Wednesday Dance The Addams Family — Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams dancing in a black dress at a school dance with blue lighting

Wednesday Dance The Addams Family

1966viral videoclassic

Published July 18, 2026

The Wednesday Dance covers two dance scenes from The Addams Family that became reference material for online remix culture: a 1966 Watusi sequence with Lisa Loring, and Jenna Ortega's 2022 goth ball dance from Netflix's Wednesday. The older clip fueled a decade of YouTube edits set to punk and hip-hop tracks, while the Netflix scene set off a viral TikTok recreation trend in late 2022.

dance memes tiktok dance trends netflix memes challenge memes remix culture memes

Overview

The Wednesday Dance from The Addams Family refers to two related scenes that became reference material for online remix communities. The first is a 1966 sequence from the original ABC sitcom in which Wednesday Addams, played by Lisa Loring, teaches the family butler Lurch a version of the Watusi4. The second is a 2022 scene from the Netflix spinoff Wednesday, where Jenna Ortega's version of the character does a jerky goth solo dance at a school ball1.

Both scenes ended up as reusable footage online. The 1966 clip has been paired with punk, hip-hop and gothic rock tracks in a long-running YouTube remix format3. The 2022 sequence set off a TikTok trend in which users copy Ortega's choreography, often to a sped-up version of Lady Gaga's "Bloody Mary"6.

Origin & Background

Platform
The Addams Family (source), YouTube and TikTok (viral spread)
Date
1966

The original Wednesday Dance scene aired on April 1st, 1966, in season two episode 29 of ABC's The Addams Family7. In it, Wednesday tries to teach Lurch how to do the Watusi so he can look cool for a fan mail writer he has a crush on, and the clip was later uploaded to YouTube by user CalvinJohns on May 18th, 2011, where it slowly picked up over a million views3.

The Netflix show Wednesday, a spinoff centered on the character, premiered on November 23rd, 20222. In episode four, Ortega's Wednesday attends the Nevermore Academy ball with Tyler and dances alone to "Goo Goo Muck" by The Cramps in a jerky goth-punk routine1.

▶

Watch Video

X

How It Spread

Remix versions of the 1966 clip picked up through the mid-2010s. In July 2015, YouTuber gabogoblin set the scene to The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop," which pulled over 14 million views over the following seven years; earlier edits paired the same footage with Waka Flocka Flame's "Hard In Da Paint" and James Brown tracks3.

The 2022 Wednesday Dance scene went viral within hours of its premiere. A Twitter repost from November 23rd, 2022 pulled 2.7 million views and 36,000 likes in six days5. Ortega credited Siouxsie and the Banshees performances, footage of goth kids dancing in clubs, and Bob Fosse routines as influences on her choreography, in a TV Guide interview posted the same day1.

TikTok drove most of the second wave. On November 24th, 2022, TikToker @n0gitsxne.backup posted an edit of the scene set to a sped-up "Bloody Mary" by Lady Gaga, which hit 28 million views in five days6. Follow-up videos from @clairementfrr, @emilymeding, and cosplay creator @konni___ each cleared several million views within days, with @konni___'s cosplay recreation reaching 19 million views in a single day6.

▶

Watch Video

TikTok

How to Use This Meme

There are two common formats. For the 1966 template, users typically take the Lisa Loring clip and overlay a punk, goth rock, or hip-hop track that fits the beat of her repeated hand motions. For the 2022 template, users film themselves copying Jenna Ortega's Nevermore ball choreography, often to the sped-up "Bloody Mary" audio popularized by TikToker @n0gitsxne.backup6.

Frequently Asked Questions