Uncle Fester - Character

Character

Uncle Fester is a completely hairless, hunched, and barrel-shaped man with dark, sunken eyes and often a deranged smile. He always wears a heavy, full-length fur coat. Fester was derived from a character drawn by cartoonist Charles Addams, although these were single page cartoons, with no stories or character names. Nevertheless, the character is recognizable in a number of cartoons, both by his appearance (bald, stooping, sunken eyes) and behavior (e.g. turning the shower to a special "scalding" setting, feeding his garden plants on blood plasma, or releasing an eagle on the neighbor's homing pigeons). However, he is almost never seen in the same cartoons with the rest of the family, even for family celebrations like pouring boiling oil on carol singers (though he was in one cartoon with the two children—going fishing with dynamite). It may be that he was introduced to the family at the time of the sitcom for dramatic convenience. It is known that the name "Fester" was chosen by Addams for the sitcom.

Fester has a strange ability to conduct electricity. He would often demonstrate this by putting a light bulb in his mouth, which would illuminate, accompanied by a loud, crackling noise (in the TV series the bulb's wire is sometimes clearly visible). He claims to possess 110 watts of power in one episode of the sitcom, while in another episode he demonstrated his "magnetic" quality by levitating a metal paperweight up to his hand. When struck directly on the head by a fired cannonball, he appears only mildly dazed, while the cannonball bounces off his head.

He also often appears happy to suffer from a severe migraine that can only be relieved by putting his head in a screw press and tightening it to levels that normal people would not be able to withstand. Other times, he seems to do it for mere fun.

Despite these odd and bizzare characteristics, he is however gentle to everyone. He has never been involved in any altercation in his entire life and is very loving to his family. He shows great respect to his older brother, Gomez and his wife Morticia and demonstrates great care to his naughty niece and nephews.

In the original sitcom of the 1960s, Fester is said to be Morticia's maternal uncle, but in all other filmed and animated content he is Gomez's brother, making him uncle to Wednesday and Pugsley. He is known as "Tío Lucas" in Spanish-speaking countries. In Brazil, he has three names: "Tio Chico" (original series and cartoon),"Tio Funéreo" (movies) and "Tio Fester" (Broadway Musical)