Married... with Children

Married … with Children was a long running American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. It ran on Fox from April 5, 1987 to June 9, 1997.

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Screenshot from the second season of Married... with Children (1987)

The show

The show depicted Al Bundy, a formerly glorious high school football player turned shoe salesman; his wife Peggy, a tartish, uneducated housewife; and their two children: Kelly, their attractive, but dumb and promiscuous daughter (she attended high school at the start of the series), and Bud, their dweebish, unpopular and girl-crazy son (he attended junior high school at the start of the series). The show's theme song is Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage." The show has been in heavy syndication ever since its first run.

The show first aired in 1987 to very negative press. It was considered very low-brow comedy that centered entirely around toilet humor and sexual references. Critics noted that the characters were mainly one-dimensional parodies of actual people. Christina Applegate once remarked that the show was "a cartoon". Initial reviewers often likened the series to both All in the Family (in that it depicted a dysfunctional, working class family) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (in that it featured two couples, one older and more cynical, the other younger and more idealistic).

However, viewers quickly embraced the show because, despite its obvious shortcomings, it reflected a huge part of the populace that was not represented on American television. The concept of an unhappily married couple whose life was, essentially, a complete failure had never been explored. Suddenly people were confronted with an arguing and unhappy, trashy married couple and their underachieving, smart-mouthed children. (It's interesting to note that the role of Peg Bundy was originally offered to Roseanne, who turned it down only to do a show of her own about a struggling, realistic lower class family.)

What was important about the show, and what likely allowed it to survive for as long as it did, is that inevitably the characters (including next-door neighbors and friends the upwardly mobile Rhoades, later renamed the D'Arcys after Marcy's first husband, Steve Rhoades, left her, and she married Jefferson D'Arcy) would come out supporting and defending each other. No matter how much they bickered and claimed to despise their familial ties, when one of them was put into a tough situation, the others would come out fighting on their side.

Eventually the show's humor (as well as the cast's acting) improved in the eyes of critics, who began to actually praise the show for taking on issues like racism, women's rights and sexual promiscuity in a way that was accessible to just about any viewer. By the time the show ended every cast member was immediately recognizable to the public as their Married... with Children persona.

The series is remembered as one of Fox Network's first successful programs, and was one of only two shows to survive the network's troubled first season (the other being the critically acclaimed The Tracey Ullman Show, which ultimately spawned The Simpsons). It also established Fox's reputation as a low-brow network, an image it continues to alternately support and fight to this day.

The first season, consisting of 13 episodes, was released in October 2003 on Region 1 DVD. The second season, consisting of 22 episodes, was released in March 2004, also on Region 1 DVD. Both box sets were released by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment.

The third season, released without the original theme song (a non-copyrighted instrumental version, with a vague similarity in melody, was used instead), hit store shelves in January 2005. It also contained the infamous "lost episode", "I'll See You in Court", which was never broadcast on Fox in the original series run. Sony has announced that all releases from the third season onward will have the non-copyrighted theme song instead of the original. The fourth season of the series was released on DVD on August 30, 2005, but has been highly criticized by fans for not including the full length original episodes; 7 of the episodes included on the set were from syndication, and have approximately 1 minute 20 seconds cut from each episode.

Remakes

The American Warner Brothers comedy Unhappily Ever After (1995-1999) has a similar setting.

Married... With Children is one of a handful of US comedies that have been remade for Britain (compare the much longer List of British TV shows remade for the American market). The show made no great impact, perhaps because of the questionable use of wholesome family comedian Russ Abbott in the lead role, or perhaps because the original had already been shown, albeit in a late-evening slot. The German sitcom "Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt" ("Help, my family is crazy") showing the family Strunk [1] is a remake of 26 early episodes of "Married... with Children". The show first aired in 1992 and had twice as many viewers as the original show in Germany, but as the Bundys were aired in early evening and the Struncks in prime time, the remake didn't achieve the expected success.

In 2004, the Colombian TV network Caracol Televisión, with Columbia Pictures filial CPT Holdings, produced a 26-episode adaptation of Married... with Children, called Casados con hijos [2]. It features the Rochas (the Colombian version of the Bundys) living in Bogotá with their neighbours, the Pachóns (the D'Arcys), using copied sets and situations from the original series, but adapted to Colombian urban environment. Broadcast at a weekend primetime slot, it has received mixed response. In Latin America, Married... with Children is still viewed through syndication on cable network Sony Entertainment Television.

