Married . . . with Children [TV Series] (DVD)

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One of life's great mysteries is how a show like "Married . . . with Children" could possibly run for 10 years or 11 seasons (it was a spring replacement). I could see why it would be popular at first.

"Married . . . with Children" debuted on April 5, 1987, at a time when "The Cosby Show" was making parents all across the United States feel like failures because they weren't the fun-loving, educated, never-spank-the-kids Cosbys. For TV audiences, it must have felt like an April Fool's joke when Frank Sinatra began singing "Love and Marriage" to introduce this bizarre Chicago family. Fox, the brand-new network that would later give us such freaky fare as "When Good Animals Go Bad," had just launched their version of "When Good Family Sitcoms Go Bad." The Bundys were the anti-Cosbys, as dysfunctional a family as television had ever seen, and it's no coincidence that their name just happened to be the same as serial killer Ted Bundy. Adding insult to injury for some viewers was that the show aired on Sunday evenings, right after Bill Cosby and his model TV family. During the 1988-89 season, angry housewives actually launched a letter-writing campaign urging a boycott of the show, but the Bundys rolled on. I can see why. You can only take so much perfection and idealized sugar-and-spice family comedy before you want to say, "Hey, our family isn't like that. We do gross things, we're sometimes unkind to each other, and we speak unspeakable things that we then have to apologize for." No wonder the Bundys struck a powerful chord when it first aired.

The surprise, though, is that the show continued to air after the initial anti-Cosby jokes were used up. Then re-used, and re-used again and again. I mean, when you watch Season 10 you realize how the jokes never went into new territory. Though they never made it as many seasons as some of the top comedies, in sheer number of episodes aired "Married . . . with Children" ranks sixth on the list, ahead of "Happy Days," "The Andy Griffith Show," "All in the Family," and, yes, "The Cosby Show." The Cosbys managed 201 episodes, while the Bundys generated 262. But while "The Cosby Show" was often rated the #1 show in full-year Nielsen surveys, "Married . . . with Children" never made it into the top 25 shows going head-to-head against that wholesome program. Before "Baywatch," it also had the distinction of being the longest-running TV show never to win an Emmy.

"Married . . . with Children" had a dedicated audience, but a relatively small one. And at the risk of offending that dedicated audience, let me speculate why. For one thing, it's played over-the-top, like bad dinner theater, exaggerated with raunchy flair. And just as the Bundys aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the marquee, the show itself can be as dumb and uncomplicated as some of the worst "Three's Company" or "Gilligan's Island" episodes. Even co-star Christina Applegate said she thought the show was so "trashy" that her initial response was to turn down the part, we learn on one of the Easter Egg clips that show the actors reminiscing. Yet, there are laugh-out-loud lines in just about every episode in the early years, and Applegate admits that when she actually watched the show, she cracked up. But by the 10th season, the joke well is almost dry, and everyone just seems to be going through the motions. It's like watching "Emeril" where every time he adds liquor to a dish the audience squeals with delight and applauds, only that reaction comes every time a raunchy (but familiar) joke comes down the pike.

The family patriarch, Al (Ed O'Neill), worked by day in women's shoes, but by night? He carved a bigger butt-niche in the furniture facing the television than Archie Bunker did years earlier. Al sees himself as a larger-than-life breadwinner whose family doesn't appreciate him. What's to appreciate? his wife would sneer. Peggy (Katey Sagal) sports tight pants, flashy jewelry, big hair, and a bigger attitude. She and daughter Kelly (Applegate) are the oversexed ones in the family, while Al and son Bud (David Faustino) are the big talkers. Rounding out the cast are neighbors Jefferson D'Arcy (Ted McGinley) and Marcy Rhoades D'Arcy (Amanda Bearse).

This is the season that Bud moves out of his room . . . and into the basement. Meanwhile, Peg's never-seen mother moves into Bud's vacated bedroom. This is also the season when Buck, the family dog, dies . . . and is reincarnated as the Bundy's new dog, Lucky. Yeah, the writers had gotten desperate by now. Even the two-part Spring Break episode was a bust. Now, when you can't do something funny with THAT concept and the two teen stars, you've got a problem.