Married... with Children


Married... with Children is an American television sitcom created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Originally broadcast from April 5, 1987 to June 9, 1997, it is the longest-lasting live-action sitcom on Fox and the first to be broadcast in the network's primetime slot. In additional to the show's original run, one episode that was not screened on Fox when originally filmed in 1990 was aired on FX on June 18, 2002, five years after the series' conclusion.
The show follows the suburban Chicago lives of Al Bundy, a once-glorious high school football player turned hard-luck women's shoe salesman; his lazy wife, Peggy; their attractive, dumb and popular daughter, Kelly; and their smart, horny and unpopular son, Bud. Their neighbors are the upwardly mobile Steve Rhoades and his wife Marcy, who later gets remarried to Jefferson D'Arcy, a white-collar criminal who becomes her "trophy husband" and Al's sidekick. Most storylines involve Al's schemes being foiled by his own cartoonish dim wit and bad luck.
The series comprises 259 episodes and 11 seasons. Its theme song is "Love and Marriage" by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, performed by Frank Sinatra from the 1955 television production Our Town.
The first two seasons of the series were videotaped at ABC Television Center in Hollywood. From season three to season eight, the show was taped at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, and the remaining three seasons were taped at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. The series was produced by Embassy Communications during its first season and half of its second season and the remaining seasons by ELP Communications under the studio Columbia Pictures Television.
In 2008, the show placed number 94 on Entertainment Weekly "New TV Classics" list.

Cast and characters

ActorRoleYearsSeasonsEpisodes
Ed O'NeillAl Bundy1987–1997, 20021–11259
Katey SagalMargaret "Peggy" Bundy1987–1997, 20021–11247
Amanda BearseMarcy Rhoades/D'Arcy1987–1997, 20021–11236
David GarrisonSteve Rhoades1987–1990, 1992, 1993, 19951–4, guest 6–7, 973
Christina ApplegateKelly Bundy1987–1997, 20021–11256
David FaustinoBud Bundy1987–1997, 20021–11257
Ted McGinleyJefferson D'Arcy1989, 1991–1997, 20025–11167

In the show's pilot episode, Tina Caspary played the role of Kelly Bundy, while Hunter Carson played Bud. Before the series aired publicly the roles for the two Bundy children were re-cast. O'Neill felt a lack of chemistry with the original actors cast as the children. He requested a re-cast, which the producers approved. All of the scenes in the original pilot were re-shot with the replacement actors, Christina Applegate and David Faustino.

Recurring characters

On April 22, 2012, Fox reaired the series premiere in commemoration of its 25th anniversary.

Episodes

During its 11-season run on the Fox network, Married... with Children aired 258 episodes. A 259th episode, "I'll See You in Court" from season 3, never aired on Fox, but premiered on FX and has since been included on DVD and in syndication packages. The episode counts in the chart below. Three specials also aired following the series' cancellation, including a cast reunion. All episodes included a standard laugh track; in later seasons the track was modified to have the audience wildly cheer the first time Ed O'Neill entered a scene.

