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Married... with Children
Screenshot from the first season of Married... with Children </small>
Genre	Sitcom
Running time	approx. 22 minutes
Creator(s)	Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt
Starring	Ed O'Neill Katey Sagal Christina Applegate David Faustino David Garrison Amanda Bearse Ted McGinley
Country of origin	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Original channel	FOX
Original run	April 5 1987–June 9 1997
No. of episodes	259
IMDb profile

Married… with Children was a long-running American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in Chicago. It was the first-ever primetime television series to air on the FOX Network, debuting on April 5 1987 and concluding June 9 1997. The series was created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt. Its 11-season run and 259-episode total make it the second-longest-lasting sitcom on the FOX network (second only to The Simpsons) and the network's longest live-action sitcom.

The show follows the lives of Al Bundy, a formerly glorious high school football player turned hard-luck shoe salesman; his wife Peggy, a tartish, uneducated housewife known for her large red beehive hairdo, tacky clothes and her funny walk due to her always wearing high heels; and their two children: Kelly, their very attractive, promiscuous, but dim-witted daughter, and Bud, their unpopular and girl-crazy but highly intelligent son (the only Bundy ever attending college). Their neighbors are the upwardly-mobile Steve and Marcy Rhoades (later with second husband Jefferson D'Arcy). Most storylines involve the ever-scheming Al being foiled by his cartoonish dim wit and bad luck.

Contents 1 Characters 1.1 The Bundy family 1.1.1 Al Bundy 1.1.2 Peggy Bundy 1.1.3 Kelly Bundy 1.1.4 Bud Bundy 1.1.5 Buck 1.1.6 Lucky 1.1.7 Seven 1.1.8 Peggy's mother 1.1.9 Peggy's Father 1.2 The neighbors 1.2.1 Marcy Rhoades-D'Arcy 1.2.2 Steve Rhoades 1.2.3 Jefferson D'Arcy (pronounced "Darcy") 1.2.4 Amber 1.3 Recurring characters 2 Bundy icons 3 The Bundy Curse 4 Controversy & missing episodes 4.1 The Rakolta Boycott 5 DVD releases 6 Remakes 6.1 The WB 6.2 United Kingdom 6.3 Germany 6.4 Spanish Audiences 6.5 Argentina 6.6 Chile 7 Trivia 8 International 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Characters

[edit] The Bundy family

[edit] Al Bundy

Main article: Al Bundy

The leader of the Bundy Family, Al (Ed O'Neill) is practically doomed to fail in everything he does because of the 'Bundy curse'. Once a promising fullback for fictional Polk High School (his proudest moment in life was running for four touchdowns in a single game), he was on his way to college on a scholarship—until he got his girlfriend pregnant, married her, broke his leg, and ended up a shoe salesman at Gary's Shoes in the New Market Mall. Al spends most of his time trying to recapture old glory, but is usually foiled in spectacular fashion by his bad luck and poor judgement just as things seem to be going his way. He considers his family to be the root cause of his failures, and his resentment of them (and fear of having sex with his wife) provides for much of the humor in the show. However, Al is still attached to them, given that he constantly beats up Kelly's boyfriends, once threatened a male stripper that "if my wife loses anything down your pants, so will you", once gave his entire paycheck to Bud to enjoy at the nudie bar on his 18th birthday, and generally putting up with a miserable job to put food on the table. Despite his yearning for "the touch of a beautiful woman", he always passes on the rare occasions he is tempted by one, explaining once that "I actually kinda like my family." He constantly visits "nudie bars" and strip joints with his friends. However, the only thing that seems to consistently put him in the mood for his wife is watching her do manual labor, which practically never happens. Al prefers the escapism of television and bowling over his dysfunctional family and life of drudgery and starvation (Peg refuses to cook), and is often seen in his trademark couch-potato pose — seated on the sofa with one hand stuck under the waistband of his pants.

[edit] Peggy Bundy

Margaret "Peggy" Bundy (née Wanker) (Katey Sagal) is Al's very lazy, high school drop-out house wife. She refuses to cook for the family or to clean the house. She prefers shopping for new clothes over washing them and doesn't even think of having a job. During the day she likes to watch all the daytime talk shows, sitting on the beloved family couch and eating tons of bonbons (amazingly, without getting fat). Her favourite TV shows are Oprah and Phil, but she also likes the Home Shopping Network. Peggy usually wears 1960s-inspired fashion with tight pants and stiletto heels, which makes her walk in a unique way. Nevertheless, Peg is an attractive woman and despite her impolite behavior, she generally appeals to men, including Al when she does work. Like Al, she would never cheat on her partner. But unlike Al, she loves to have sex with her spouse. She enjoys going to women's strip joints and watching male dancers, causing some of them to establish the "Bundy rule" where women can no longer go into the back rooms to meet the dancers personally. Her maiden name is Wanker, and her family is from the fictitious rural Wanker County, Wisconsin, "where everyone is relative."

