Our Favorite TV Family

During the time I was growing up, there were many sitcoms centered around families. It was a popular format, and the only numerous alternative to a man and his friends at a workplace. Perhaps the most popular family sitcom of the time was Married With Children. There was nothing terribly original about the framework of the show, but what was fairly new was the tone of the show. Whereas most such shows were filled with admirable characters and ultimately uplifting plots, Married With Children eschewed both.

While the Bundy family and the people orbiting around them often displayed a bare minimum of decency, we mainly saw the following: an uncharismatic, ill-tempered man of low class and economic standing- a man whose best days occurred during high school; a wife whose sole contribution to the household is her utter disdain for her husband and children; the two aforementioned children, fairly well-sketched versions of the unpopular, unathletic virginal son and the dim-witted, promiscuous daughter. Both children kept up a patter worthy of veteran insult comedians.

The show was the Fox Television Network's first hit show, and made plain that Fox was going for territory previously untapped due to conventional good taste. Many found it offensive, and probably had valid reasons. I liked the show because I laughed, and appreciate it as an adult because it wasn't about to lie to us about how miserable and hopeless things are for too many Americans. It took that condition and exploited it for its inherent comedy. We laughed at the Bundy family and with them, but even the latter was painful gallows humor for the characters living that life.

Of course, the show tailed off badly over the last seasons, corrupting and abrogating to some extent that message of the shiftless, desperate family always plugging on in spite of unending setbacks and indignities. It retained some merit, but I now prefer to remember the show in its prime.