‘Wednesday’ Episode Guide: Why Every Episode Title Uses the Word ‘Woe’
Netflix‘s Wednesday comes out on Wednesday (naturally), Nov. 23. Every episode title of the series has something in common — they all use the word “woe,” and for good reason. The history of The Addams Family inspired these clever episode titles.
All 8 episodes of ‘Wednesday’ release on Nov. 23
Surprisingly, Wednesday wasn’t released on or around the Halloween holiday this year. All eight episodes are available on Netflix starting Nov. 23 because the show wasn’t finished until recently.
“Some of that has to just do with post-production schedules and when we could have the show ready,” creator Al Gough said on TV’s Top Five. In addition to some last-minute finessing, the release date for Wednesday was based on a time when families could gather around the television to tune in.
“There is part of the show too, it is really an all-audience show,” Gough added. “I know Halloween seems like the obvious time for an Addams Family show. Totally understand that but Thanksgiving does sort of give you a time when the whole family’s at home and has the ability to watch it together.”
‘Wednesday’ episodes all use ‘Woe’ in the title because of her name
Each episode title of the Tim Burton Netflix series features the word “woe” in some capacity. For example, the first episode is titled “Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe,” which is pulled from the children’s poem that inspired Wednesday Addams’ name.
The rest of the Wednesday episode titles are as follows:
- “Woe is the Loneliest Number”
- “Friend or Woe”
- “Woe What A Night”
- “You Reap What You Woe”
- “Quid Pro Woe”
- “If You Don’t Woe By Now”
- “A Murder of Woes”
‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe’ comes from the nursery rhyme ‘Monday’s Child’
There is a children’s nursery rhyme called “Monday’s Child,” which talks about the type of children born on various days of the week. It goes:
“Monday’s child is fair of face,
‘Monday’s Child’
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.”
The Addams Family: An Evilution by H. Kevin Miserocchi suggests Wednesday’s name was decided upon when the cartoons were turned into a TV show in 1964. “A year [before the TV show], a Manhattan-based company named Aboriginals, Ltd. had opted to manufacture stuffed fabric dolls based on the Addams family characters,” Miserocchi writes. “… A friend suggested that the pallid little girl he was drawing certainly suggested Wednesday, the child of woe from the traditional nursery rhyme. Addams liked it.”
A woman named Joan Blake takes credit for naming Wednesday Addams
According to The New Yorker (via The A.V. Club), a woman named Joan Blake is to thank for the character’s name. “I was staying with my college roommate,” she told the outlet. “She threw a large party, which Addams attended.”
Blake said she was “depressed” sitting on the couch at the time and Addams approached her to ask what was wrong. During their conversation, Addams mentioned his Addams Family cartoon and how it was to become a show.
“… He had no name for the little girl,” Blake explained. “I said, ‘Wednesday—Wednesday’s child is full of woe.’ And Wednesday became her name.”
Whether or not Blake’s story is true is unclear. However, we’re reasonably certain the nursery rhyme inspired the character’s name somehow, especially given the episode titles used in the Netflix series.
Watch Wednesday beginning Nov. 23 only on Netflix.