[edit] Kelly Bundy

Kelly (Christina Applegate) is the oldest child in the Bundy family. "Pumpkin", as Al often calls her, is a promiscuous bimbo and stereotypical "dumb blonde."

A flashback to her childhood reveals that she was once a prodigious reader and bookworm, until she banged her head during a road trip, instantly changing her personality to prefer focusing on her "shiny, shiny shoes". The show hints that she has an amazing intrinsic intellectual ability, which only exhibits itself on the rare occasions when she is not preoccupied with her social standing or the opposite sex. An amazing example of this phenomenon is her unique ability to predict the next number to be called on a roulette wheel, but only if she first lets her mind go blank. When properly motivated, she is able to solve complex math equations, such as when she calculates an exact trajectory to shoot garbage bags into the Darcys' yard from a self-built catapult. Once was proven that she can absorb information very well, but only a limited amount. When that amount is met and she learns something new, she will forget something she learned in the past. She is also known to occasionally display excellent hand-eye coordination when playing pool or doing archery.

Kelly's comedic contribution to the show is often in her blatant displays of naïvete and ignorance, and the typical response by the rest of the Bundy family of willfully allowing her to remain ignorant. Bud, in particular, goes so far as to implant further misconceptions and fallacies in her mind. For example, she asked her brother to help her with her book report on Robinson Crusoe and ended 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!"). Due to Kelly's stupidity, it was a shock to her entire family when she earned her high school diploma in 1990; when she received her diploma through the mail after completing summer school, she had to ask Peg to read it to her. She then worked as a model and as a waitress. She became a bottle-blonde at an early age, after a boy at school liked a natural blonde more than he did Kelly, and mom Peggy promptly came to the rescue with a bottle of peroxide. (Years later, neither can remember their own natural hair-color.) She is in love with boys, hair bleach, and the telephone. Kelly wasn't allowed to have sleepovers or birthday parties from age eight to age sixteen, since after the one she had at eight, "the judge wanted to try you as an adult!"

Though she often pokes fun at her younger brother Bud for being an underdeveloped, pubescent horndog, she usually seems to be proud of him whenever he manages to get an attractive date. On at least one occasion, she has also avenged Bud by humiliating a girl that humilitated him. For a short time, Bud is her official agent, entitled to 80% of her earnings. Kelly is very fond of her pets, even when she can't take care of them well enough. Buck, the family dog, was generally considered to be hers and she was the most devastated when he passed away. However, when Buck was to be neutered, Al (not wanting to have Buck fixed) says "Buck is Bud's dog and we have to get Bud's permission." But Peg asks Bud if it is ok to neuter "his" dog, Bud doesn't even seem to care and and simply says "sure."

Her favorite comic strip is Garfield. Her less than stellar reading skills led to many comedic situations in which she would read the Garfield comic aloud, mispronouncing lasagna as "luh-SAG-nee." She also watches cartoons such as Looney Tunes under the impression that they are real animals in a nature show.

[edit] Bud Bundy

Budrick Franklin "Bud" Bundy (David Faustino) is the second child of the family. The first word he spoke was "hooters". He believes himself to be attractive, sexy, and smooth, but often proves not to be as he is typically caught in sexually humiliating scenarios. He doesn't appear to know how to impress women upon meeting them and is often rejected. 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, Cross-Dresser B, Grandma B, Grand Bastard B More Examples. (David Faustino has actually been featured in a few rap albums, and he manages a night club.) Another alter-ego is 'Cool Bud', Bud's sexual, suave side that Bud eventually 'merges' with, prompting him to become more 'cool'. Bud generally fails in his attempts to get with women, and unfortunately for him the only people who develop attractions to him are usually people Bud himself has no interest in (fat hotel guests, dowdy college librarians, and male hotel workers). Bud also takes an interest in Mrs Rhoades, especially after Steve leaves her, he actively persues her. After playing a trick on Kelly proving how dumb she is, Kelly proves she isn't so stupid by making Bud and Mrs. Rhoades believe they spent the night together, which they didn't. Bud asks Mrs Rhoades "You are on the pill right?" Mrs Rhoades looks nervous.

Out of the Bundys, Bud seems to be the most ashamed of the family as he often pretends to never have met Al or claims to have a different last name. He ridicules Kelly as a promiscuous dimwit, and although he quite frequently uses her ignorance to his benefit, he occasionally feels obliged to defend her when others mock or take advantage of her lack of intelligence. He can be shown as lecherous and scheming, even against his own family. Despite his dysfunctional family background, Bud is the best-educated Bundy. He makes honor roll throughout high school, and manages to get himself through college (even earning scholarship money which his family spent without his consent). During his college years, Bud is portrayed as the leader in his circle of friends (most of which are stereotypical "losers"), as he appears to be the only one with the least bit of self-confidence. He is also Kelly's agent, receiving 80% of everything she makes.

