Married With Children

That show could never be made today.

Its only very low rent humor.

I always got a really repulsive vibe from Ed o Neill. I have trouble watching anything with him in it, and it's not just because he's fug . He reminds me of an angry, embittered suburbanite right winger.

It was the most radical show in the beginning. Marcie was a born again Christian as I recall. Imagine a show like that today R1!

What I never quite understood is how that got produced, but an American version of AbFab could only be produced in a very water downed version.

Most of you bitches would have sucked Al off in a heartbeat.

Of all the American sitcoms my parents watched, Married with Children was the only one I liked as a little kid. Which is fucked up, considering how crude it was. I suppose most of the sex jokes flew over my head. I later became obsessed Friends and Frasier when I was about ten, but I never got into Roseanne or Ellen.

Didn't the actress playing Peg Bundy have an interesting connection to rock?

actually kinda lame by today's standards; someone on dl wrote a male friend of his got cruised by Ed O'Neil in a bar for quite a while, don't think in a gay bar

Before it became more cartoonish, the show was a satire of Reagans America.

One of the first TV programs where the dad was a loser

[quote] Didn't the actress playing Peg Bundy have an interesting connection to rock?

Katey Sagal was one of Bette Midler's Harlettes (backup singers/dancers).

[quote]Didn't the actress playing Peg Bundy have an interesting connection to rock?

Katey Sagal had been one of Bette Midler's Harlettes.

[quote]One of the first TV programs where the dad was a loser

You really don't know much about TV history, do you?

R14, well, he did say "one of".

Married with Children was intended to be the anti-Cosby Show.

The bumbling dad was a stock character going back to the earliest days of television. "Married . . . with Children" just took it further, because it was the '90s and not the '50s anymore. It hardly reinvented the wheel.

R8 She sang backup for Bob Dylan.

A fat woman walked into the shoe store today...

Thnks all!

I always hated the show. I don't know how it ever got made...it must have been extremely cheap to make.

OP You type fat frau

R21 You type illiterate.

And fat.

It will never work. I'll make sure of that.

Christina Applegate was the best thing about the show.

I did a couple of plays with Ed O'Neill way back in the early 1980s when he was still doing theater. He was very hot back then and actually, a great guy with a good sense of humor about himself.

Seasons 3-5 are the best.....It then went quickly into caricatures.

the episode in which Al is confronted by Peggy’s tryst’s husband, welcomes him in and has him cooking dinner in an apron remains one of my favorite plot twists on television.

it was ground-breaking for the late 80s. hard to imagine Fox used to be so cool.

"Seasons 3-5 are the best.....It then went quickly into caricatures."

Agreed.

But Ted McGinley started in the middle of Season 5. Coincidence?

Ted was hot AF.

it was one of the funniest sitcoms ever written and they insulted everybody................

I like the "Butter" episode....where Peggys mom is working a phone sex line from their upstairs.

R31, Divine was going to play Peggy's mom but unfortunately he died! That would have been wonderful though.

I’m surprised no one ever mentions that Ed O’Neil is gay. A very nice gay man BTW.

I once saw he and Eric Braedon having lunch together. Al and Victor. Very disconcerting.

My late father loved it, it had too much bathroom humor for me. Wasn't Erna supposedly in show business? He must have been one of the writers.

R3 isn't he gay?

He was hot

[quote]someone on dl wrote a male friend of his got cruised by Ed O'Neil in a bar for quite a while, don't think in a gay bar

That was me, not my friend. It was an Irish pub on Wilshire Boulevard near the Santa Monica/West L.A. line.

It was slow and we were the only two sitting at the bar. I went from "That's Al Bundy" to "Is Al Bundy cruising me?" to "Holy shit, Al Bundy is cruising me!" in about five minutes.

Then the friend I was waiting for came in and sat down. Ed O'Neill put down a bill to pay for his drink and walked out immediately.

I was a decent-looking kid but nothing special. The whole thing was strange.

It was a good gig for the cast. Reruns today are fun for a laugh, especially in its middling seasons as others have said.

Bud Bundy was cute in the later seasons.

[quote] Marcie was a born again Christian as I recall.

What show were you watching??! lmao. She never was a born again Christian. She was a feminist.

No, Divine was going to play Peg’s uncle.

Peggy was the original drag queen. The early 90s episodes were the best, especially the season they were living in the supermarket when their air conditioner broke.

My mom's and I favorite episodes are the one with Jim Jupiter and the "peeper".

Al fell in love with a gay man who cooked for him played by Dan Castellaneta. Sam McMurray played his husband who was going out dancing with Peggy. Sam and Dan played gay parents on Fox’s sister show The Tracey Ullman Show at the the time.

