Married…With Children or Married with Children was an American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in Chicago that lasted 11 seasons. The show is also notable for being the first prime time television series to air on Fox, debuting on April 5, 1987, and airing its final first-run broadcast on June 9, 1997. The series was created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt. The show was known for handling non-standard topics for the time period, which garnered the then-fledgling Fox network a standing among the Big Three Television Networks (i.e. ABC, CBS and NBC).
The series’ 11-season, 262 episode run makes it the longest lasting live-action sitcom on the Fox network. The show’s theme song is “Love and Marriage” by Frank Sinatra from the 1955 television production Our Town.
The series was produced by Embassy Television/ELP Communications, with production being assumed by successor studio Columbia Pictures Television (and eventually Columbia TriStar Television). Part of Sony Pictures Television’s library, it aired in syndication on FX Network in the United States from 1999 to 2008 and began airing on Spike and TBS in 2008. It also airs on CMT and TVtropolis in Canada.
Synopsis
The show follows the lives of Al Bundy, a once-glorious high school football player turned hard-luck salesman of women’s shoes; his wife, Peggy, a tartish, uneducated housewife with a large red bouffant hairdo, 1960s clothes, and funny walk caused by wearing high heels; Kelly, Al and Peggy’s pretty, promiscuous, dim-witted daughter; and Bud, their unpopular, girl-crazy, intelligent son (and the only Bundy who ever attended college). Their neighbors are the upwardly-mobile Steve and Marcy Rhoades. (Marcy later marries Jefferson D’Arcy.) Most storylines involve a scheming Al being foiled by his cartoonish dim wit and bad luck. His rivalry and loathing of Marcy also play a significant role in most episodes.