[edit] Buck

Buck (voiceover by writer Kevin Curran; on special episodes Buck is voiced by Cheech Marin) is 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.

[edit] 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 voiceovers were performed by writer Kevin Curran.

[edit] Seven

Seven-year-old Seven (Shane Sweet) is adopted by the Bundy family after being abandoned by his own parents, cousins of Peggy from Wanker County (Linda Blair, Bob Goldthwait). True to the Bundy name, he quickly proves himself to be manipulative, conniving, and good in a fist fight. Although the character was introduced to generate fresh storylines for the series, the writers ultimately found it difficult to work the boy into the show’s adult-themed scripts. He was abruptly dropped from the series, to the delight of the viewers (a poll showed that more than 80% of the viewers didn't like that character)^{[citation needed]}. Never to be mentioned again, except on two occasions in season 8 episodes. The first in which his face appears on the side of a milk carton over the words, “Have you seen me?” The second in which he appears in episode 0823 ("Kelly knows Something"), when Al is teaching sports trivia to Kelly we see numerous (many essential) facts leaving her brain as she is learning. A picture of Seven flows out of her brain, indicating that she will no longer remember him. See also: Jumping the Shark.

[edit] Peggy's mother

Heard only in frightening voiceovers by Kathleen Freeman and ground-shaking gags, she comes to live with the Bundys in later seasons. There are vague and comical references to her gigantic weight. This woman is mostly the victim of Al's abrasive, behind the back, and hatred-filled insults. Set to be played by Divine, but he had died before production.

[edit] Peggy's Father

Efrem Wanker, Peggy's father, was played by Tim Conway, appearing occasionally in the last three seasons. It is implied that he was drunk and held a shotgun to Al's head at the altar of Al's and Peggy's wedding. He calls Peggy "Margaret".

[edit] The neighbors

[edit] Marcy Rhoades-D'Arcy

Marcy (Amanda Bearse) is Peggy's best friend, Al's nemesis, and the family's next-door neighbor. Though she considers herself to be above the ways of the Bundy family, she often sinks to their level. Marcy originally worked as a loan officer at the city bank (with a higher job title than her husband, Steve), and then as the manager of the Kyoto National Bank from the second season on. However, for a short time, she was demoted to drive-up window teller as punishment for approving a loan Al was not in a position to pay back. She got her old job back after frugging on her boss's desk for 20 minutes, clad only in her slip, while the other drive-up window tellers tossed quarters at her.

At first, Marcy was a sweet, wholesome newlywed, but years of living next to the Bundys apparently warped her into a character almost as outrageous as the Bundys themselves. She dislikes Al, often argues with him and thoroughly enjoys laughing at his misery. Marcy enjoys sharing her past memories of her life with Peg, but often tends to get lost in them. At various points in the series she is identified as Republican, who looks down on the lower class Bundy clan, but at other times she's portrayed as a feminist and environmentalist. Al's most frequent targets are Marcy's tiny chest and her chicken-like stance when she is annoyed.

One of the running gags in the series has Marcy often mistaken for a young boy; when she reminisces about her first training bra, Al asks "How old were you then - twenty-five?!". Her cousin Mandy (also played by Bearse) is a lesbian (Bearse is a lesbian in real life). Despite wanting to appear prudish, Marcy is shown to be a very sexual person, and it is revealed throughout the show that she has a sordid sexual history.

Although Marcy and Al are usually adversaries, they often unite in a common causes after Steve loses his job and later when Jefferson comes into the series. This is due to both Marcy and Al being the breadwinners, it gives them a common cause and a level of understanding between them that doesn't last, but keeps appearing from time to time

[edit] Steve Rhoades

Steve Rhoades (David Garrison) is Marcy's first husband. He is a banker who was actually at a lower position than Marcy at the city bank but was not fazed by it. When Marcy moved up to a high position at another bank, he received her job. Steve 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, 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 (a real-life interest of Garrison's). He then disappears, with 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 (Steve having pursued whole other careers in the meantime), as he eventually returns to professional life to become the Dean of the college Bud is attending. This episode was to be the pilot of a spin-off series that never happened.

[edit] Jefferson D'Arcy (pronounced "Darcy")

Jefferson Milhouse D'Arcy (Ted McGinley) is Marcy's second husband, a prettyboy who marries her 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, where she got drunk and found herself married to him the next morning; she was horrified to find out that her name was now Marcy D'Arcy. He is a close friend of Al's and often angers Marcy in his bonding with him. Marcy constantly bosses Jefferson around and keeps him in check. However, behind her back, Jefferson commonly insults Marcy and ignores her orders. When Marcy's favorite squirrel Zippy dies, Jefferson tells her that they'll give it a proper burial, only to punt it out of his sight when Marcy turns around.

