Compared to the adaptations, The Thing is actually a person of unknown origin, observing the household through slightly-opened doors and the balustrades, from around corners, and even beneath window sills with his face and hands clearly seen by the reader.

[4] The two characters occasionally appeared in the same scene (in which case Thing would be played by a crew member, notably assistant director Jack Voglin).

Since Cassidy was 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m) tall,[5] using him to depict Thing caused great technical difficulties on the set of The Addams Family.

In many scenes he lay on his back on a wheeled trolley, below the line of sight of the cameras, and inserted his arm through the bottom of the box.

In the later films, thanks to advances in special effects, Thing (played by Christopher Hart's hand) is able to emerge and run on his fingertips, much like a spider.

In Addams Family Values, Thing is shown driving a car into Debbie to rescue Uncle Fester.

This is also true for the 1998 series The New Addams Family where Thing was played by the hand of Canadian magician/actor Steven Fox.

His classic box only appears in one episode of the series (the remake of "Thing's Romance"); in others, he lives in a closet that has been modified as his own "house-within-a-house".

He appears as a disembodied hand and wears a watch with an eye on it (perhaps used to see) in some scenes, he is also shown to have a foot fetish.

[8] In 2024, an advertisement aired on the Italian television featured Thing, with a voice-over referencing directly the Addams family.

Thing cannot talk, but it does sometimes snap its fingers to attract attention, and is also able to communicate by signaling in Morse code, writing, or with the help of the manual alphabet.