Nielsen ratings

Despite the show's enduring popularity and fanbase, Married... with Children was never a huge ratings success. Part of the reason was the fact that Fox, being a new startup network, did not have the affiliate base of the Big Three television networks, thus preventing the series from reaching the entire country. In an interview for a special commemorating the series' 20-year anniversary in 2007, Katey Sagal stated that part of the problem the series faced was that many areas of the country were able to get Fox only through low-quality UHF channels well into the early 1990s, while some areas of the country did not receive the new network at all, a problem not largely rectified until the launch of Foxnet in June 1991 and later the 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment which brought the NFC football rights to the network.
Another problem lay in the fact that many of the newly-developed series on Fox were unsuccessful, which kept the network from building a popular lineup to draw in a larger audience. In its original airing debut, Married... with Children was part of a Sunday lineup that competed with the popular Murder, She Wrote and Sunday-night movie on CBS. Fellow freshman series included Duet, cancelled in 1989, along with It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Tracey Ullman Show, both of which were canceled in 1990. The success of The Simpsons, which debuted on The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987, helped draw some viewers over to Fox, allowing Married... with Children to sneak into the top 50 of television shows for seasons 3 through 9 doing its best overall rating at number 8 for its third and tenth seasons. Although these ratings were somewhat small in comparison with the other three networks, they were good enough for Fox to keep renewing the show.
Ratings data for some seasons courtesy of TVTango.com.
In 1989, Terry Rakolta, from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, led a boycott of the show after viewing the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over". Offended by the images of an old man wearing a woman's garter and stockings, the scene where Steve touches the pasties of a mannequin dressed in S&M gear, a homosexual man wearing a tiara on his head, and a half-nude woman who takes off her bra in front of Al, 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 demanding the show's cancellation, Fox executives refused to air the episode titled "I'll See You in Court". This episode would become known as the "Lost Episode" and was aired on FX on June 18, 2002, with some parts cut. The episode was packaged with the rest of the third season in the January 2005 DVD release with the parts cut from syndication restored.
Ironically, viewers' curiosity over the boycott and over the show itself led to a drastic ratings boost in an example of the Streisand Effect, which Rakolta has since acknowledged. She has been referenced twice on the show: "Rock and Roll Girl" when a newscaster mentioned the city Bloomfield Hills, and "No Pot to Pease In", when a television show was made about the Bundy family and then was cancelled because "some woman in Michigan didn't like it".
The conservative Parents Television Council named Married... with Children the worst show of both the 1995–96 and 1996–97 television seasons in its first two years in operation. In 1996, the organization called the show the "crudest comedy on prime time television...peppered with lewd punch lines about sex, masturbation, the gay lifestyle and the lead character's fondness for pornographic magazines and strip clubs."

Home media

has released all 11 seasons of Married... with Children on DVD in Regions 1, 2, & 4. On December 12, 2010, Sony released a complete series set on DVD in Region 1.
In December 2007, the Big Bundy Box—a special collection box with all seasons plus new interviews with Sagal and David Faustino—was released. This boxset was released in Australia on November 23, 2009.
The Sony DVD box sets from season 3 onward do not feature the original "Love and Marriage" theme song in the opening sequence. This was done because Sony was unable to obtain the licensing rights to the song for later sets. Despite this, the end credits on the DVDs for season 3 still include a credit for "Love and Marriage."
On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the home media rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library including Married... with Children with the original theme song "Love and Marriage" sung by Frank Sinatra. They have subsequently re-released the 11 seasons on DVD. The Mill Creek Entertainment version include scenes that are normally edited in syndication and most of the licensed music that's dubbed over or deleted due to copyright issues. A complete series DVD set was re-released on July 7, 2015 in Region 1. All seasons of Married with Children are now available for online download and streaming through Amazon, Apple iTunes, Hulu, and Vudu.

Merchandise

Books

The Complete "Married... with Children" Book: TV's Dysfunctional Family Phenomenon, Bear Manor Media, August 2017,

Comic books

Married... with Children was adapted into a comic book series by NOW Comics in 1990.

Toys

Board game

Two series of 8" action figures were produced by Classic TV Toys in 2005 and 2006.
In 2018, Funko produced figures of Al, Kelly, Bud and Peggy as a part of their Funko POP! line.
That same year, Funko also released a Married... with Children box set as a Comic Con Exclusive. It included retro-styled Al, Peggy, Kelly and Bud action figures.
In 2018 and 2019, Mego released Target exclusives of Al, Peggy and Kelly in 1/9 scale.