He claims that he was a CIA agent in the past (code-named Bullwinkle), 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; it is proven he has some powerful friends in Washington when he is able to get 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. But perhaps the most conclusive evidence comes in Episode 0820 ("The D'Arcy Files"), when the new part-owner of the Chicago Cubs is a former CIA target named "Walter Traugott" who is out to get revenge on his erstwhile captors. Jefferson privately reveals his history to Marcy and never retracts it; moreover, Traugott comes into the shoe store and presents Al a number of pictures of Jefferson with Castro, Arafat and other world leaders, saying Jefferson is a villain and offering a reward for turning him in. Al waffles, but the point becomes moot when Jefferson is in the room, watching the Cubs game, and the stadium announcer says that "El Bundy" is paging Walter Traugott. Jefferson pretends that he is going to have to kill Al for selling him out, but then laughs and dismisses the whole thing as an "April Fool's" prank on Al, asking, "If I was really a spy, couldn't I have just made a call and had Walter killed?" Laughing himself now, Al leaves for a party, but as Jefferson turns to watch the TV, the announcer incredulously notes that Traugott has just fallen out of the luxury box to his doom. Jefferson just smiles and blows quietly into a kazoo, a shot which became his trademark in the opening credits of later seasons. Jefferson claims that his last mission for the CIA was a failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. It is hinted that the reason he cannot get a job is because he is in hiding since Castro has put a price on his head; although at one point they met face to face later in the show.

He is also wanted for running an investment scam wherein he sold useless plots of Lake Chicamicamico; the lake area was in fact a nuclear waste dump, and Al had actually bought shares for his retirement.

Ted McGinley had appeared previously as Peggy's husband, Mr. Jablonski, in the second part of "It's a Bundyful Life", where Al's guardian angel (Sam Kinison) shows Al what his family would have become if he was never born. The episode lightly parodies Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

[edit] Amber

Amber (Juliet Tablak) is Marcy's niece and delighted the male viewers in season nine (0904, 0908, 0915, 0923). Amber's mother sent her to Marcy to get her out of the bad L.A. neighborhood where she grew up. Bud keeps on trying to get her into his bed, but he only succeeds once (0904) — and that may have been a dream, as his fantasies about her became a central issue in the later episode 0923. After season nine, Amber disappears without an explanation. She is one of the few female characters in the sitcom to demonstrate an actual attraction to Bud (remarking to Kelly in private that she does think he's cute), and actually kisses him of her own free will as a way of saying goodbye.

[edit] Recurring characters

• Griff (Harold Sylvester) – A friend of Al and co-worker at the shoe store. He is also a member of Al's NO MA'AM organization. A divorcee, he shares many of Al's characteristics as far as work ethic and views on women go. However, Griff isn't quite as callous; occasionally he feels uneasy when going along with one of Al or Jefferson's many schemes.
• Bob Rooney (E.E. Bell) – One of Al's friends from the neighborhood and treasurer of NO MA'AM. He works as a butcher, has a wife named Louise who is a friend of Peggy, and played on the same football team as Al, at Polk High. He is always called by both first and last name, and it is even spelled as one word on his bowling shirt. 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"). E.E. Bell was the only member of the extended cast to spend a lot of time on the Usenet newsgroups fielding questions from viewers.
• Officer Dan (Dan Tullis Jr.) – A friend of Al's who is in NO MA'AM. Surprisingly, though he is part of NO MA'AM, he often arrests them for their illegal antics.
• Ike (Tom McCleister) – Another member of NO MA'AM. He is virtually the most forgotten character of the show.
• Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal (Teresa Parente) – Hispanic local news reporter typically assigned to cover the pathetic news stories in which the Bundys inevitably involve themselves. She often laments the sad state of her career on-air. In spite of the fact that she only appears in a handful of episodes throughout the series, Miranda is apparently quite popular among fans of the show.
• The Wankers – The parents of Peggy, living in Wanker County ("The home of the gassy beaver"). They are more often mentioned than seen on camera. Peggy's mother is never shown (though she is heard in several episodes, voiced by Kathleen Freeman), but her father (Tim Conway) appears in a few episodes. Mrs. Wanker's unbelievable obesity is the subject of many jokes, including one in which Al goes blind after accidentally walking in on her bathing. Although not widely known in the US, in the UK the word 'wanker' is a slang insult meaning someone who masturbates. It is not known whether the producers knew this and included is as an injoke for the benefit of British audiences, or whether the name is just a coincidence.
• Garry (Janet Carroll) – The female owner of Garry's Shoes and employer of Al. Garry's first appearance in the series came after Al turned her women's shoe store into a men's, assuming Garry was male and therefore wouldn't mind. Garry is fantastically rich (she would have been in the Forbes 400, but only reached #401 because of the shoe store--her only failing business venture). Over the course of the series she makes several more appearances, always to the chagrin of Al, and in one episode even becomes the Sugar Momma of Bud, much to the chagrin of those who still thought she was a man.
• Luke Ventura (Ritch Shydner) – A co-worker at the shoe store early 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 disappears from the show after the first season, but is mentioned again in the 9th season episode "Pump Fiction", when Al learns from the shoe industry publication "Shoe News" that Luke is being given an award. Though he was portrayed to be a friend of Al's in the beginning of the series, after his disappearance, he had been spoken of as if he had since become a rival to Al.
• Aaron Mitchell (Hill Harper) – Another co-worker of Al's at the shoe store. A young football star at Polk High, he is on the verge of marrying a wonderful woman and going to college, achieving everything that Al ever wanted. Al chooses to live his life vicariously through Aaron, until his misguided attempts to help accidentally drive the boy to a shrewish woman named "Meg" (a young copy of Peg) and the same dismal fate which had befallen Al. Aaron appeared only in the 8th season (5 episodes).

