Themed Thing Addams

The Project

Now that we have completed our Hand,,,

Does Thing have a friend who is another body Part?

Themed ideas

• Adaptation Species Change: In the original New Yorker comics, Thing was a complete person only partially seen who often appeared in strips as a hidden Easter Egg spying on the family. In the 1960s sitcom and 1970s cartoon Thing was an arm that comes out of a box that implied to be attracted to something. All other incarnations made Thing a disembodied hand, though some New Yorker strips of the family did feature a hand reaching from some sort of opening (e.g., a pipe or a sea shell).

• Ambidextrous Sprite: Ted Cassidy would sometimes use his left hand as Thing to see if anybody noticed.

• Ambiguously Bi: In Addams Family Values, he goes stiff after getting a kiss from Debbie. Later, when Fester laments his loneliness, Gomez reminds him that he has Thing. Fester complains that he would rather have a woman with a body.

• Ambiguously Gay: Minor case in the old TV series. When the Addams are trying to "help" a pair of newly weds who moved in next door, Morticia questions Thing if he ever wants to meet a nice girl, to which he gives a negative response. When Morticia laughs it off and affectionately tells him to find his "own friends" he gives a much more positive response. Gomez laughingly refers to Thing as a "woman-hater," but this statement largely contradicts Thing's helpful interactions with the female Addams and his romantic relationship with Lady Fingers in “Morticia Meets Royalty”. So it's unclear if Gomez is correct in his assumption, or if his words had another meaning.

• Badass Fingersnap: The musical starts with the hand sticking out of the curtains and clicking along to the iconic theme tune, usually helped by the audience.

• Bilingual Bonus: In the 1991 film and Wednesday, he occasionally spells things out in American Sign Language.

• Character as Himself: Usually credited as playing "itself".

• Decomposite Character: In the 2019 movie. It features the hand version of Thing from the TV series and most other adaptations, but a brief, blink-and-you-miss-it glimpse of the humanoid "Thing" from the original cartoons can be seen hiding in the shadows at one point, as an Easter Egg.

• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the 1960s series, Ted Cassidy (who also played Lurch) normally played him with his right hand, but would occasionally change to his left just to see if anyone would notice.

• The comic version of Thing is this in the 2019 movie.

• Helping Hands: All you ever see is Thing's right hand. Several times he's nothing but a right hand.

• Hidden Depths: The opening credits of the second film are accompanied by Thing riding a roller skate through the halls as if it were a skateboard, doing tricks and even using the contours of the walls/floor as a half-pipe.

• Musical Theme Naming: He's named after the Phil Harris song "The Thing."

• Mysterious Middle Initial: Subverted. He signs himself Thing T. Thing, but when asked what the "T" stands for, Gomez and Morticia respond with "Thing".

• Phrase Catcher: "Thank you, Thing," whenever he does something helpful. Especially prominent in the old TV series, where it's said at least Once per Episode, but in almost all other incarnation the phrase appears from time to time.

• Playing Sick: In order to make the vet brave enough to treat Kitty Cat, he did this along with Fester and Cousin Itt by flopping back into his box.

• Repetitive Name: Thing T. Thing. The "T" stands for "Thing".

• Spanner in the Works: In the first movie, he follows Morticia without anyone's knowledge back to the house as she attempts to confront Fester and Abigail, and runs off to warn the others when he notices that she's in trouble. In the second movie, he hits Debbie with a car just in time to keep her from shooting Fester.

• The Speechless: Well, he is a disembodied hand.

• Subverted in the films, in which Thing finds a voice through Morse Code by knocking on hard surfaces.

• In the 1965 Jack Sharkey book, he writes if he has anything to say. He came with the house, and did not at first realize that the Addams family had legitimately bought the place.

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/TheAddamsFamily