just a one-hit Doctor (and that there are novels featuring his Doctor as well). My question is: is Doctor Who canon just the show, or is it like Star Wars where some books and audios are canon and some are not? The documentary also shows that before 2005 they did audio stories where the Doctor is female and obviously that cannot be — not the female part, but the show doesn't count any female Doctors in episodes like The Day of the Doctor . Answer Nothing, and also everything The definitive piece of writing on Doctor Who canon is this blog post by writer Paul Cornell . I'm essentially going to be summarizing his post here, much less eloquently, but one section I want to quote directly is this: Nobody at the BBC has ever uttered a pronouncement about what is and isn't canonical. (As I'm sure they'd put it, being such enthusiasts for good grammar.) Be...

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...