International remakes

;Armenia
An Armenian remake was made in 2016, called The Azizyans. The Azizyans is an Armenian sitcom television series developed by Robert Martirosyan and Van Grigoryan. The series premiered on Armenia TV on October 31, 2016. However, the series was not available to the public until Armenia TV started airing the sitcom from October 10, 2017. The series takes place in Yerevan, Armenia. The Azizyans sitcom is starred by Hayk Marutyan. He embodies the character of Garnik Azizyan – a clothes store seller, who is the only one working in the family. Mrs. Ruzan Azizyan is lazy enough to perform the duties of a housewife. The problems of the father of the family don't bother his 3 children – his daughter, who is internet-addicted and is active in all social networks; his unemployed eldest son, who is a complete loser, and his youngest son, who is a schoolboy. The roles in this sitcom, created for family watching, are played by Ani Lupe, Satenik Hazaryan, Ishkhan Gharibyan, Suren Arustamyan and other popular Armenian actors. The project is directed by Arman Marutyan. In the second season of the sitcom, the Azizyan family continues to survive thanks to the meager salary of Garnik. The wife of Garnik - Ruzan, remains in the status of a housewife, without even thinking about finding a job. The elder son of Garnik and Ruzan - Azat, continues to look for a new job, a young man appears in the life of Marie, who is trying to win the girl's heart. Their younger son Levon, continues to live his own life and does not understand what he has in common with this family. And their neighbors Irina and Alik continue to be friends with the family, which Azizyans do not quite approve. The only bright spot in the life of the family is their house, which Garnik inherited from his grandfather.
;Argentina
An Argentine remake was made in 2005, called Casados con Hijos. The series was also shown by local channels in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru. Only two seasons were made, but it is still aired Monday through Friday at 2 pm and Saturday at 11:30 pm by Telefe.
The character names are: José "Pepe" Argento, Mónica "Moni" Argento, Paola Argento, Alfio "Coqui" Argento, Dardo and María Elena Fuseneco.
;Brazil
In Brazil Rede Bandeirantes made a remake in 1999 with the name A Guerra dos Pintos. 52 episodes were recorded but only 22 aired before cancelation.
;Bulgaria
In Bulgaria a remake is aired from March 26, 2012 with the name Женени с деца в България .
;Croatia
In Croatia a remake called Bračne vode was broadcast from September 2008 until November 2009 on Nova TV channel. The characters based on the Bundys were called Zvonimir, Sunčica, Kristina and Boris Bandić while the ones based on Marcy and Steve were called Marica and Ivan Kumarica.
;Germany
In Germany, the 1992 remake Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt, broadcast in the prime time, reached double the audience than the original. This, however, was not enough to maintain the series, so it was cancelled after one season. The remake used the exact translated scripts of the original series and just renamed places and people according to the new setting.
Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt was aired from March to December 1993 for 26 episodes.
;Hungary
In 2006, Hungarian TV network TV2 purchased the license rights including scripts and hired the original producers from Sony Pictures for a remake of the show placed in a Hungarian environment. It was entitled Egy rém rendes család Budapesten. The main story began with the new family called the Bándis inheriting an outskirt house from their American relatives the Bundys. They filmed a whole season of 26 episodes, all of them being remade versions of the plots of the original first seasons. It was the highest budget sitcom ever made in Hungary. First it was aired on Tuesday nights, but was beaten by a new season of ER, then placed to Wednesday nights. The remake lost its viewers, but stayed on the air due to the contract between Sony and TV2. Also the Hungarian critics have strongly condemned the copyright infringement of the original series. They also criticized the lack of quality and the dilettante forcing of the American cliches in Eastern European environment.
;Israel
The complete American series aired in Israel in the 1990s, with reruns of it ever since. There has also been an Israeli remake to the show titled Nesuim Plus that aired its two seasons from 2012 to 2017.
;Russia
The Original Married... With Children ran on TV-6 Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s in prime-time basis, broadcasting the episodes from seasons 1–10. The show later aired on DTV and Domashniy TV. However, for unknown reasons, most episodes from season 11 were not shown. A Russian adaptation, titled Happy Together, was broadcast on TNT across the country.
The character names are: Gena Bukin, Dasha Bukina, Sveta Bukina, Roma Bukin, Elena and Anatoliy Poleno, Evgeniy Stepanov, Sema Bukin, and Baron Bukin.
;UK
ITV had been screening the original Married... With Children since 1988. In 1996, the UK production company Central Television and Columbia Pictures Television produced a UK version called Married for Life, which lasted for one series with seven episodes.

