I may be warped but I find this series to be among the handful of enduring classics among all the TV sitcoms that have been aired. Full disclosure? Others include "I Love Lucy," "The Honeymooners," "Mary Tyler Moore," and "Bob Newhart." To sharpen up the taxonomy, I'll put "Married With Children" together with "The Honeymooners" in the "Outrageous" category, in which people get screamed at and bopped over the head. "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Bob Newhart" offer a more realistic, low-key set of comedic situations, much of the humor stemming from awkward situations, such as dating a man shorter than you are. We may call this category "Grounded." "Lucy" falls between the two.
There's been a lot of vulgarity on TV since "Married With Children" began twenty years ago, but most of the recent stuff has been without wit, let alone keen wit. And what unpromising material to begin with! A shoe salesman and his selfish family living in a Chicago suburb. I mean -- if he had been a pilot or a doctor, or a couple of mixed race, think of the possibilities. But a poor shoe salesman? How many jokes can you squeeze out of shoes? (Quite a few.)
I'll give an example of the kind of humor I find hilarious in this series, an example in which nobody get bonked on the head or screamed at. For some reason I forget, the two kids, Bud, the miles gloriosus, and succulent, blond, extravagantly stupid Kelly, decide to follow their Dad, Al Bundy, to work and secretly film his day on the job as a kind of cinema verite. They hide unseen behind the cash register and Al enters the empty shoe shop with a big smile and strips off his coat, ready to go to work, another day with his shoulder to the wheel, his nose to the grindstone, his wallet to whatever machine it is that empties wallets. Then Al sits down on one of the stools and buries his face quietly in his hands. The kids continue filming his motionless form. He is Rodin's "Thinker," only trying to rid himself of thoughts. Dissolve to three hours later. The kids are still filming, looking at each other in disbelief. Al hasn't moved a muscle. One couldn't dream up a more perfect picture of comic despair. The Death of a Shoe Salesman, mingling pathos with humor.
I suppose there was a slow deterioration in the quality of the shows. I haven't noticed any but I haven't seen all of them in sequence. Those things are inevitable, though. Every engine runs out of steam. It's one of Newton's laws and it's exemplified in "All in the Family," which began its slow deflation after Show Number One. The only sign of desperation I saw in the writers was the introduction of a boring and distracting adopted kid named "Seven," who faded away without explanation kind of quickly.
There's quite a bit of vulgarity, though not nearly as much as, say, "NYPD Blue" or "Law & Order." The humor is sometimes raunchy -- toilets and menstruation -- and it's certainly politically incorrect. That's one of the reasons I classified it as "Outrageous." But so what? It might not go over in middle-class Victorian circles but there are things going on now, unjust wars and suicide bombings by religious fanatics, that are truly obscene. This stuff is FUNNY. And, after all, if you find it offensive, then by all means you shouldn't watch a show that incorporates these topics as sources of laughter.
There's been a lot of vulgarity on TV since "Married With Children" began twenty years ago, but most of the recent stuff has been without wit, let alone keen wit. And what unpromising material to begin with! A shoe salesman and his selfish family living in a Chicago suburb. I mean -- if he had been a pilot or a doctor, or a couple of mixed race, think of the possibilities. But a poor shoe salesman? How many jokes can you squeeze out of shoes? (Quite a few.)
I'll give an example of the kind of humor I find hilarious in this series, an example in which nobody get bonked on the head or screamed at. For some reason I forget, the two kids, Bud, the miles gloriosus, and succulent, blond, extravagantly stupid Kelly, decide to follow their Dad, Al Bundy, to work and secretly film his day on the job as a kind of cinema verite. They hide unseen behind the cash register and Al enters the empty shoe shop with a big smile and strips off his coat, ready to go to work, another day with his shoulder to the wheel, his nose to the grindstone, his wallet to whatever machine it is that empties wallets. Then Al sits down on one of the stools and buries his face quietly in his hands. The kids continue filming his motionless form. He is Rodin's "Thinker," only trying to rid himself of thoughts. Dissolve to three hours later. The kids are still filming, looking at each other in disbelief. Al hasn't moved a muscle. One couldn't dream up a more perfect picture of comic despair. The Death of a Shoe Salesman, mingling pathos with humor.
I suppose there was a slow deterioration in the quality of the shows. I haven't noticed any but I haven't seen all of them in sequence. Those things are inevitable, though. Every engine runs out of steam. It's one of Newton's laws and it's exemplified in "All in the Family," which began its slow deflation after Show Number One. The only sign of desperation I saw in the writers was the introduction of a boring and distracting adopted kid named "Seven," who faded away without explanation kind of quickly.
There's quite a bit of vulgarity, though not nearly as much as, say, "NYPD Blue" or "Law & Order." The humor is sometimes raunchy -- toilets and menstruation -- and it's certainly politically incorrect. That's one of the reasons I classified it as "Outrageous." But so what? It might not go over in middle-class Victorian circles but there are things going on now, unjust wars and suicide bombings by religious fanatics, that are truly obscene. This stuff is FUNNY. And, after all, if you find it offensive, then by all means you shouldn't watch a show that incorporates these topics as sources of laughter.