Characters

Bundy family

• Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill)– the father figure in the Bundy family. Is usually seen in his trademark couch potato pose, sitting on the couch with one hand down the front of his pants. He was the star full back for Polk High School's football team, bound for college on an athletic scholarship – until he met Peg. Afterwards, he broke his leg, he lost his scholarship, his life fell apart, and he was stuck from then on working as a shoe salesman at New Market Mall, at Gary's Shoes. His misery with his life, his fear of having to have sex with his wife, and his reminiscences about his glory days ("Four touchdowns in a single game!") is the main focus of the show's humor. It was never revealed what his first name is short for; he is possibly just named Al.
• Margaret "Peggy" Bundy (née Wanker) (Katey Sagal)– Al's wife and mother of the family. She is originally from fictional Wanker County, Wisconsin, "where everyone is relative" (according to Al in 507). Al considers her first and foremost to be the cause of his misery. She is a lazy mother, having done very little to help raise the children (not that Al did much either), and often ignores the needs of her family. She often wastes the little money that Al makes from his job (she is very reluctant to get her own job; she worked at a department store selling clocks for a very short time, but quit after deciding that she hated working), and she is more likely to spend it on clothing and purchases from home-shopping TV channels than on food. When she does buy food, it's usually Bon Bons for when she watches her favorite talk show hosts, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. She is constantly trying to have sex with Al. Her attempts and Al's refusals was one of the running gags in the show. She once stated, 'I don't like you. I just want to have sex with you'.
• Kelly Bundy (Christina Applegate)– The first child of the Bundy family. "Pumpkin", as Al often calls her, she is a promiscuous bimbo, Kelly is the stereotypical "dumb blonde." Smart when she was little, she became stupid after an incident in which she banged her head. Much of her humor comes from the stupidity that she displays. For example, she asked her brother to help her with her book report on Robinson Crusoe and ends up reviewing Gilligan's Island instead (while yelling at her brother for tricking her, she says 'I had a meeting with the principal. A three hour meeting. A three hour meeting'). She is in love with boys, hair bleach, and the telephone. She often pokes fun at her younger brother, Bud, for being a pubescent horndog. Due to her stupidity, it was a shock to her entire family when she earned her high school diploma in 1990. She then worked as a model and as a waitress.
• Budrick Franklin "Bud" Bundy (David Faustino)– The second child of the family. Bud is a guy who believes himself to be sexy, but often proves not to be. He is often rejected by women. It is unclear when he lost his virginity, as the audience is led to believe that he may have bedded women as far back as age 14, but as late as the fourth season mentions of his virginity were still commonplace between characters. Later on, he often manages to have one-night-stands, including one with his cousin's fiancee, played by Joey Lauren Adams. He tries to get girls with the help of his various alter-egos, including Grandmaster B-a rapper who is perpetually ridiculed by the rest of the family, e.g. Bed Wetter B or Burgermeister B More Examples. (David Faustino has actually been featured in a few rap albums, and he manages a night club) He often ridicules Kelly as a promiscuous dimwit, though he is often lecherous and scheming, often with the result of sexual humiliation. Despite his dysfunctional family background, Bud is the best-educated Bundy of the bunch. He made honor roll throughout high school, and managed to get himself into college. He is also Kelly's agent, receiving 75% of everything she makes.
• Buck (mind voiced by writer Kevin Curran)– The family dog. He is often "heard" by the audience through voice-overs that tell what is going through his mind at the moment. He is just as disgusted with the family as the rest of them are. He died at one point in the series to allow the ten-year-old Briard that portrayed him to retire, although he was immediately reincarnated as Lucky.
• Lucky – The spaniel that the family gets after Buck dies. He is the reincarnation of Buck, but no one in the family ever finds this out. Lucky's Mind is voiced by Kim Weiskopf (Writer of the show, Full House, and Baywatch).
• Seven (Shane Sweet) – A child who is adopted by the family at one point in the series. He was a very unpopular character, so he was dropped from the show without explanation in the storyline. This fact was parodied on the show itself in a season 8 episode, where Seven's face was shown on a milk carton with the words "Have you seen me?". See jumping the shark; Chuck Cunningham syndrome.
• Peg's Mom – only heard in frightening voiceovers by Kathleen Freeman, she comes to live with the Bundys in later seasons. There are vague and hilarious references to her gigantic weight. Set to be played by Divine, but he had died before production.

