AT HOME WITH THE BUNDYS! 'MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN'

Suffer thy family! The cast of MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN. Images: FOX.

Before the Griffins, before the Simpsons, there were the unforgettable dystopian, dysfunctional Chicago-based family that were The Bundys (comprising disgruntled with wife, his shoes sales job, America and everything, and loathed by everyone, including his family, dad Al (brilliantly portrayed by Ed O'Neill), equally frustrated with life and love mum, rock chick spendaholic "Big Red" Peggy (Katey Sagal), the girl crazy, Hugh Hefner entrepreneur wannabe son, Bud-often referring to himself by the name of Funkmeister B! (David Faustino), and incredibly dumb and lazy, get rich quick, teenage sex bomb Kelly (Christina Applegate, who certainly made an impression with male audiences everywhere right after the first episode!), experienced in the memorable, often downright brilliant, sometimes surreal, eleven season long domestic comedy series that was MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN, created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt, giving us our first real look at the warped and twisted side of the American Dream, as downtrodden and cornered Al has to try and cope with his demanding and unreliable family as well as the jibes and grievances from his neighbours (the demented husband and wife snobs, the D'Arcy's. (A special mention here to Amanda Bearse as the often demented Marcy- stern Republican, and true Al Bandy hater, who possessed a darkly deviant and sadistic side and seemed to become more of a loon with every season!) MARRIED... was basically everybody's worst nightmares about suburbia, and the people who live next door to you, made true. Anybody expecting LEAVE IT TO BEAVER was going to be in for a shock!

Title sequence: Married with children opening - YouTube
Clips: Married...With Children Minisodes - Desperately Seeking Miss October - YouTube
Married...With Children Minisodes - 976-Shoe - YouTube
Married...With Children Minisodes - Rock and Roll Girl - YouTube

Despite much critical disdain for the shows often comic book slapstick comedy, it's crude but often brilliant visual gags and sexual innuendo/ referencing, audiences loved the show worldwide and often rooted for/ sympathised with Al and his poor mans predicament within the tumultuous time of George Bush's America. A big hit for then relatively fledgling US FOX channel, here in the UK, I think only the first six or seven seasons we're shown in their entirety (I remember seeing it very late weekend nights on the LWT channel), before it found constantly moving day/time slot homes on satellite airings, right up to the point where a new member of the Bundy household (their surname not to be confused with that of the dreaded serial killer Ted Bundy!) was that little precocious punk kid Seven (Shane Sweet) -who soon proved unpopular with the behind the scenes writers and audiences and was written out as quickly as possible. The less said about him the better.

Al (Ed O' Neill), please don't even attempt to win the argument with Peggy (Katey Sagal)

How the series finally ended it's run I'll never really know. Did Al finally manage to have an afternoon in and finish watching his favourite film: John Wayne's HONDO)? Did we ever get to see Peggy's constantly troubled Ma Wanker (a very unfortunate name if you live in the UK), whom, I hear, came to stay with the Bundy's for a season? Did Bud ever get a lasting girlfriend? Did anyone ever realise how super-intelligent their dog, Buck (played by Michael, voiced by Steven Ritt), was? And did Marcy's head finally explode from all those inner-voices she was hearing?

Reuniting for a US retrospective for the shows landmark twenty-fifth anniversary this year (of which the original pilot episode was dusted down and got a deserved FOX channel re-airing), all of the cast have gone on to great and diverse careers since MARRIED ended, and the series, despite shifting trends over the years, and the stigma of its prior video-made, studio audience bound eighties pedigree, have remained consistently funny. There's even been several equally successful international versions of the show made in places like Russia, Germany and Argentina, so it looks like you can't keep a good Bundy down!

DVD promotional image for one of the US releases.

On the repeat side of things, MARRIED... has had a bit of a drought since it's last airing on UK TV, so here's hoping someone eventually picks it up in it's entirety in the not too distant future...