Unhappily Ever After

Frankly Unhappily Ever After can be considered a guilty pleasure. The show esstentially played out on a trashy level (i.e. in terms of its seemingly inane storytelling) and perhaps the acting had a tendecy of being relatively amateurish. Unhappily Ever After tried to coast as far as it could in terms of references to popular culture and to a certain degree the show benefited from it. Perhaps that was the only thing the show had to fall back on but the references managed to come out on a frequent basis and were fairly interesting never the less. Perhaps Unhappily Ever After can considerably be labled as "low-rent satire." You're viewing something that's can be juvenile on a frequent basis but at the same time will make a fun out of numerous things in popular culture.

Unhappily ever after is a great show. It may be a ripoff of "Married With Children" but it is a better show. The best character is Mr. Floppy (Jack's alter ego) whose funny jokes and witty comments almost make the show! On scale of one to ten (1=lowest, 10=highest) I give this show 9.7. It's a great show!

I'll admit, when I first started watching this show in 1995, I thought that this would be the new MWC once the old MWC went off the air. I mean, look at the similarities......the deadbeat, minimum-wage earning father; the wise-cracking, undersexed mother; a son who dreams of scoring but never does, and a totally hot daughter. There's a few differences, however:

1. The hot daughter is smarter than the boys. She's the straight-A student here. Of course, that doesn't stop her from wiggling around in the shortest skirts possible.

2. There's 2 sons. One combines the undersexed part of MWC's "Bud" character and the dumb part of MWC's "Kelly" character, the other is used primarily for comic relief.

3. Mr. Floppy. The talking bunny is Mr. Malloy's alter ego, and only he can talk to him. Of course, his family thinks he's crazy when he spends all that time in the basement.

4. Tiffany, the hot, short-skirted daughter, is a virgin. When I first heard this, I thought it was the biggest contradiction of the show. Here's a girl that looks this good, with all these guys drooling over her, and she's a VIRGIN? Oh please. As we all know, Kelly Bundy of MWC's favorite spot was the back seat of a car. We didn't see it on camera, but she was understood to be very promiscuous.

After the behind-the-scenes people seen who was watching the show, and who on the show they were watching, first the grandma was let go (after the first season!) and then Stephanie Hodge (who played the mother) was booted off the show. "Unhappily" was restructured around Nikki Cox's character, Tiffany. The show then became an exercise in watching Tiffany and her best friend glide across the screen in the shortest, skimpiest dresses allowed on TV-14 television. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show, and when it went off the air I was pretty disappointed. The reruns are still around, and I really like watching those! I give this show a solid A.

It's true that the show is an obvious Married With Children ripoff. In fact, in one episode I specifically remember Ed O'Neill's (Al Bundy from Married With Children) name being mentioned. Nevertheless, the show is hilarious. Especially Mr Floppy.

"Unhappily Ever After" is the best trashy sitcom ever to be shown on TV. I mean, how funny are sitcoms nowadays? The humor was just different and the actors didn't take themselves too serious. Mr.Floppy's one of the best characters, where else can you watch a bunny that makes fun of celebrities and politics in almost every episode?

The first two seasons were much better, because.. 1.) Tiffany and Ryan seemed like young kids 2.) The writers just did what they wanted to do. Soon every episode will seem the same. 3.) Jack never got out of the house. 4.) Tiffany's character became perfect in the later seasons, the writers even gave her the best speeches.

This show was about to become really good, but somehow went down the hill. If you are a fan of "Married.. with Children" and "Malcolm in the Middle" you'll definitely like it.