Is this what life has to offer????? (Married - With Children)

Member Name: blissman70

Product:	Married - With Children
Date:	01/12/08 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: brilliant, hilarious humour

Disadvantages: slows a little in later series

Creators: Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt
Producers: Barbara Blachhut Cramer and John Maxwell Anderson
Stars: Ed o'Neill, Katey Sagal, David Garrison, Amanda Bearse, Christina Applegate, David Faustino and Ted McGinley

I remember first sitting and watching this and thinking this was one of the funniest sitcoms I had seen for a long time... especially as there was absolutely nothing else worth watching at the time, (and I didn't have any money left to go out to the pub..?)
It seemed like a simple format... man hates married life, can do nothing about it so simply tries to ignore everything that is thrown at him... Easy enough, and it worked well.
In fact, I think Al Bundy was the role modal for millions of disgruntled men throughout the world at the time...


This television series began its life in April 1987 and ran through until mid 1997, creating over 250 twenty minute episodes, into 11 series... (with each episode opening with the rather appropriate song of 'Love and Marriage' by Frank Sinatra).
The show tries to depict a sort of typical American family who seem to be always down on their luck, seeming to blame all their bad fortune on the father of the clan...


* BASIC IDEA...

Al Bundy was once a brilliant school football player but his life took a turn for the worse sending him into a downward spiral of selling womens shoes and being in what seems like a loveless marriage to Peggy, a wolf in sheep's clothing type of woman with a funny walk and an aversion to hard work... in fact an aversion to any work.
Al feels even more trouble by his not so intelligent children, Kelly, and her equally slow witted brother Bud.
Things are even more irritating for Al with the constant visits from his neighbour Marcy, who seems to revel in the down trodden lives of the Bundy family, bringing with her an air of arrogance which Al simply detests.


* Main Characters

The Bundy family

* Al Bundy (played by Ed O'Neill) is a laid back type of husband trying to earn a living selling womens shoes after being struck down by what he calls 'the Bundy curse' which he blames for turning his life into the cess pit it has become.
He was on the verge of becoming an American football star, having gained a scholorship to go through collage, until he met Margaret 'Peggy' Wanker... soon accidentally starting a family, stopping his football career before it really began... ending up selling shoes for a living, thus blaming his wife and kids for his misfortunes in life, although, after many years of marriage he simply tends to ignore most things that are thrown in his direction, but having severe foot odour and bad teeth doesn't help his cause.

One of his prize possessions is his 1974 Dodge Dart...(although it has dodgy brakes and is constantly braking down, probably due to it having done over a million miles)...which he has bought on finance and is still paying for it after 20 years.
His main fear in life now being the thought of having to have sex with his wife... preferring to go bowling instead, or just simply sitting in front of his television, slumped on the settee with one hand pushed under the belt of his trousers.


* Margaret 'Peggy' Bundy, (played by Katey Sagal) is the rather brazen wife of Al, with a rather mad hairstyle and a very clumsy walk. She is also the mother of Bud and Kelly, although her maternal instincts would never win her an award, but neither would her cooking skills as she has a fear of the kitchen.
She loves to spend money on new clothes as she seems to have a phobia against washing machines as well, although her fear of working means that she has to get her money form her laid back, but secretly stressed out husband.
Her life consists of watching day time television, spending money and sometimes trying to use her sexual prowess to get her husband into the bedroom... much to his horror.

* Kelly Bundy, (played by Christina Applegate) is the dim, but rather sexy daughter of Al and Peggy. She is Al's little Pumpkin and has an amazing ability to twist her father around her little finger, getting everything she asks for from him... She does come across as a typical Bimbo type, blonde hair and low morals, using her sexuality to gain what she wants from her male friends... and there are many of them.
She comes across as naïve and very ignorant to life's struggles, although she can pull off the odd surprise every so often.

* Bud, (played by David Faustino) is the son of Al and Peggy, being the youngest member of the household. He is disillusioned in the fact that he believes himself to be gods gift to women, although the truth is that he hasn't got any ideas of how to handle women.
He does seem to do well at collage and often uses his superior intelligence to outwit his older sister... although some of his plans do tend to backfire.

* Buck the sheepdog is a loved member of the family, although the dog is mainly disgruntled by the Bundy's behaviour, (which is told via a voice over on several occasions). He has a very high sex drive and enjoys spending time out with the neighbouring dogs, seemingly impregnating most of them in the process.
Peggy does tend to love Buck so much that she was known to have actually cooked for him....
(In later series Buck died and was replaced by a cocker spaniel named Lucky who turned out to be gay and had a leather clad bulldog as his best friend)


* The Neighbour

* Marcy Rhoades/ D'Arcy, (played by Amanda Bearse) is a high flyer who seems to look down on the Bundy family, often visiting them just to make herself feel better as she belittles them.
Her and Al tend to spend all there time bickering about the most childish of reasons, but Al does use her boyish looks and rather flat chest as his ammunition...
Although she comes across as being the prim and proper type it is soon revealed that her sexual past holds many sordid secrets...

*****************

There are many other characters which appear during the 11 series but those mentioned are the major players and they are the ones which keep the hilarious humour flowing at an incredible pace.


* IN CONCLUSION

Absolutely brilliant from every angle.
It is filled to the brim with so much banter that if you blink you'll no doubt miss some smarmy comment coming from the dry witted mouth which is Al Bundy.

The all out acting is tremendous, especially the brilliant way Ed O'Neill plays his part as the father who has simply given up on life...letting his family walk all over him just so he can have an easy life...
Katey Sagel takes off the part of the dippy and very lazy housewife to perfection, almost as if she is that person in real life, her silly shuffle of a walk in high heals almost begging her to fall flat on her face...
Then, with Christina Applegate and David Faustino acting there parts as the seemingly spoilt children who seem to have no respect for their poor father at all, (although deep down there is a little love there). With Appletgate pulling off the part of Kelly, the very dopey daughter, so well, (but I have seen her in recent programs and she seems to play the same type of character in every show so far... talk about type casting..?), and as for Faustino, well his dry humour and pure stupitity is just so side splittingly funny that you will end up feeling sorry for the young man...even though he is probably the most self-centred person you will ever see, only his ego letting him down somewhat...
The story lines for each episode are well written, bringing in a lot of banter amongst the family, and their neighbours, creating so many different scenarios for the unlucky Bundy family to deal with.

It is one of them sitcom which you'll love or hate, depending on your sense of humour and whether you can laugh at someone else's misfortunes. Some of the situations that the Bundy family find themselves in are so stupidly avoidable that you wonder whether this family simply look for trouble rather than trouble looking for them? And the hilarious results will have you rolling about laughing... but maybe feeling guilty afterwards for finding the Bundy's unhappiness just so comical...

In all a brilliant show and well worth watching whenever it appears on some sky/cable channel... although you can get some series on DVD so shop around if you're interested... (I looked on Amazon and found the prices really vary depending on the seller)...

Summary: It's like looking into my future...???