The FOX sitcom Married… With Children ran for eleven seasons, five of them good, from 1987 to 1997. It was created by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, who were inspired by the Norman Lear classic All In The Family. On the surface, the two shows appear similar; a middle-aged ignoramus, his obnoxious yet well-meaning family, contemporary social topics. But since these kind of programs invariably get into hot water for their dialogue, they share a more subtle connection.
Not only do they resemble a real family, but Kelly looks vaguely like Al, and Bud looks like Peg. That’s either serendipity or super-human casting.
During All In The Family‘s run (1971-79), “lovable bigot*” Archie Bunker, played by the great Carroll O’Connor, would go upstairs and flush the toilet to portray his disapproval. Bathroom noise on television was verboten before this. As you know, the home of the titular family on The Brady Bunch lacked a water closet, even though the father was an architect by trade. Early in television’s lifespan, it was believed that the sounds related to using the restroom would trigger the urge to defecate in viewers, driving them from the screen to the loo.
Verisimilitude goes a very long way. You probably didn’t even notice the concrete stage floor (invisible on screen).
Archie’s flush was a revelatory clarion call. It is a sound every American knows, yet it had never been used as a rimshot before. It got a huge laugh every time; in fact, humorous flushing originated with Arch. Plus, the glorious gift that was Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker would get an even bigger laugh, simply by reacting.
This is the key: ultra-human characters the working class can relate to, portrayed with affection by supremely gifted performers. This is why, before it got too silly, Married… With Children was the smash hit it became.
*We used to combat willful ignorance with love, instead of public shaming and derision. It had the novelty of, you know, actually working.
The marvelous Ed O’Neill and Katey Sagal played unhappy marrieds Al and Peg Bundy, and their children were Bud and Kelly, played by David Faustino and Christina Applegate. For the last three years I was in high school, all I wanted was to press my lips onto Christina Applegate. I literally did not care where. We’re on the Internet, I don’t have to remind you how this beautiful woman was on television as a teen like the world’s hottest candy apple.
However, both Al and Peg had a distinctive gesture, just like Archie Bunker’s flush, and equally as rebellious. Let’s start with Peggy.
You kids these days, all you know Katey Sagal from is Futurama. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a terrific voice actress. And sure, she was great in Sons of Anarchy, which I have not seen. But Peg Bundy is iconic. Sagal tapped into a vein of suburban-woman frustration with surgical precision. In essence:
- Peg is horny and wants to fuck.
- She’s married to Al, whom she doesn’t really want to fuck.
- Al doesn’t want to fuck Peg either. Two kids are enough.*
- It’s too much trouble and effort to fuck another man.
- Peg goes to a male strip club with “friend” Marcy.
- It’s awful and humiliating.
- GOTO 1
*This was disproven, then emphatically proven, by the unspeakable seventh season.
Peg is what they used to call “hot to trot”, but trapped in a nuclear family. So, she sits with legs crossed, bouncing and kicking her foot on top. This is what you do when you don’t care if everyone knows how horny you are. I did it from 1987 to 1990, thinking about Christina Applegate.
It’s a miracle I didn’t rip my dick off thanks to this show.
Al Bundy’s gesture is also familiar to me; in fact, I quit the habit after seeing him do it. Like Peg’s move, it’s more suggestive than vulgar, but still gets the annoyingly whoopy laughs (MwC‘s laugh track became unbearable in the second half of the run).
When faced with frustrations of any nature, or to block out the nagging voice of his wife, Al would turn up the TV and sit back on the couch. Then, with a Zen expression indicating tabula rasa, Al would slooooooowly slide his hand down the front of his pants, between his underwear and skin.
The Bundy Buddha.
I swear, before Al Bundy outed it, guys used to do this (other than myself). It was a Dad-with-a-beer thing, after getting home from work. Before the saturation of millennial narcs, guys used to fuck with each other in a lot of fun, harmless ways. Now when I show you a photo of Steve McQueen, you think he looks like a caveman, and you can’t understand why he’s not the director of 12 Years A Slave. I thank the universe I matriculated before plastic in the drinking water.
“Dude, your dad’s got his hand down his pants again.”
“So what.”
“Dude, it’s way down there.”
“So GO TELL HIM, asshole.”-common conversation in suburban New Jersey, 1980s
All these gestures, the flush, the kick, the hand-down-the-pants; they represent something that sitcoms have failed to get right in decades. The subliminal connection. A character on a TV show meets the audience at their own level, instead of talking up or down to them. Even Homer Simpson strangling his ten-year-old son Bart plays into this, by making the frustration into a ludicrous spectacle. We viewers feel release, and that our problems are common. That was one of the stated goals of television, long ago.
One last example.
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