2 Characters

2.1 Bundy family

• Al Bundy – Father figure in the Bundy family. Is usually seen in his trademark pose, sitting on the couch with one hand down the front of his pants. He was the starring quarterback for Polk High School's football team, bound for college on an athletic scholarship – until he met Peg. Afterwards, he broke his leg, he lost his scholarship, his life fell apart, and he was stuck from then on working as a shoe salesman in a local mall. His misery with his life and his reminisces about his glory days ("Four touchdowns in one game!") is the main focus of the show's humor.
• Margaret "Peggy" Bundy (née Margaret Wanker) – Al's wife and mother of the family. Al considers her first and foremost to be the cause of his misery. She is a lazy mother, having done very little to help raise the children (not that Al did much either), and often ignores the needs of her family. She often wastes the little money that Al makes from his job (she is very reluctant to get her own job; she worked at a department store selling clocks for a very short time, but quit after deciding that she hated working), and she is more likely to spend it on clothing and purchases from home-shopping TV channels than on food. When she does buy food, it's usually Bon Bons for when she watches her favorite talk show hosts, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey.
• Kelly Bundy – The first child of the Bundy family. A promiscuous bimbo , she is the stereotypical "dumb blonde." Much of her humor comes from the stupidity that she displays. For example, she asked her brother to help her with her book report on Robinson Crusoe and ends up reviewing Gilligan's Island instead (while yelling at her brother for tricking her, she says 'I had a meeting with the principal. A three hour meeting. A three hour meeting'). She is in love with boys, hair bleach, and the telephone. She often pokes fun at her younger brother, Bud, for being a pubescent horndog.
• Budrick Franklin "Bud" Bundy – The second child of the family. Bud is a guy who believes himself to be sexy and intelligent, but often proves not to be. He is often rejected by women, and did not lose his virginity until he was twenty years old, to Marcy's slutty niece. He often insults Kelly for her unintelligence and promiscuity, though is ironically lecherous and frequently crafting grandiose sexual schemes. For example, he took the money his mother gave him for bowling lessons and instead bought a lifetime pass to The Pussycat Theatre.
• Buck – The family dog. He is often "heard" by the audience through voice-overs that tell what is going through his mind at the moment. He is just as disgusted with the family as the rest of them are. He died at one point in the series, in order to allow the ten-year-old Briard that portrayed him to retire.
• Lucky – The spaniel that the family gets after Buck dies. He is the reincarnation of Buck, but no one in the family ever finds this out.
• Seven – A child who is adopted by the family at one point in the series. He was a very unpopular character, so he was dropped from the show without explanation in the storyline. See jumping the shark.

2.2 Neighbors

• Marcy (Rhoades) D'Arcy – Peggy's best friend and the family's next-door neighbor. She considers herself to be above the ways of the Bundy family, but often sinks to their level. She dislikes Al, and often argues with him. Al's most frequent target is Marcy's tiny chest and " chicken"-like legs. Her cousin Mandy (played by Amanda Bearse in a dual role) is a lesbian. Bearse is gay in real life.
• Steve Rhoades – Marcy's first husband. He is a banker who was actually at a lower position than Marcy at the city bank, but that didn't seem to faze him, as Marcy moved up to a high position at another bank, he received her job. Steve is one who sees himself as a better person than the Bundy family, but over time becomes more like them.
• Jefferson D'Arcy – Marcy's second husband. Self centered and lazy, he is a male equivalent of Peggy. He is a close friend of Al, and often angers Marcy in his bonding with Al. Ted McGinley had appeared previously as Peggy's husband in an alternate universe, in an episode which parodied Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

2.3 Recurring characters

• Griff – A friend of Al who works with him at the shoestore. He is a member of Al's NO MA'AM organization.
• Bob Rooney and Ike – Important members of NO MA'AM.
• Officer Dan – A friend of Al's who tries to balance his career as a police officer against his friendship with Al and his friends.
• The Wankers – Parents of Peggy. They are more often mentioned than on camera. Peggy's mother is never shown (though she is heard in several episodes) but her father, played by Tim Conway, is in a few episodes. Her mother is constantly referred to as being unbelievably obese, the object of many jokes.

