Married... with Children

Married... with Children was an American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. It ran on the Fox network from April 5, 1987 to April 20, 1997.

Characters

Bundy family

• Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill)– (The real name of "Al" is Albert.) Father figure in the Bundy family. Is usually seen in his trademark couch potato pose, sitting on the couch with one hand down the front of his pants. He was the star running back 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 at New Market Mall, at Gary's Shoes. His misery with his life, his fear of having to have sex with his wife, and his reminiscences about his glory days ("Four touchdowns in a single game!") is the main focus of the show's humor.
• Margaret "Peggy" Bundy (née Wanker) (Katey Sagal)– Al's wife and mother of the family. She is originally from fictional Wanker County, Wisconsin, "where everyone is relative" (according to Al in 507). 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 (Christina Applegate)– The first child of the Bundy family. A promiscuous bimbo, though she was smart when she was little - until she banged her head and has been stupid since then - Kelly 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' (David Faustino)– The second child of the family. Bud is a guy who believes himself to be sexy, but often proves not to be. He is often rejected by women, and did not lose his virginity until he was nineteen years old, to his cousin's fiancee, played by Joey Lauren Adams. He tries to get girls with the help of his various alter-egos, including Grandmaster B-a rapper who is perpetually ridiculed by the rest of the family, e.g. Bed Wetter B or Burgermeister B More Examples. (David Faustino has actually been featured in a few rap albums, and he manages a night club) 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. Surprisingly, despite his family background, he is perhaps the most well-educated Bundy out of the bunch. He made honor roll throughout high school, and managed to get himself into college. He is also Kelly's agent, receiving 75% of everything she makes.
• Buck (mind voiced by comedian Cheech Marin)– 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 to allow the ten-year-old Briard that portrayed him to retire, although he was immediately reincarnated as Lucky.
• 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. Lucky's Mind is voiced by Kim Weiskopf (Writer of the show, Full House, and Baywatch).
• 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. This fact was parodied on the show itself in a season 8 episode, where Seven's face was shown on a milk carton with the words "Have you seen me?". See jumping the shark; Chuck Cunningham syndrome.
• Peg's Mom:only heard in frightening voiceovers, she comes to live with the Bundys in later seasons. There are vague and hilarious references to her gigantic weight. Set to be played by Divine, but he had died before production.

Neighbors

• Marcy (Rhoades) D'Arcy (Amanda Bearse)– 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 stance when she is annoyed. Her cousin Mandy (played by Amanda Bearse in a dual role) is a lesbian.
• Steve Rhoades (David Garrison)– 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, and indeed it is generally Al to whom Steve turns when in need of male bonding. Steve was written out of the show in the middle of the fourth season. Garrison had decided he no longer wanted to be tied down to a weekly television series, instead preferring to avoid being typecast into one role and to be able to devote more time to his first love, stage acting. He reached an agreement with Fox to buy out the remainder of his contract. In preparation for his departure, in the final episode shot (though confusingly, not the final episode aired) in which he was a regular, we see Steve becoming disenchanted with his and Marcy's yuppie lifestyle, and taking an increasing interest in nature and in becoming an outdoorsman (an actual real-life interest of Garrison's). He then disappears, it being explained that he has left Marcy to become a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park. During later seasons, Garrison would reprise the Steve Rhoades character on four occasions, returning to guest star in individual episodes.
• Jefferson D'Arcy (Ted McGinley)– Marcy's second husband, a prettyboy who married Marcy for money. 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. He claims that he was a CIA agent in the past. Although this claim was never fully proven in the series, it was hinted in at least one episode to be true, in which he told how he failed in assassinating Fidel Castro. 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.

Recurring characters

• Griff (Harold Sylvester)– 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.
• Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal – Hispanic local news reporter typically assigned to cover the stupidly newsworthy stories in which the Bundys inevitably involve themselves.
• 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.
• Gary – The female owner of Gary's Shoes and employer of Al. Gary's first appearance occured when Al turned the women's shoe store into a men's shoe store. Al figured that Gary wouldn't mind being a man, he was of course, wrong in this assumption. Gary is fantastically rich and her only failed business venture was her shoe store. Over the course of the show she made several more apperances, always to the chagrin of Al. On one episode she even became to the Sugar Momma of Bud much to the chagrin of those who still thought she was a man.