Family
sitcoms were wholesome entertainment for decades. Dad knew best, Mom
took care of everyone, and the kids made mistakes and then learned a
lesson from them. You could make them funny in different ways, but in
the end, they showed you a happy family. By the '80s, Michael G. Moye
and Ron Leavitt wanted to write about something different- an unhappy
family. The result was
Married… with Children, which debuted in 1987.
When
the show was first pitched, Moye and Leavitt envisioned Sam Kinison as
Al Bundy, the unsuccessful shoe salesman whose high school football
glory is never far from his mind. The series creators had also hoped to
snag Roseanne Barr for the role of Peggy, a stay-at-home mom who rarely
left the couch. The producers reportedly modeled the characters after
Kinison’s and Barr’s stand-up personas, which were popular but not
exactly lovable. The two stand-ups passed on the show, with the latter
debuting her own series about a less-than-perfect family just a year
later on ABC. Kinison would later guest star in the season-four episode
“It’s A Bundyful Life.”
Married… with Children
became a hit, and ran ten years. The A.V. Club gives us a history of
the program as an intro to a list (with video evidence) of
the ten most essential episodes of Married… with Children. Or, as they say, "10 episodes that saw the Bundys at their best, which was the same as their worst."
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