The Fox network's very first sitcom launches its very first season, as Married...With Children invades the sanctity of the American home. We waste no time introducing the Bundys of Chicago, headed by cloddish, chauvinistic shoe salesman Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and his lazy, oversexed wife Peg (Katey Sagal). And of course, there are the Bundy brats: Daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate), who has managed to garner the worst reputation in her school at the tender age of 15, and eleven-year-old son Bud (David Faustino), a J.D.-in-training. The Bundys spend most of the series' first season outraging and disgusting their wide-eyed newlywed neighbors, young accountants Steve and Marcy Rhoades (David Garrison, Amanda Bearse). Whatever illusions Steve and Marcy may have had about the sweetness of matrimony and family life are destroyed by the boorish Bundys and their repulsive children on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Highlights (or is it lowlights?) of the series' inaugural season include Peg's efforts to go on a diet, Al's accidental "execution" of the neighbors' dog, Al and Steve bonding over the matter of a '65 Mustang (and simultaneously alienating their wives all the more), the family's depletion of their already tenuous credit rating, a "second honeymoon" at a no-tell motel, Peg going to work in order to buy a VCR, and innocent Marcy's outrageous sexual fantasies. . .about Al. Closing the season as Fox's highest-rated program, Married...With Children also established the fledgling network's mandate: Shock 'em, gross 'em out, make 'em laugh, and count the change as the advertising revenue rolls in. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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