The five-and-a-half minute film was an adaptation of a popular picture postcard featuring a humorously named family.

Then the dog rushes back into the room, grabs the tablecloth and pulls it off the table, dumping the entire dinner on the floor.

[4] Edison's promotion for the film announced that it was based on "a popular fad which has been widely advertised by lithographs and souvenir mailing cards and has recently been made the subject of a sketch in a New York Vaudeville Theatre.

"[5] There was also a popular novelty song in 1905, "The Whole Dam Family," by George Totten Smith and Albert von Tilzer.

In The Whole Dam Family, Porter's comic twist on the technique is that each cast member does a bit of stage business illustrating the character's annoying flaws.

[3] The animated letters sequence is an extension of a technique that Porter had used two months earlier in How Jones Lost His Roll.

[4] This is the earliest film known to include actors in makeup (besides blackface and whiskers), which was used to give the cast a family resemblance.

Four parts of The Whole Dam Family were available: "Sneezing", "Cigarette Fiend", "Cry Baby" and "Chewing Gum".