[edit] 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 and Peg Bundy went to where (as Al always loved to rejoice about) he scored four 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 commemorating 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. After the beer's normal mascot has been replaced with Yoko Ono, NO MA'AM declares it no longer their official beer. However, they then spend all night getting drunk testing out alternate beers. Thus, come morning, they forget they hated the beer, and declare it their official beer once again.
• 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." The show was actually an exact parody of the family, due to Kelly telling the producers all about her life. The show depicts 'Hal' often muttering "My life sucks", and his daughter bringing home a Marine, a sailor, a soldier and an airman.
• Weenie Tots – Al's favorite fast-dissolving miniature corndog-like snack, with many disclaimers on the package including "This Is Not Food" and "No Nutritional Value".
• The Mighty Dodge – The Bundy family car, a 1971 Plymouth Duster which was erroneously (or comically) called a Dodge. It dates back to Al's high school days and has logged over a million miles of travel, for which Dodge was going to present Al a brand new Dodge Viper. Before Dodge could record the odometer turning over Al fell a sleep behind the wheel and the car moved enough to turn over the odometer. Its old, brown, rustic colour makes it instantly recognizable as the Bundys' car, though after a car wash in episode 0917, it turns out that under all that dirt, it was really red. Despite its poor condition (e.g. constant engine troubles), Al has been shown to be very reluctant to part with it. "I drive a Dodge!" is, paradoxically, one of Al's mantras. Ironically, both the Dodge Dart and the Plymouth Duster (Al's car is Dodge in name but Plymouth in the body shown on-camera) are renowned for their reliability and durability. As a lightweight economy car of its day - and among baby boomers who weren't involved in the muscle car scene who didn't understand the weight benefits of an economy car - it was a natural but undeserved target of mockery; they would have been the Tercels of their day no one knew Toyota might have dropped in a Supra motor. The Dodge twin of the 1971 Duster was the 1971 Dodge Demon, which had a far more aggressive grille and name. Both the Duster and the Demon were Plymouth Valiant derivatives, and both were offered with engines which ranged from mild (Slant-6) to outrageously wild (Chrysler 340) with big-blocks easily installed.

• 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 occasional attractive women who make purchases at the store are some of the few rays of light in Al's life, but such customers are few and far between.
• Shoe Salesman – A running gag that all Bundy men have sold shoes. Even in the past (see Bundy Curse), Al's ancestor sells horse shoes. When Bud sees the ghosts of several dead Bundys in a castle, several ask if he wants to buy any shoes. It is also implied that Al's father sold shoes as well, continuing the tradition.
• 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. Al hates the "low flow" toilets of today that continuously stop up. 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" (sometimes the last line is "gonna get me some").
• 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 with "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 "Whooooa Bundy!"
• Thank Your Father, Kids –Sarcastic line said by Peggy to her children after Al royally screws something up. The kids' response is an equally sarcastic "Thanks, Dad". Interestingly, it was used previously (and sincerely) by Beverly D'Angelo's "Ellen Griswold" character in National Lampoon's European Vacation. On rare occasions, Peggy and the kids themselves sincerely mean it.
• A fat woman walked into the shoe store today... –The occasional humorous anecdote regarding the rude, overweight female customers that Al has to deal with on a regular basis.
• Troy's -A male strip club in the early seasons in which Marcy drops her wedding ring down "Zorro's" pants
• Oh Peg...! -Al's most common response to Peg's requests (usually about having sex more than once a year)

