The Addams Family readership and did not want it associated with characters who could be seen on television by just anybody. After Shawn's 1987 retirement, the characters were welcomed back to "The New Yorker". The Addams Family's first animated appearance was on the third episode of Hanna-Barbera's "The New Scooby-Doo Movies", "Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family" (a.k.a. "Wednesday is Missing"), which first aired on CBS Saturday morning, September 23, 1972. Four of the original cast (John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, and Ted Cassidy) returned for the special, which involved the Addamses in a mystery with the Scooby-Doo gang. The Addams Family characters
Pugsley Addams a reflection of his age) but it was rejected as it sounded too sexual, and the name Pugsley was chosen instead. (The name Pubert was later used when Gomez and Morticia have a third child in the film "Addams Family Values".) The Lurch Files' Addams Family Tree lists Pugsley's middle name as Pubert, probably as an homage to Charles Addams' original suggestion. In the American television series, Pugsley is played by child actor Ken Weatherwax. This incarnation of the character is more jovial and inventive; he displays outlandish engineering skills, including the invention of a disintegrator gun, an anti-gravity gun,