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When Married... with Children
debuted on Fox TV on April 5, 1987, the
grungy sitcom became an instant flagship for Rupert Murdoch's upstart network.
The program's much-publicized working title, Not the Cosbys (a dismissive
reference to the cheerful vitality of Bill Cosby's hugely popular television
clan on NBC's The Cosby Show) was a dead giveaway. Married... with Children was
going to be a trashier, raunchier and far more cynical view of the
American nuclear family. The jokes were savage, key relationships
were marked by ennui and indifference and the Bundy family name
couldn't help but make one think of America's most notorious,
real-life serial killer at the time. Yet the show had a hint of
Golden Age Hollywood gloss, a retro-screwball feel that one could
detect in the snappy verbal warfare between husband Al Bundy and
wife Peg. The characters and the show, eschewed sentimentality,
which certainly opened the floodgates to comic cynicism but also
kept a door ajar for moments of genuine sweetness. |