Neighbors

• Marcy (Rhoades) D'Arcy (Amanda Bearse)– Peggy's best friend and the family's next-door neighbor. She considers herself to be above the ways of the Bundy family, but often sinks to their level. She dislikes Al, and often argues with him. Al's most frequent target is Marcy's tiny chest and chicken-like stance when she is annoyed. One of the running gags in the series has Marcy often mistaken for a young boy. Her cousin Mandy (played by Amanda Bearse in a dual role) is a lesbian.
• Steve Rhoades (David Garrison)– Marcy's first husband. He is a banker who was actually at a lower position than Marcy at the city bank, but that didn't seem to faze him, as Marcy moved up to a high position at another bank, he received her job. Steve is one who sees himself as a better person than the Bundy family, but over time becomes more like them, and indeed it is generally Al to whom Steve turns when in need of male bonding. Steve was written out of the show in the middle of the fourth season. Garrison had decided he no longer wanted to be tied down to a weekly television series, instead preferring to avoid being typecast into one role, and to be able to devote more time to his first love: stage acting. He reached an agreement with Fox to buy out the remainder of his contract. In preparation for his departure, in the final episode shot (though confusingly, not the final episode aired) in which he was a regular, we see Steve becoming disenchanted with his and Marcy's yuppie lifestyle, and taking an increasing interest in nature and in becoming an outdoorsman (an real-life interest of Garrison's). He then disappears, it being explained that he has left Marcy to become a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park. During later seasons, Garrison would reprise the Steve Rhoades character on four occasions, returning to guest star in individual episodes as he eventually returns to professional life to become the Dean of the college Bud is attending.
• Jefferson D'Arcy (Ted McGinley)– Marcy's second husband, a prettyboy who married Marcy for money. Self centered and lazy, he is a male equivalent of Peggy. Marcy met Jefferson, originally a bartender, at his bar after a bankers' convention, got drunk, and found herself married to him the next morning. He is a close friend of Al, and often angers Marcy in his bonding with Al. He claims that he was a CIA agent in the past, and it is later revealed that he has a commission as a 1st Lieutenant in the National Guard. His ties to the CIA are never conclusively proven, although it is strongly hinted they are real (and it is proved he has some powerful friends in Washington when he is able to get NO MA'AM an audience with Congress on short notice, and members of the United States Secret Service recognize him as an old colleague and speak to him in code. He claims that his last mission for the CIA was a failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.) Ted McGinley had appeared previously as Peggy's husband in an alternate universe, in an episode which parodied Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

Recurring characters

• Griff (Harold Sylvester)– A friend of Al who works with him at the shoestore. He is a member of Al's NO MA'AM organization.
• Bob Rooney and Ike (Tom McCleister) – Important members of NO MA'AM. Bob Rooney was played by E. E. Bell. He is one of Al,'s friends from the neighbourhood and he is the treasurer of the NO MA'AM. He works as a butcher and has a wife called Louise, who is a friend of Peggy. He played in the same football team as Al, at Polk High. He has many problems with his name, because it is often pronounced 'Bobrooney'. Bob's name is even spelled "Bobrooney" on his bowling shirt, supposedly because the clerk at the shop who provided the actors' costumes had misheard it as one word over the telephone! The producer, Tim Weiskopff, had a theory that "in every neighborhood in the midwest of the U.S. there is one guy all the people in the neighborhood refer to with both his names" (e.g. "Charlie Brown").
• Officer Dan – A friend of Al's who tries to balance his career as a police officer against his friendship with Al and his friends.
• Miranda Veracruz de la Joya Cardenal (Teresa Parente) – Hispanic local news reporter typically assigned to cover the stupidly newsworthy stories in which the Bundys inevitably involve themselves.
• The Wankers – Parents of Peggy. Currently living in Wanker County ("The home of the gassy beaver"). They are more often mentioned than on camera. Peggy's mother is never shown (though she is heard in several episodes and was voiced by Kathleen Freeman) but her father, played by Tim Conway, is in a few episodes. Her mother is constantly referred to as being unbelievably obese, the object of many jokes.
• Gary (Janet Carroll) – The female owner of Gary's Shoes and employer of Al. Gary's first appearance occurred when Al turned the women's shoe store into a men's shoe store. Al figured that Gary wouldn't mind being a man, he was of course, wrong in this assumption. Gary is fantastically rich and her only failed business venture was her shoe store. Over the course of the show she made several more appearances, always to the chagrin of Al. On one episode she even became the Sugar Momma of Bud, much to the chagrin of those who still thought she was a man.
• Luke Ventura (Ritch Shydner) A coworker at the shoe store early on in the series. He was a sly womanizer who was always seducing beautiful women and stealing Al's sales. Peg hated him while Al tolerated him. He disappeared after the first season.