[edit] The Bundy Curse

• The Bundy Curse – There are multiple Bundy Curses:
  • The most mentioned curse is that every male Bundy is cursed to eventually fail. One male Bundy, Al's uncle, was successful throughout his life and even left behind a fortune, he was the one male Bundy who never married.
  • Another curse begins when a Bundy forefather (played by Ed O'Neill), working as a blacksmith (selling mainly horse shoes) in Lower Uncton, England, insults a witch; she curses Lower Uncton with eternal darkness until the last male Bundy dies, and curses the Bundys to have smelly feet. The Bundys eventually leave Lower Uncton; the townspeople search for male Bundys for centuries and kill them in hopes of destroying the curse, eventually encountering Al's family, where Al and Bud are the last two left. However, in a jousting match against a descendant of the witch, Igor of Lower Uncton, Al defeats the opposing knight, and the curse is lifted without his death.
  • It is also the Bundy lot to be cursed with terrible foot odor; Al refers to this as "the other Bundy curse". Al's foot odor has been revealed to kill small animals and plants, and cause activation of the oxygen masks during an airplane flight. However, several women during the course of the series (Al's old high school sweethearts) find his scent irresistible. In one episode, space aliens steal Al's used socks for fuel to prevent a giant asteroid from destroying the Earth.
  • Whenever a Bundy receives good luck and admits to it, he receives an equal amount of bad luck. For instance, in one episode, Bud is moving out (to a college fraternity house), Kelly is moving out as well, Al hits every green light, the oldies station plays all his all-time favorites, and all the women in the shoe store are attractive. Jefferson takes advantage of this streak of luck by getting Al to win a big poker game, with all of Al's winnings from previous poker games and all of the players' cars at stake. Al wins, and he finally breaks down and admits he has good luck; he is promptly arrested because the cars he won were all stolen. Furthermore, while performing the motorcycle stunt that would make her career, Kelly is blinded by a camera (Peg's camera, as a matter of fact) and crashes into a frat house, causing it to catch fire and forcing all the members to move out. However, it is (at the time of the poker game) unknown what house was destroyed (to which Al remarks "Oh I'm sure"). Thus, Bud moves back in, Kelly loses her job and must refrain from moving out herself, and the family is back where it started.
  • When Al tries to break the Bolarama record, he succeeds at 257; minutes later Peggy is about to get a perfect score and Al tells the kids about the Bundy curse; "it's what separates us from the normal losers"; after Kelly asks why Peggy isn't clued in about the curse Al replies, "because she is a Bundy by marriage, she's part of the curse." This is followed by a very unenthused "Whoa, Bundy"

[edit] Controversy & missing episodes

One episode of Married... with Children was "lost" due to the efforts of a Michigan housewife, it did however air outside America ever since the show went into syndication. Another episode was edited because of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.

[edit] The Rakolta Boycott

In 1989 Terry Rakolta, a homemaker from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, led a boycott against Married... with Children after viewing the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over - 0306"[1]. Offended by the images of an old man wearing a garter and stockings, a homosexual 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 refused to air the episode titled "I'll See You In Court - 0308"[2]. This episode would become known as the "Lost Episode" and was aired on FX on June 18 2002. The episode was packaged with the rest of the third season in the January 2005 DVD release.

During the boycott, ratings for Married... with Children rose due to interest in the show caused by Rakolta's crusade to have the show canceled. The increased number of viewers kept the show on the air until 1997. According to sources on the set, the producers sent Rakolta a fruit basket every Christmas as a way of saying "Thank you."

Rakolta has been referenced twice on the show: "Rock and Roll Girl - 0414"[3] when a newscaster mentioned the city Bloomfield Hills, and "No Pot To Pease In - 0909"[4] when a television show was made about the Bundy family, then canceled because (according to Marcy) "Some woman in Michigan didn't like it."

[edit] DVD releases

Season Releases

DVD Name	Release Date	Ep #	Additional Information
The Complete First Season	October 28 2003	13	Reunion special and Bonus trailers.
The Complete Second Season	March 16 2004	22	13 Hidden Easter Eggs Featuring Interviews With the Cast.
The Complete Third Season	January 25 2005	23	Easter Eggs and Previews.
The Complete Fourth Season	August 30 2005	23	Bonus Previews.
The Complete Fifth Season	June 20 2006	25	Bonus Previews.
The Complete Sixth Season	December 19 2006	26	Bonus Previews.
The Complete Seventh Season	TBA 2007	26	Bonus Previews.
The Complete Eighth Season	TBA 2007	26
The Complete Ninth Season	TBA 2007	26
The Complete Tenth Season	TBA 2008	26
The Complete Eleventh Season	TBA 2008	24

[edit] Remakes

[edit] The WB

The WB Network's comedy Unhappily Ever After (1995-1999) has a similar setting, and was also created by Ron Leavitt.

[edit] United Kingdom

Married... with Children is one of a handful of US comedies that have been remade for Britain. 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. Also, British TV is in general more risque than American, and the BBC had already been showing shows like Married for years.

