"Agatha All Along" Songwriters Talk About The Earworm's 'Addams Family' And 'Munsters' Influences

Alright, Marvel and Disney fans, here's where we put your trivia skills to the test. Did you know that the same husband-and-wife songwriting duo who penned the Emmy-nominated theme song, "Agatha All Along," on WandaVision also wrote the music and lyrics for "Remember Me" from Coco and "Let It Go" from Frozen?

Robert Lopez and Kristin-Anderson Lopez have been responsible for some of the catchiest movie and TV songs in recent memory. In a new interview, Anderson-Lopez discusses some of the creepy and kooky classic sitcom influences behind "Agatha All Along." Surprise, surprise: The Addams Family and The Munsters were both key inspirations.

Trapped in Westview with Earworms and EGOT Winners

There was a time a few years back when "Let It Go," in particular, was inescapable. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing it. It was almost like being Wanda Maximoff, trapped in the surreal, sitcom-like town of Westview on WandaVision.

Lopez is the only living double EGOT winner: that rare breed of creative person who can say they've won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award (in his case, twice for each of them). For her part, Anderson-Lopez is only a couple of wins away from joining her spouse in the EGOT club. They're both up for two Emmys this year with WandaVision's main title theme and "Agatha All Along;" and Anderson-Lopez recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the creative process behind the latter earworm.

According to her, the writers' room originally wanted a song in the style of That's So Raven, the supernatural Disney Channel sitcom starring Raven-Symoné. She said she and Lopez "sort of struggled with that," so they tried another approach with the old Marlo Thomas sitcom That Girl in mind.

True inspiration finally struck in the middle of the night: at 3 a.m., the witching hour, no less. The spousal songwriting team ended up going with something inspired by The Addams Family and The Munsters, with a dash of the "Oompa Loompa voices ... that '60s male chorus thing" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which is actually a '70s movie, but close enough). Anderson-Lopez said:

"I think at 3 in the morning one day, I was like, 'We should look at The Addams Family and The Munsters. We should go to that witchy kind of place that TV does have history in.' [That morning,] I ran into the shower, and I think I came out of the shower and the lyrics were written."

The Continuing Legacy of The Addams Family and The Munsters

The Addams Family and The Munsters ran concurrently from 1964 to 1966. They premiered within a week of each other (The Addams Family debuted first) and they went off the air within about a month of each other. Both were shot in black and white and they shared a similar macabre concept of a family of friendly monsters.

Soon, they will both be back onscreen. This week, news broke that Tim Burton had cast Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones as the parents, Gomez and Morticia Addams, in his live-action Netflix series, Wednesday (which takes its name from their daughter, Wednesday Addams, to be played by Jenna Ortega). There's also a Munsters movie on the way from Rob Zombie, of all people, and we heard some more details about the wardrobe and makeup for that recently, too.

Both shows had catchy theme songs (Addams Family here, Munsters here), and if you compare and contrast them with "Agatha All Along," you can definitely hear how they might have influenced it. Earlier this year, "Agatha All Along" went viral. Even if you weren't watching WandaVision while it aired from week to week on Disney+, chances are, you might have seen it appear on social media in a clip from the show's seventh episode, "Breaking the Wall."

If that happened to you (as it did with me), then you probably had a big reveal from the show spoiled for you. Unfortunately, the song's title has a spoiler baked right into it, but if you haven't seen the show and haven't figured out what the spoiler is by now, this is your last chance to look away.

"It was Agatha all along ..."