Bundy icons

• NO MA'AM – An acronym for the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood. This is the middle aged men's club that meets in Al's garage to discuss matters of serious importance to men such as beer and girls. In 1995, "Reverend Al", the guys turn it into a church so they won't have to pay beer taxes.
• Polk High – The high school that Al Bundy went to where (as he always loved to rejoice about) he scored 4 touchdowns in one football game. Kelly and Bud also attended Polk High. In 1995 the football field was named "Al Bundy Field" in his honor, although the scoreboard comemmorating this was immediately destroyed.
• Jiggly Room/Nudie Bar – This is a strip club run by Iqbal, where members of NO MA'AM go to unwind and spend any money that their wives have not already spent.
• Big Uns – This is a girlie magazine that Al and his friends read. Also used before having sex with the wives. Al to Jefferson: "Take two of these and call me in the morning," looks at Marcy and adds, "better make that four."
• Girlie Girl Beer – Official beer of NO MA'AM.
• Psycho Dad – Al's favorite TV show until Marcy's women's group got it cancelled. It was a Western about a psychotic cowboy who had similar values to Al and his NO MA'AM friends.
• Peas In A Pod – Another TV show Al enjoyed. This one was only featured in one episode, and was removed from the air after the network received a complaint from "a Michigan housewife."
• Weenie Tots – Al's favorite fast-dissolving miniature corndog-like snack, with many disclaimers on the package including "This Is Not a Food" and "No Nutritional Value".
• The Mighty Dodge – The Bundy family car, a 1972 Dodge Dart, which dates back to Al's high school days and has logged over a million miles of travel. Its old, brown, rustic colour makes it instantly recognizable as the Bundys' car, though after a car wash in episode 917, it turns out that under all that dirt, it was really red. Despite its poor condition (ex. constant engine troubles), Al has been shown to be very reluctant to part with it.
• Gary's Shoes and Accessories For Today's Woman – The shoe store where Al has been working since high school. He was planning on working there only for a brief summer period during high school until Peg's pregnancy with Kelly changed all that. Al is often shown being rude to customers in the store, and placing his head in his hands all day long if there are no customers, reflecting on his miserable life. When he finds it too humiliating to sell women's shoes, he starts to only order men's, thinking Gary wouldn't mind. He gets into a lot of trouble as it turns out Gary is really a woman.
• The toilet flush – One of Al's favourite activities is to sit in the bathroom for a long time. Whenever there is a sound of the toilet flushing in the Bundy house, viewers know that Al is coming out of the bathroom with a newspaper under his arm. He loves the toilet so much that one day he buys his very own Ferguson toilet, just like the one his father had. After having built his own restroom and garage apartment, he has to tear it down again after the pregnant women take it over.
• Isis – Bud's blow-up doll and the object of several jokes.
• Bundy Motto/Credo– Essentially, an ever-changing slogan that tries to describe Al's philosophy on certain subjects or situations. "We ain't got it." Also, as Al told to Bud: "Lie when your wife is waking. Lie when your belly's aching. Lie when you know she's faking. Lie, sell shoes, and lie." Alternative version: "Hooters, hooters, yum, yum, yum. Hooters, hooters, on a girl that's dumb".
• Whoa Bundy – family cheer, used whenever the Bundy family was about to embark on a venture together, often a scheme against the D'Arcys or other groups. Led by Al, "Can I get a Whoa Bundy?," it involves all of the Bundys placing their hands on top of one another in a circle and raising them into the air, yelling "Whoa Bundy!"
• Thank Your Father, Kids –Sarcastic line said by Peggy to her children after Al royally screws something up. Interestingly, it was used previously (and sincerely) by Beverly D'Angelo's "Ellen Griswold" character in National Lampoon's European Vacation.