Spin-offs

Top of the Heap was a sitcom starring Matt LeBlanc. The show was about Vinnie Verducci and his father Charlie always trying get rich quick schemes. The Verduccis were introduced in an earlier episode where Vinnie dated Kelly Bundy, and Charlie was introduced as an old friend of Al Bundy's. The end of the pilot episode shows Al breaking into their apartment and stealing their TV to replace the one he lost betting on Vinnie in a boxing match. However, the show didn't last long and was ultimately cancelled. It had its own spin-off/sequel called Vinnie & Bobby a year later, which was also cancelled.
Also, an attempt was made to make a spin-off out of David Garrison's Steve Rhoades character which took place on Bud's Trumaine University called Radio Free Trumaine where Garrison played the Dean. Enemies was another spin-off, but played to be a spoof on the TV series Friends.
On September 11, 2014, it was announced that a spin-off was in the works, centered on the character of Bud Bundy.

U.S. syndication and international airings

Distributed by Columbia Pictures Television Distribution, Married... with Children debuted in off-network syndication in the fall of 1991. The series later began airing on cable on FX from September 1998 until 2007. In June 2002, FX became the first television network to air the controversial, previously banned episode "I'll See You in Court", albeit in an edited format. The fully uncensored version of "I'll See You in Court" can only be seen on the DVD release Married... with Children: The Most Outrageous Episodes Volume 1 and the Mill Creek Entertainment complete series collection. The version found on the Third Season DVD set under Sony is the edited-for-TV version. In 2008, the Spike network reportedly paid US$12 million for broadcast rights to every episode including the unedited version of the infamous episode, "I'll See You in Court".
The series started airing on Spike TV on September 29, 2008 with a weeklong marathon. TBS also began airing the show shortly after, acquiring the show in fall 2008 to run in the early morning hours. Through late September 2018 it ran for two to three hours on TBS during the early morning hours before TBS dropped it from their lineup. TV Land picked up the rights to broadcast the show from its MTV Networks sister Spike in August 2009. Comedy Central began airing the show on February 8, 2010; Comedy Central acquired rights to air the series from TV Land, who in turn, had earlier acquired the rights to the series from Spike, though Comedy Central dropped the rights to the series in April 2010. Spike picked up the rights to the series again, and began airing the series for the second time on July 10, 2010, airing on weekend mornings only. All three cable channels are owned by Viacom. The comedy began airing on Nick at Nite on July 6, 2011. MTV2 added the series on March 21, 2012 and VH1 Classic began airing the series on April 9, 2012. The series has aired on a total of seven MTV Networks owned cable networks since 2008. It previously aired on Antenna TV, Ion Television, and TBS. The series currently airs on CMT, GetTV, Logo TV and regularly on WGN America. WGN America gained rights to the show when TBS removed it from their early morning slots in September 2018. In November 2018, the entire 11-season run became available to watch through Hulu.
Married...with Children has also been a ratings success in other countries around the world.

Locations

The opening footage comprises views of Chicago, opening with a shot of Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. The aerial downtown shot was taken from the Lake Shore Drive section north of the Loop. The expressway entrance shot was taken from the 1983 movie National Lampoon's Vacation featuring the Griswolds' green family truckster with a northeastward view of the Dan Ryan/Stevenson junction southwest of the Loop. The exterior shot used for the Bundys' house was taken in a subdivision in Batavia, Illinois. Both the downtown view and the highway entrance shot were omitted from Season 4 onwards, but the remaining fountain shot included an "In Stereo Where Available" note. Non-English versions might differ, e.g. the dubbed German version always includes the expressway shot.