[edit] Germany

The German sitcom Help, My Family is Crazy showing the family Strunk is a remake of the 26 early episodes of "Married... with Children". The show first aired in 1992.

[edit] Spanish Audiences

The Spanish TV network Cuatro is currently showing a Spanish version called Marriage with children.

[edit] Argentina

Also, in Argentina a remake has been done under the name of Married With Children. The show aired in 2005 and although it wasn't successful at first, it was aired again during summer and it got one of the highest ratings of the year and because of that, a 2nd season has been done for 2006.

[edit] Chile

Finally, in Chile, a remake was made in 2006, with the name Married with Children', and it has been getting higher ratings, beating soap operas broadcasting in the same hour. The show is broadcasted daily and because of higher ratings, it is now being shown three times a day and it has been renewed for a second season. The characters are Alberto Larraín, Quena Gómez de Larraín, Nacho, and Titi.

[edit] Trivia

• The address of the Bundy Household is 9764 Jeopardy Lane, Chicago, Illinois.
• For the first eleven episodes of season six, both Marcy and Peggy were pregnant. When actress Katey Sagal, who was pregnant in real life, miscarried in late 1991, both pregnancies on the series were written off as a dream of Al's, à la Dallas.
• The syndicated version of the episode titled "Get Outta Dodge - 0817"[5] 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 syndicated re-airings of the episode after September 11th, 2001.
• Al's Dodge is the butt of frequent jokes. The car shown is actually a 1971 Plymouth Duster, which is the twin of the Dodge Demon. The Duster and Dart Sport/Demon are based on the Plymouth Valiant and are renowned for their reliability and durability. One episode centered around Dodge executives visiting to photograph his car's odometer as it rolled over a million miles.
• 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 uncle Irwin. 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 episode "It's A Bundyful Life", spoofing Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.
• The producers also originally wanted in 1986 to cast Michael Richards as Al Bundy.
• The producers originally wanted Roseanne Barr for the part of Peggy Bundy, but she declined and the producers cast on Katey Sagal.
• 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. The show was about an ex-boyfriend of Kelly Bundy (played by LeBlanc) and his father, an old friend of Al Bundy (played by Joseph Bologna), 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 Rhoades as the antagonistic Dean.
  • "Enemies" was a Friends clone, featuring Alan Thicke, based around Kelly Bundy's social circle.
• In addition to those three spin-offs, a Frasier-type spin-off (i.e., picking up from where the show it spun-off from left off) about Kelly Bundy was planned but never made for two reasons: Christina Applegate turned it down, and Fox's contract stated that the two Bundy children couldn't get spin-offs.
• 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.
• In the episode "Kelly Does Not Live Here Anymore", Jefferson mistakenly calls Al "Captain" (from the Love Boat) and "Fonzie" (from Happy Days) referring to shows that Ted McGinley had played characters on. Gags such as this were frequent, such as in one episode where Kelly gets a job at a pesticide amusement park, children surround Jefferson claiming that he's "the guy from Happy Days", a claim which he denies.
• The house shown in the intro to the show is a real house on Castlewood Lane in Deerfield, Illinois.
• The Bundys and Marcy appeared in a theatrical public service announcement for the Will Rogers Institute, it is not known what year this was filmed, it is most likely 1989 since Steve nor Jefferson are in the PSA.
• In the film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, while flipping through the channels on his television, Borat watches a few seconds of Married...with Children and laughs at a demeaning joke made by Al at the expense of Peggy. The clip shown on the television came from the season four episode, "Oh, What A Feeling."
• In season five, Al and Jefferson argue over who was in the first Lite Beer commercial. Al claims it was Bubba Smith, and Jefferson claims it was Billy Martin. Neither were right. The first lite beer commercial was New York Jets player Matt Snell in 1973.[6]
• Throughout its long run, day to day production was overseen by Barbara Blachut Cramer (1987-1991), and John Maxwell Anderson (1991-1997)
• The pre-production working title of the show was "Not The Cosbys"
• Due to the popularity of the show in Germany, the Buckingham Fountain was bestowed the nickname "The Bundy Fountain" by German tourists.
• The episode "Crime Against Obesity" has a reference to the Nirvana song Polly, where Kelly tries to get a tied up Bud with a bag over his head out of the situation by using a blow torch.
• The Bundy family was a noted fan of the inexpensive beverage mix Tang, even making sandwiches of it one episode.
• Christina Applegate had to wear a wig for the last two seasons because one day she cut off all her hair and dyed it purple.[7]
• Katey Sagal came up with the idea for her character Peggy Bundy to dress in 1960s-inspired clothing. Sagal's reason for the look was because she wanted to parody the 1960s housewife. For her audition, Sagal had brought her own red beehive wig, and when she won the role, producers approved the image into the show. (Peggy's '60s wear included the beehive hair, tight capris-styled leggings paired with a large belt, and slip on heels.)

