25 of the most memorable TV and movie siblings of all time
By Sundi Rose
Wednesday and Pugsley Addams – The Addams Family
These two, when they were first introduced in the 1964 sitcom, were America’s first tiny taste of teenage ennui on television. Their movie characters got a bit of a darker rewrite, and Wednesday is a modern feminist icon.
Christina Ricci reincarnates Wednesday for the contemporary age by making her highly individualist, extremely non-conformist, and frankly kind of a little badass. She uses Pugsley to try out all the cool gadgets she invents, proving that girls are great at STEM, long before American education came around to it.
Wednesday’s original creator named her after the children’s rhyme, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.” Her movie character evolved far past that. Although she refuses to adhere to social norms and won’t change herself for anyone, she could probably be diagnosed as a sociopath. She tries to kill her younger brother, buries a live cat, burns down her summer camp and (most likely) scares another kid to death. She’s no joke, but she is whole-heartedly her authentic self.
Pugsley is often Wednesday’s accomplice, although often he is unwittingly helping her. They have a mutual respect for each other that allows them to nurture their own interests, even if those interests include inflicting lethal harm on each other and others.
Their mutual strangeness bonds them, and their distastes for the outside world at large keeps them as constant playmates. They are two siblings that I would NOT want to mess with.