The Addams Family Dust Off For Broadway

"The Addams Family" started out as a cartoon in The New Yorker in 1938. Back then, the family was still nameless. The first cartoon depicted a vacuum cleaner salesman trying to sell his goods to a woman in an old run down Mansion. Inside the house were the first glimpses of some of the mainstay characters. Every year the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky family grew a little more and became a popular attraction in the magazine.

The timeline of the family is here: with a television show launching in 1964, a 1973 cartoon show by Hanna Barbera, a 1977 Halloween special, 1991 and 1993 feature films (a third that went straight to video), another animated series in 1992 and finally in 1998 The New Addams Family tv series. With all of this, it's hard to believe that the only time the fam really succeeded was in syndication and (for the most part) at the box office.

You'd think after all this The Addams Family would finally be able to rest in peace, but it's just been announced they'll be hitting Broadway, in a musical: "the producers said 'The Addams Family' musical was scheduled for the 2009-10 Broadway season. The libretto will be written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, writers of the 2006 Tony Award-winning musical 'Jersey Boys.'"

According to Playbill, this was announced yesterday by the new Broadway development and production company, Elephant Eye Theatrical - after rights were granted by the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation. This will be the Addams first time on stage.

Related: The real Addams Family house is in New Jersey.