Married with Children

Married With Children has got to be the greatest show ever. I rate it right up ther with Seinfeld and The Simpsons. Al is the king of sitcoms, Kelly is simply divine, Jefferson and Bud were perennial losers, but kept me in stitches with their antics. Peg was annoying and lazy but also quite funny. Marcy was excellent. Her verbal jousts with Al and also Jefferson were legendary!!

Married With Children - 10 out of 10 !!

It sure ain't Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, or Ozzie And Harriet. Those 1950's family shows perfectly defined that air-brushed decade with their fantasy mom, dad, and kids, where no problem couldn't be solved by dad just moving his car and the kids piling in. Against that fantasy world MWC must come from a different planet, or maybe even solar system. Daughter Kelly's Saturday night dates exceed her IQ, while son Bud dates only in his imagination. At the same time, dad Al last smiled when wife Peg almost chopped off her finger, while Peg might one day learn how to turn on a stove. In short, the Bundys amount to the last word in tv's dysfunctional families. For this geezer who grew up with 50's tv families, this 90's version amounts to a hilarious step toward another kind of reality, maybe not the kind we want to be a part of, but a gutsy one for tv to undertake.

I've read the comments and looks like we all like MWC. I stayed with the show through thick and thin. There were a few years when the writing went downhill, but it came back up during the last 2 or 3 years of the show's run.

Anyway, my favorite episode HAS to be the one concerning the Barbie doll. The scene where Al is stuck in bed with Marcy is a CLASSIC (much like the scene in All In The Family where Archie's neice goes out with Lionel, the black neighbor) and when Jefferson comes in and forces Al out the window is nothing short of hilarious. My eyes are filling up with tears of laughter thinking of that scene.

Now for a few unforgettable lines I like:

the episode where the Dodge turns over to 1,000,000 miles: Al turns on the radio and a cowboy is singing "And that's when my hound dog, started looking good to me"

I forget what episode this was in, but Bud kicks his family out so he can study. He says to Buck the dog, "looks like it's just you and me". Bucks says to himself: "Uh oh. I've seen porno movies that start out like this."

I had an idea for a storyline: Al's favorite strip club, The Nudie Bar, is burned down. Was it accidental or was it set by Marcy "Chicken Legs" Darcy and her anti-male friends?

What do you think of that plot? Could it have worked?

I almost submitted this without saying which of Marcy's husbands I liked better. I like Steve just a little bit better. He had that straight face that never cracked a smile no matter how ridiculous Al got. Jefferson was goo too, don't get me wrong.

"Married... with Children" just has something about it that makes it hilarious, it takes the basic premise of the family and suburban life, and puts the family from the hell in there and just lets them constantly rip on each other. It's a testament to the basic formula of the show that it lasted so long, and was still actually funny right up until the last season (with an overweight, balding Ed O"Neil and kids old enough to have left the house by now). The casting was perfect (except for newcomer Jefferson in my opinion) and the character of Ed was what really made the show. The opening song fitted the show perfectly too. Anyone who has watched the show probably has "Married... with Children" moments to this day when they open a fridge with nothing but an empty milk carton in the door or have thoughts about installing an antenna on the roof.

"Married... with Children" is probably one of America's greatest TV exports, it was a privilege to be growing up when this was on every week and I wish all the castmembers continued success.

OK, what's to say about this underappreciated masterpiece of a sitcom that hasn't already been said? Ed O'Neill IS Al Bundy in a way that most of us aren't even ourselves in our own lives. The series wore out its welcome long before its end, but its prime years were incredible. I enjoy my life so much more knowing that I could be Al Bundy, but I'm not!