Aesop wrote a fable once where the moral of the story was "The wise learn from the misfortunes of others."
One could argue that Al Bundy was a prophet, warning future generations, living as the hopeless, apathetic shell of a man who's rantings are often sprinkled with great wisdom that younger men could pay attention to about marriage.
Married with Children is a sitcom with reality thrown out the window and in it's place, looney toons plots, filled with cartoonish violence and unlikely sexual fantasies. In the middle of this world, lies a couch where Al and his family spend most of their time. Al himself is the father figure who was once a high school football star who scored 4 touchdowns in a single game, and has since gotten married and had 2 kids, and supports them by being a shoe salesman, which he argues is the worst job ever. His wife, Peggy, lives at the home and does absolutely nothing other than eat and watch TV. Their son & daughter, Bud & Kelly are always picking on each other, where the sister picks on her brother for his lack of sex and dates, the brother takes advantage of his sister's lack of intelligence, and teases her for her promiscuity. Their next door neighbors are always getting cross with them, and it usually has to do with al's feminist, misandrist, and horny adversary, Marcy Darcy.
A family show this is, but a children's show it is not. This show is chalk full of risque humor meant for a mature audience. Al Bundy is nowhere near politically correct, he is as honest as he is vulgar. The show itself has so many burns that the envelope it pushed in it's day turned to ash. There's no shortage of scantily clad, provocative and sexualised women. There's no shortage of chauvanism and male dominance. In it's 3rd season, the show offended the sensitive people of it's time, prompting one lady to write in complaining about the episode "Her cups runneth over" also in that very season, Kelly appears in "life's a beach" in a bikini, which would've been filmed when she was still a minor, and "I'll see you in court" was filmed in 1989, but audiences did not get a chance to see it until 2002 because it was pulled.
Throughout these unlikely adventures lies working class hero plots to over the top ones. Al has to renew his driver's license, trap a mouse that invades his home, stages a riot over a beer tax, testifies in front of the senate to keep his favorite show on TV, forms a group called No Ma'am, starts his own church, competes in a joust competition in England, makes a deal with the devil to play football but is sent to hell, and gets put on trial by a group of morbidly obese women he offended. With 262 different episodes, Al goes through a lot, spanning from the end of the flashy and colorful 80's into the edgy 90's.
Almost 3 decades after this show ended, the message is becoming clear. Al Bundy was warning future generations of men what they were in for as they grew older. Al didn't sugarcoat anything, but he always found ways to make the audience laugh with brutal honesty. And for the few men & women who have discovered this show long since it went off the air, or for those who watched it when it was on TV, We know it's an offensive show, but we like it that way and as society itself slowly becomes more easily offended by what's in their media, a show like Married with children will age incredibly well for it's intended audience.
One could argue that Al Bundy was a prophet, warning future generations, living as the hopeless, apathetic shell of a man who's rantings are often sprinkled with great wisdom that younger men could pay attention to about marriage.
Married with Children is a sitcom with reality thrown out the window and in it's place, looney toons plots, filled with cartoonish violence and unlikely sexual fantasies. In the middle of this world, lies a couch where Al and his family spend most of their time. Al himself is the father figure who was once a high school football star who scored 4 touchdowns in a single game, and has since gotten married and had 2 kids, and supports them by being a shoe salesman, which he argues is the worst job ever. His wife, Peggy, lives at the home and does absolutely nothing other than eat and watch TV. Their son & daughter, Bud & Kelly are always picking on each other, where the sister picks on her brother for his lack of sex and dates, the brother takes advantage of his sister's lack of intelligence, and teases her for her promiscuity. Their next door neighbors are always getting cross with them, and it usually has to do with al's feminist, misandrist, and horny adversary, Marcy Darcy.
A family show this is, but a children's show it is not. This show is chalk full of risque humor meant for a mature audience. Al Bundy is nowhere near politically correct, he is as honest as he is vulgar. The show itself has so many burns that the envelope it pushed in it's day turned to ash. There's no shortage of scantily clad, provocative and sexualised women. There's no shortage of chauvanism and male dominance. In it's 3rd season, the show offended the sensitive people of it's time, prompting one lady to write in complaining about the episode "Her cups runneth over" also in that very season, Kelly appears in "life's a beach" in a bikini, which would've been filmed when she was still a minor, and "I'll see you in court" was filmed in 1989, but audiences did not get a chance to see it until 2002 because it was pulled.
Throughout these unlikely adventures lies working class hero plots to over the top ones. Al has to renew his driver's license, trap a mouse that invades his home, stages a riot over a beer tax, testifies in front of the senate to keep his favorite show on TV, forms a group called No Ma'am, starts his own church, competes in a joust competition in England, makes a deal with the devil to play football but is sent to hell, and gets put on trial by a group of morbidly obese women he offended. With 262 different episodes, Al goes through a lot, spanning from the end of the flashy and colorful 80's into the edgy 90's.
Almost 3 decades after this show ended, the message is becoming clear. Al Bundy was warning future generations of men what they were in for as they grew older. Al didn't sugarcoat anything, but he always found ways to make the audience laugh with brutal honesty. And for the few men & women who have discovered this show long since it went off the air, or for those who watched it when it was on TV, We know it's an offensive show, but we like it that way and as society itself slowly becomes more easily offended by what's in their media, a show like Married with children will age incredibly well for it's intended audience.