MWC was a slap in the face to Reagan’s America. Its working title was “Not the Cosbys”.

R27, that was with Dan Castellaneta and yes, it was almost sweet to see how Al Bundy fell for this guy because he cooked and cleaned for him. There was another episode late in the run where Marcy's lesbian cousin comes to town and Al finds himself crushing on her because they were doing everything together.

I love it.

My favorite line was Bud calling Kelly "The CraftMatic adjustable girl".

R41 Marcie as a feminist was later, much later.

R49, there was the episode where Kelly learns to drive. Al opens the door and tells her to get in and naturally, she tries getting in the back seat.

Ed O'Neill was a hot daddy. I didn't know he was gay.

I used to love the show, but in my defense I was about seventeen at the time, so insult humor was real cutting edge. I remember once my father saying to me "what are you watching this for, do you really find it funny?"

[quote]Ed O'Neill was a hot daddy. I didn't know he was gay.

He isn't. This rumor pops up on DL about virtually every male celebrity at some point.

I thought Peg Bundy was actually really sexy.

I loved the episode with Kelly's cable TV show, where it got picked up and then ruined by the network.

Matt LeBlanc was shirtless on Married With Children. YUM

It was always the same few jokes, recycled, in slight variations, ad infinitum. Once you could see them coming from a mile away, it wasn't particularly funny or groundbreaking. Where it was groundbreaking is that it was one of the first sitcoms ever, if not the first one, which revolved singularly around unlikable characters, even before "Seinfeld."

i liked jefferson just fine, thank you very much.

R58 people liked Al! He was an Everyman.

R57 that wasn't married with children - that was the failed spinoff Matt had thanks to his appearance on Married with children but it did showcase a lot of young twink Matt indeed

r61...yes it was....there were a few episodes featuring Matt and Joe Bologna.....one, he comes out of the bathroom and hes holding his shirt and delivers a few lines before putting his shirt on. I just happened to see it a few days ago.

Ed always gave me a major BDF vibe, but I remember meeting someone like that when I was in college ,but his BDF signature was a false flag!

I always found it very entertaining, but everyone is right - there's no way this would get on the air today. People have zero concept of satire these days and they take everything at face value. It always seemed to me like the show was poking fun at Regan's America and all the fools in it. These days, people would automatically assume that everyone involved in the show was supporting Al's horrible behavior and they'd "cancel" all the actors on Twitter if they didn't pull the show. The sad thing is, most people really wouldn't care enough about a damn TV show to do such a thing, but these keyboard warriors are a small and mighty minority. Just once, I'd like for someone to refuse to apologize and say "fuck you if you can't take a joke."

Katey Sagal's twin sisters were in GREASE 2.

R64 I've also noticed that both extremes on either side can't comprehend satire these days. Just read the comments on any MADtv YouTube upload. For example, MADtv did a satirical bit about a black family moving into a white neighborhood in 1950s America. Those on the far left felt that the show was making fun of black people and demanded it be taken down, and those on the far right thought it was promoting '50s nostalgia. (e.g., segregation, women at home).

R5 Fox was more daring then. They were not a respected or respectable network. Legitimacy came later.

Katey Segal is the unsung hero of that show. Her comedic timing is impeccable. She's so over the top, yet she knows just when to pull it back so she does not turn the character into a full out cartoon. She literally pulled off a parody of a parody of a drag queen. Do you know how hard that must have been? I have nothing but respect for her and her Candy Slides.

I loved that Peggy's favorite show was Oprah because at the time it was a trashy daytime talk show, a la Geraldo. I kind of miss that Oprah. Remember when she was the red carpet reporter at the 1996 Oscars -- the same Oscars that Jesse Jacksone et al. were picketing? She got all high and mighty and spiritual in the latter '90s.

Perhaps the funniest sitcom of all time. I find it strange that people feel the need to apologize for liking it. I grew up watching this, Seinfeld and Malcolm in the Middle and loved them all for their non PC humor. I don't even think something like Three's Company could be made today.

[QUOTE]She got all high and mighty and spiritual in the latter '90s.

Yeah, it only made her a multi-billionaire and one of the most influential women in America. Fuck is wrong with her?

R72 I just meant that she and her show weren't as fun to watch anymore after that.

Peg was at her "finest" during the episode where the neighborhood had a Peeping Tom.

Peg was at her "finest" during the episode where the neighborhood had a Peeping Tom.

Always wanted to worship Al's SEXY SMELLY FEETS.

No offense to Katey but Peggy was very different at the beginning of the run. She turned her into Bette Midler, which she learned when she was one of the Harlettes, right down to the walk.

I love the episode where a sky diving Santa landed in their backyard on Xmas because his chute didnt open. It was MWC in its prime.