3 Bundy icons

• NO MA'AM – An acronym for the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood. This is the middle aged men's club that meets in Al's garage to discuss matters of serious importance to men such as beer and girls. Was also a church in one episode.
• Jiggly Room/Nudie Bar – This is a strip club run by Ahkmed , where members of NO MA'AM go to unwind and spend any money that their wives have not already spent.
• Big Uns – This is a girlie magazine that Al and his friends read. Also used before having sex with the wives. Al to Jefferson: "Take two of these and call me in the morning," looks at Marcy and adds, "better make that four."
• Girlie Girl Beer – Official beer of NO MA'AM.
• Psycho Dad – Al's favorite TV show until Marcy cancelled it (She also got rid of Peas in a Pod, a show with characters similar to Al's life as well as football to put something that has Al's least favorite television star, Don Rickles). The group of NO MA'AM (with a far-fetched & confusing story about ice fishing, 'Al starts fishing, Jefferson hunts deer for bait, Dan skis deer to camp, Ike sets up camp, Bob scuba dives for best fish, Griff sends smoke signals') go to Washington D.C. to return it despite the fact that the person who played the main character retired. It is banned, but when Al saves the speaker of the house from a mugging, he asks to cancel Blossom, "I think that's where he got the hat."
• Weenie Tots – Al's favorite fast-dissolving minature-corndog-like snack.

4 Controversy & Missing episodes

One episode of Married With Children was "lost" due to the efforts of a Michigan housewife and another episode was edited because of 9/11.

4.1 The Rakolta Boycott

In 1989 Terry Rakolta[2], a housewife from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, led a massive boycott against Married With Children after viewing the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over - 3x06"[3]. Offended by the images of an old man wearing a garter and stockings, a gay man and a woman who bared her breasts, Rakolta began a letter-writing campaign to advertisers demanding they boycott the show.

After advertisers began dropping their support for the show and while Rakolta made several appearances on television talk shows, FOX executives played it safe and refused to air the episode titled "I'll See You In Court - 3x08"[4]. That particular episode would become known as the "Lost Episode". "I'll See You In Court - 3x08" was finally aired on FX on June 18th, 2002 but has never been aired on regular television broadcasting.

Ironically during the boycott, ratings for Married With Children skyrocketed due to interest in the show caused by Rakolta's crusade to have the show canceled. The increased number of viewers kept Married With Children on the air until 1997. According to sources on the Married With Children set, the creators of the show, Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, sent Rakolta a fruit basket every Christmas as a way of saying "thank you".

Rakolta herself has been referenced twice on the show. The first time in the episode titled "Rock and Roll Girl - 4x14"[5] when a newscaster mentioned the city Bloomfield Hills. The second time occurred in the episode titled "No Pot To Pease In - 9x09"[6] when a television show was made about the Bundy family. After the show was canceled, Marcy told the Bundys that "some woman in Michigan didn't like it".

4.2 9/11 & The ticking bomb

Before 9/11, the syndicated version of the episode titled "Get Outta Dodge - 8x17"[7] featured a scene of two Arabs with a ticking bomb at the front door of Al Bundy's house offering to buy his Dodge for $40 and asking for directions to the Sears Tower. The scene was cut from the syndicated re-airings of the episode after 9/11. Ironically, the scene in "Get Outta Dodge - 8x17" was originally aired on February 20th, 1994, almost 1 year(minus a week) after the first bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26th, 1993.

5 Cast

• Ed O'Neill— Al Bundy
• Katey Sagal— Peg Bundy
• Christina Applegate— Kelly Bundy
• David Faustino — Bud Bundy
• Amanda Bearse— Marcy Rhoades D'Arcy
• David Garrison— Steve Rhoades
• Ted McGinley— Jefferson D'Arcy

6 External links

• IMDb entry for the show
• TVTome entry for the show
• Bundyology, a fan's website
• No Ma'am, a fan's website

1990s TV shows in the United States Fox network shows Sitcoms

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