[edit] International

Married...with Children is also popular in other countries around the world.

Australia: The show runs nightly on a cable channel distributing 'classic' television, TV1.

Austria: The show aired on the from 03/06/95 until 03/18/98 under the name "Eine Schrecklich nette Famile" meaning "a terribly nice Family" on the Pubcaster ORF.

Belgium: The show still periodically runs on the commercial network VT4.

Brazil: The show runs on Sony Entertainment Television

Bulgaria: The show runs on the FOXlife and BTV channels and is translated as "Женени с деца" ("Zheneni s detsa").

Canada: The show is being run on the channel TVtropolis . It also airs on Country-music oriented channel, CMT.

Croatia: The show runs on Croatian RTL as "Bračne vode", translated as 'Marriage waters'. (it was originally aired on HRT (Croatian Radiotelevision) in late 90s)

Denmark: The show is called Vore værste år (Our worst years), and it is seen on TV3. (See also Sweden)

Estonia: The show is called "Tuvikesed" ("lovebirds") and runs on Kanal 2.

Finland: The show is called "Pulmuset" ("loveydoves") and runs on Channel Four (Nelonen).

France : The show has been seen on M6 as "Mariés, deux enfants" ("Married, two children") since 1989.

Germany: Has been running since 1992 on RTL ("RTLplus" at that time) as "Eine schrecklich nette Familie", which roughly translates as 'a terribly nice family'. It aired also on ProSieben, currently airs on Kabel1 and Sat.1 Comedy.

Greece: Has been on and off the air in ANT1 channel from the nineties onwards, entitled "Παντρεμένοι με παιδιά", a literal translation of the English original. The show has seen many re-runs.

Hungary: The show is entitled Egy rém rendes család (meaning circa "A gruesomely decent family", which is a translation from the German title) and has ventured from channel to channel over the years, from the now-defunct TV3 through RTL Klub to Viasat 3, where it is occasionally repeated. A cable television called CoolTV airs 3 episodes each day.

Israel:The show can usually be seen on HOT cable television, in the channel Bip, channel 4.

Kuwait: The shows entire seasons have been repeated on the Paramount Comedy Channel for three years.

Lithuania:The show periodically runs on TV3

Mexico: Runs on Sony Entertainment Television

Norway: Originally (some ten years ago on TV3) aired as Våre verste år (Our worst years), the show is now called Bundy and is currently in re-runs after midnight every day except weekends on TV3. Is also shown on ZTV Norway weekdays at 5:30 PM local time.

Netherlands: The show periodically runs on RTL 7 and Veronica.

New Zealand: Ran for many years on TV2, now on Sky TV.

Spain: The original series were a classic that ran for a decade in the public national channel TVE 2. Recently the Spanish TV channel Cuatro did a remake of the original series under the name Matrimonio con Hijos.[8]

Spanish speaking Latin America:The show is called Matrimonio con hijos.

Poland: Show is entitled Świat według Bundych (World according to Bundys). It was aired many times on Polsat, and it's still on the air there today. Show was so popular, Polsat made Polish sitcom - Świat według Kiepskich (World according to Kiepsky).

Peru The show runs on TV 13 - RED GLOBAL. The show is entitled correctly "Matrimonio con Hijos" (Married with Children). It runs from Monday to Friday 20.00 pm

Romania: Runs periodically as Familia Bundy (The Bundy Family) on a commercial network PRO TV.

Russia: The show is entiled Женаты... с детьми (Zhenaty... s det'mi) runs on the Domashny channel. TNT Network made a Russian version of the sitcom called Счастливы вместе (Schastlivy vmeste, Happy together)

Sweden: The show is entitled Våra värsta år, translated to "Our worst years". Meant as a pun on the title for the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives called Våra bästa år which is "Our best years". It has been shown repeatedly on the Kinnevik-owned channels TV3 and ZTV. After several years off the air, it returned in 2006 as a part of TV6's launch schedule.

The Czech Republic: The show is entitled Zenaty se zavazky which is the literal translation of the show title. First it was aired on TV Nova and then re-run on Prima TV several times.

Turkey: The show still runs on CNBC-E.

UK: The show can currently be seen on ITV4

[edit] See also

• List of Married... with Children episodes

[edit] External links

• Official site from Sony Pictures Television
• Married... with Children at the Internet Movie Database
• Bundyology, a fan's website
• Al Bundy Site, a fan's website (infos, making ofs, forum,..)
• E.E. Bell's (Bob Rooney) Homepage
• Casado con hijos, opening credits of the Argentinean remake
• Casado con hijos, the Chilean remake
• Casados con hijos, the Colombian remake
• Matrimonio con hijos, the Spaniard remakebg:Женени с деца

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