Controversy & Missing episodes

One episode of Married With Children was "lost" due to the efforts of a Michigan housewife and another episode was edited because of the World Trade Center attacks.

The Rakolta Boycott

In 1989 Terry Rakolta, a wealthy housewife from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, led a massive boycott against Married With Children after viewing the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over - 3x06"[3]. Offended by the images of an old man wearing a garter and stockings, a gay man and a woman who bared her breasts, Rakolta began a letter-writing campaign to advertisers demanding they boycott the show.

After advertisers began dropping their support for the show and while Rakolta made several appearances on television talk shows, Fox executives played it safe and refused to air the episode titled "I'll See You In Court - 3x08"[4]. That particular episode would become known as the "Lost Episode." "I'll See You In Court - 3x08" was finally aired on FX on June 18, 2002. The episode was packaged with the rest of the third season in the January 2005 DVD release.

Ironically during the boycott, ratings for Married With Children skyrocketed due to interest in the show caused by Rakolta's crusade to have the show canceled. The increased number of viewers kept Married With Children on the air until 1997. According to sources on the Married With Children set, the creators of the show, Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, sent Rakolta a fruit basket every Christmas as a way of saying "thank you".

Rakolta herself has been referenced twice on the show. The first time in the episode titled "Rock and Roll Girl - 4x14"[5] when a newscaster mentioned the city Bloomfield Hills. The second time occurred in the episode titled "No Pot To Pease In - 9x09"[6] when a television show was made about the Bundy family. After the show was canceled, Marcy told the Bundys that "some woman in Michigan didn't like it".

Trivia

• Before the World Trade Center attacks, the syndicated version of the episode titled "Get Outta Dodge - 8x17"[7] featured a scene of two Arabs with a ticking bomb at the front door of Al Bundy's house offering to buy his Dodge for $40 and asking for directions to the Sears Tower. The scene was cut from the syndicated re-airings of the episode afterwards. However in a recent airing on the FX Network, the scene was still in place.

• The creators of the show named the "Bundy" family after their favorite wrestler King Kong Bundy, though some fans mistakenly believed that it was from serial killer Ted Bundy. King Kong Bundy once made an appearance on the show as Peg's hick inbred cousin. He also was on the show as his wrestling persona, since NO MA'AM were big fans of King Kong Bundy. The Rhoades were named after Dusty Rhodes.

• The producers originally wanted to cast comedian Sam Kinison as Al Bundy. However, they ultimately chose not to, due to the profane nature of Kinison's comedy routines. Kinison would later play Al's guardian angel in the memorable episode "It's A Bundyful Life," spoofing Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life".

• The producers originally wanted Roseanne Barr for the part of Peggy Bundy, but she declined and the producers cast on Katey Sagal. She went on to make her own show, Roseanne about a crass, lower-middle-class family the next year.

• The episodes "Top Of The Heap", "Radio Free Trumaine", and "Enemies" were meant to be spin-offs.
  • "Top Of The Heap" was the only episode of the three to get its own show. It was notable as an early sitcom starring Matt LeBlanc, later of Friends fame. The show was about an ex-boyfriend of Kelly Bundy (played by LeBlanc) and his father, an old friend of Al Bundy, always trying get rich quick schemes.
  • "Radio Free Trumaine" was to be about Bud Bundy's time in College with the campus radio station, with Steve Rhodes as the antagonistic Dean.
  • "Enemies" was a Friends clone featuring Alan Thicke based around Kelly Bundy's social circle.

• In the Futurama episode "A Bicyclops Built For Two", Katey Sagal briefly revived her "Peg Bundy voice" when her character, Turanga Leela, became romantically involved with an alien known as Alkazar who, after presenting a cultured demeanor when they first met, soon revealed a side to himself that was distinctly Al Bundy-esque. At one point, Leela's hairstyle and outfit are definite spoofs of Peg, and she proceeds to refer to Alkazar as "Al" and swap insults with him in true Bundy fashion, and in the nasal vocal pitch that Sagal affected when playing Peg.

See also

• List of Married... with Children episodes
• Al Bundy

External links

• Married... with Children at IMDb
• Bundyology, a fan's website
• Al Bundy Site, a fan's website (infos, making ofs, forum,..)
• E.E. Bell's (Bob Rooney) Homepage
• Casados con hijos, the Colombian remake