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TED McGINLEY - Original Press Photograph MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN 1993 US $3.57 (0 Bid) End Date: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 12:30:43 PST Add to watch list |
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LOVE BOAT GAVIN MCCLOUD JILL WHEATON TED MCGINLEY TV SHOW 35MM SLIDE NEGATIVE 1 US $4.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 12:32:14 PST Add to watch list |
Jefferson D’Arcy
Jefferson Milhouse D’Arcy (Ted McGinley) is Marcy’s second husband (original age unknown, but younger than but one episode mentioned that he celebrated his 40th birthday), a “pretty-boy” who marries her for her money. Self-centered and lazy, he is a male equivalent of Peggy. Marcy met Jefferson (a bartender) at his workplace after a bankers’ convention when she got drunk, and found herself married to him the next morning; she was horrified to find out that her name was now Marcy D’Arcy. He is the closest friend of Al, and often angers Marcy when he is bonding with him; unlike Steve who was more of a foil, or straight man, to Al, Jefferson tends to be very encouraging and attuned to Al’s behavior. Marcy constantly bosses Jefferson around to keep him in check. However, behind her back, Jefferson often insults Marcy, ignores her orders (and has implied numerous times that he cheats on her). When Marcy’s favorite squirrel Zippy dies, Jefferson tells her that he will give it a proper burial, only to punt it out of his sight when Marcy turns around.
Jefferson is a member of “NO MA’AM” along with Al, wearing the trademark T-shirt, but he always keeps a clean “YES MA’AM” T-shirt on underneath, which he quickly reveals if Marcy is about to bust one of “NO MA’AM”’s activities. He seems very afraid of provoking his wife’s anger, and his fear is justified — in one episode, after he angered Marcy, she kicked him in the behind so hard he had to go to the hospital to get her boot removed from his rear end.
Marcy constantly hounds Jefferson to get a job. However, on the rare occasions when he actually gets one (working at the shoe store, being cast as an actor in a commercial, working as an aerobics instructor, working at an auto-repair shop in some menial position, etc.), he usually ends up working with beautiful women, which prompts a jealous Marcy to make him quit and return to his de facto job as her gigolo. This tendency runs in the D’Arcy family, as Jefferson’s father also worked as a gigolo, and his mother worked as an exotic dancer before she was eaten by her snake at an airport.
He is easily the most financially-scheming character of the show — even more than the Bundys. Often, when Al stumbles into a unique lucrative opportunity, Jefferson typically persuades Al to take advantage of it. When Al was robbed in his shoe store, Jefferson convinced him to sue the mall while feigning psychological trauma. When Al discovered hidden shoes that he stocked away in the 1970s, Jefferson convinced him to use the shoes as a new gimmick for the store by taking advantage of the old shoes’ popularity. When discovering Al’s boss, Gary, was using illegal sweatshops to manufacture the shoes, Jefferson assists Al in a search for incriminating evidence. When Bud was involved in a romantic relationship with the (surprising to the characters) female Gary (played by Janet Carroll), Jefferson convinced Al to permit the relationship, so Al can milk Gary out of her money through his son. After discovering that they were in possession of private pictures of Shannon Tweed in sexually provocative manners, Jefferson convinced Al to sell it to the media. During a rare time in which Al is struck with good luck, Jefferson persuades him into a high-stakes poker game with a group of ex-criminals. Jefferson also convinced Al to go home to have sex with his wife, so Al could win a radio contest.
During the course of the series, it is revealed that Jefferson spent time in prison (for selling contaminated land as a vacation spot to several people, including Al) and used to be in the CIA. Occasionally, people claim to have seen him on Happy Days, a claim he always denies (Ted McGinley did, in fact, play Jefferson High School coach and teacher Roger Phillips on Happy Days later in the series, the obvious inspiration for the character’s name).
Ted McGinley had appeared previously as Peggy’s husband, Mr. Norman Jablonski, in the second part of It’s a Bundyful Life, where Al’s guardian angel (Sam Kinison) shows Al what his family would have become if he was never born. The episode lightly parodies Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
