The 'Wednesday' Dance Is Driving the Internet Wild

Evan Romano
·4 min read
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Wednesday Addams, the eldest child of The Addams Family, is known for her deadpan, dreary, nature. But in addition to loving doom, she also loves... to dance. This tendency comes front and center in Episode 4 of Netflix's new series, Wednesday, which focuses on a teenage Wednesday (played by Jenna Ortega)—creating a moment that has taken the internet by storm upon the show's release. But past iterations of the character (played by Lisa Loring in the original TV series and Christina Ricci in the '90s feature films) have also memorably busted a move on screen.

Anyone who hasn't seen Wednesday, or just wants to experience the Episode 4 dance moment over and over again, can send their attention over to Twitter, where the official Wednesday account shared the clip, which has since been shared many thousands of times.

Wednesday dances to "Goo Goo Muck" by The Cramps in the moment within the show

In a video shared by Netflix, Ortega revealed that she choreographed the dance herself. “I choreographed that myself and I think it’s very obvious that I’m not a dancer or choreographer,” she said in the video with a laugh. Her co-stars, including Emma Myers (who plays Enid) and Hunter Doohan (who plays Tyler) then object to state just how much they enjoyed it. Percy Hynes White, who played Xavier, also loved it: "I can watch an entire show of just this,” he said.

Ortega revealed her references for the dance in a Tweet. "Thanks to Siouxsie Sioux, Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, Denis Lavant, and archival footage of goths dancing in clubs in the 80’s. Helped me out on this one," she wrote.

A Twitter user named @daniforadeserie even went through the trouble to put video of Ortega's Wednesday dance next to footage of each of the other references—including Loring's foot-step moves from the original Addams Family sitcom.

Lady Gaga, Kid Cudi, and more have loved Wednesday's dance

The dance works because we've had so much set up toward who Wednesday is at this point; to see her expressing joy (albeit, of course, still with a completely straight face) is an incredibly well-earned moment of juxtaposition for the series. And perhaps that's why it's caught the attention of many on TikTok (who have set the dance to songs including Lady Gaga's "Bloody Mary.")

Lady Gaga herself became aware of the pop culture crossover happening, and responded from her own Twitter account:

The dance has also been enabled, on a loop, with the track on Spotify.

That's not the only musical superstar whose attention the track has caught, though. Kid Cudi, Ortega's co-star in X—the Texas Chain Saw Massacre-inspired slasher film that came out earlier this year—gave her a nice shout out as well. "Wow go JENNA!!!!" he wrote.

The 20-year-old star returned the favor, shouting out Cudi's recent Netflix animated project, Entergalactic.

Which is all to say, if you've managed to avoid the 2022 version of the Wednesday dance to this point—congratulations. You probably won't be able to keep it up much longer. And on the likely chance that you have seen the dance, let's all hope together that we get a worthy follow-up in the (seemingly inevitable) Season 2.


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