Married with Children

Married... with Children is one of my most wonderful television memories. I discovered it on Spanish TV almost by accident, and it grabbed me immediately. I laughed so much with Al Bundy, Peg, Kelly, Bud, the neighbors, that awful living room, that couch, that staircase, that house where everything always seemed on the verge of falling apart. Then, when I got to the United States and watched it there with new episodes on Thursdays, it became something else. It was an appointment. I laughed like crazy.What this show had, and still has, is that it was the opposite of the perfect television family. While so many sitcoms sold warm homes, understanding parents, children with problems solved by the end of the episode, and a clean little moral before the credits, Married... with Children did exactly the opposite. There was no redemption, no lesson, no final hug that fixed anything. There was frustration, no money, dead desire, insults, selfishness, failure, and a family that hated each other lovingly or loved each other hatefully, which may be more **** Bundy is one of the great characters in television comedy. A bitter shoe salesman, a former high school hero turned professional loser, a man defeated by marriage, work, children, neighbors, life, and probably the universe itself. And yet he was somehow unbeatable. Not because he ever won, but because he was still there, sitting on the couch, hand in his pants, watching TV and throwing out lines like knife wounds. Ed O’Neill was immense. Few actors could hold a close-up like him, with that face somewhere between nausea, resignation, and absolute contempt for **** the show did not work because of Al alone. Peg was a tremendous comic force, a woman who turned laziness, consumerism, and domestic cruelty into art. Kelly was much more than the standard dumb blonde, because Christina Applegate had enormous comic timing and knew how to make stupidity into rhythm, presence, and character. Bud, with all his teenage misery, completed a family that seemed designed to destroy any decent idea of living together. And that was exactly why it was so funny.Watching it now, of course, some things have not aged perfectly. Some jokes are easy, others are very much of their time, and the series repeats its formulas until it nearly wears them out. But even that is part of its identity. It was crude, incorrect, exaggerated, sometimes very rough, but it also had a freedom that is easy to miss today. It did not pretend to be noble. It did not apologize. It did not try to educate you. It only wanted to make you laugh while blowing up the image of the happy American **** that is why it mattered. So many later comedies learned something from it: the family as a battlefield, the protagonist as a miserable antihero, the absence of moral lessons, the taste for sarcasm, discomfort, and ugliness. It may not have had the same success in Spain that it had in the United States, but those of us who watched it remember it very clearly. Because it was unlike anything else. Because it was dirty, fast, cruel, and **** me, Married... with Children remains a marvel. Not perfect, not refined, not elegant, but brutally funny and full of personality. A corrosive, outrageous, unforgettable sitcom built around one of television’s greatest losers. And what a great loser he was.

I saw all the episodes, some even twice or three times. I laughed not only loudly but so often like in no other sitcom. The good is, you forget many jokes, so you can see an episode again and laugh again after some time. In addition it is so funny to watch many episodes after another, you get as funny as Al Bundy and invent your own jokes. There are so many classic scenes in this sitcom: little boy standing near his fat mom and complaining: "Mom, I want to have a balloon", Ed: "You got one already" :D. There are 11 seasons out there and I really would like to have more. Congrats to Ed 'o Neill, he is the best in this series. The sad thing is, that this series contains so many truths about life and how family life can end, if you don't take care.