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Married… with Children is an American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in Chicago that was originally broadcast from 1987 to 1997. It was the first-ever prime time television series to air on the Fox Broadcasting Company, 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. For its time, it pushed the envelope on various racy topics which garnered the fledgling FOX network a standing among the Big Three Television Networks (i.e., ABC, NBC and CBS). The show's 259 episodes over 11 seasons make it the second-longest-lasting sitcom on the FOX network (second only to The Simpsons) and the network's longest live-action sitcom. The show's theme song, "Love and Marriage", was sung by Frank Sinatra.
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 known for her large red bouffant hairdo, 1960s clothes and her funny walk due to her always wearing high heels, and their two children: Kelly, their very attractive, promiscuous, dim-witted daughter, and Bud, their unpopular and girl-crazy but highly intelligent son (as the only Bundy who ever attended college). Their neighbors are the upwardly mobile Steve and Marcy Rhoades. (Marcy later marries second husband Jefferson D'Arcy). Most storylines involve the ever-scheming Al being foiled by his cartoonish dim wit and bad luck. The family lives at 9764 Jeopardy Lane in Chicago.
see also List of Married... with Children cast members
The head of the Bundy family, Al (Ed O'Neill) is practically doomed to fail in all aspirations because of the 'Bundy curse'. Once a promising fullback for fictional Polk High School (his proudest moment in life was running for four touchdowns in a single game), he was on his way to college on a scholarship until he impregnated his girlfriend, married her, broke his leg, and ended up a shoe salesman at Gary's Shoes in the New Market Mall. Al spends much time attempting to recapture his glory days but is usually undermined in spectacular fashion by bad luck and poor judgment. He considers his family to be the cause of his failures, and his resentment of them (and fear of having sex with his wife) provides much of the show's humor. However, Al is still devoted to them, given that he protectively beats up Kelly's boyfriends, once threatened a male stripper that "if my wife loses anything down your pants, so will you," once gave his entire paycheck to Bud to enjoy his eighteenth birthday at the nudie bar, and holds down a lousy job to put food on the table. Despite his yearning for "the touch of a beautiful woman," he always passes on those rare temptations, once explaining, "I actually kinda like my family." He frequents "nudie bars" and strip joints with his friends. The only thing that seems to consistently put him in the mood for his wife is watching her do manual labor, which virtually never happens. Al has extremely severe foot odor, prefers the escapism of television and bowling over his dysfunctional family and life of drudgery and starvation (as Peg refuses to cook), and is often seen in his trademark couch-potato pose — seated on the sofa with one hand stuck under the waistband of his pants.
The producers originally wanted to cast comedian Sam Kinison as Al Bundy. However, they ultimately chose not to, due to the profaneness of Kinison's comedy routines. Kinison would later play Al's guardian angel in the episode "It's a Bundyful Life", spoofing Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The producers also considered Michael Richards for the role.
Margaret "Peggy" Bundy (Katey Sagal) (born ca. 1950) is Al's very lazy high school drop-out housewife. She refuses to cook or to clean the house, and prefers shopping for new clothes to washing them and does not even think of having a job. During the day, she likes to watch all the daytime talk shows, sitting on the beloved family couch and eating tons of bonbons (without getting fat, amazingly enough). Her favorite TV shows are Oprah and The Phil Donahue Show, but also enjoys watching the Home Shopping Network. Peggy is a red-head with the bouffant hairdo and usually wears 1960s-styled fashion with tight pants and stiletto heels, which makes her walk in a unique way. Despite her inappropriate behavior, she generally appeals to men, including Al whenever she does work. Like Al, she would never cheat on her partner -- but unlike Al, enjoys marital sex. She frequents strip joints with male dancers, causing some of them to establish the "Bundy rule" -- where women can no longer go into the back rooms to meet the dancers. Her maiden name is Wanker, and her family hails from the fictitious rural Wanker County, Wisconsin, "where everyone is relative." What is never made clear is how she managed to go to high school with Al, when her parents apparently never left Wanker County. Given the racy nature of the show, it would seem that Peggy's maiden name was chosen by the creators as a reference to the British slang term for "a masturbator".
The producers originally wanted Roseanne Barr to play Peggy Bundy, but she declined and the producers cast Katey Sagal.
Kelly (Christina Applegate) is the oldest child in the Bundy family, born in approximately 1972 or 1973 on November 27th. "Pumpkin," as Al often calls her, is a promiscuous bimbo and stereotypical "dumb blonde." She may have inherited her behavior from her mother, known as "The Big Easy" in high school. Peg has attempted to convey some of her other "values" to Kelly, most notably advice on how to avoid working.
In one episode, a flashback to Kelly's childhood reveals her to once be a prodigious reader until she banged her head during a road trip, instantly changing her personality to prefer focusing on her "shiny, shiny shoes." The show hints to her amazing intrinsic intellectual ability, which only exhibits itself on those rare occasions when she is not preoccupied with her social standing or the opposite sex. For instance, she can predict the next number drawn on a roulette wheel, but only after letting her mind go blank. When properly motivated, she is able to solve complex mathematical equations, such as her calculation of the trajectory to shoot garbage bags into the D'Arcys' yard from a self-built catapult. It has been demonstrated that she can absorb a limited amount of information very well, but will forget something that she learned in the past once her limit is reached. She is also known to display excellent hand-eye coordination when playing pool or performing archery.
Kelly's comedic function tends to include blatant displays of naïvete and ignorance, with the typical response by the family of willfully allowing her to remain ignorant. Bud in particular likes to sow misconceptions in her mind. For example, she asks Bud to help her with her book report on Robinson Crusoe but ends up reviewing Gilligan's Island instead. (While yelling at her brother for the deception, she exclaims, "I had a meeting with the principal. A three-hour meeting. A three-hour meeting!") Her family is surprised to learn that she earned her high school diploma in 1990 -- but when she receives her diploma through the mail after finishing summer school, she asks her mother to read it to her. She then worked as a model and waitress. She had become a bottle-blonde at an early age at her mother's encouragement after a boy at school liked a natural blonde more than Kelly. (Years afterward, neither can remember their own natural hair-color). She is obsessed with boys, hair bleach and the telephone. Kelly was not allowed to have sleepovers or birthday parties from age eight to age sixteen, thanks to an experience she had at age eight, where "the judge wanted to trial [her] as an adult!"
Though she often pokes fun at her younger brother Bud for being an underdeveloped, pubescent horndog, she usually seems to be proud of him whenever he manages to get an attractive date. On at least one occasion, she has also avenged Bud by humiliating a girl that humiliated him. For a short time, Bud is her official agent, entitled to 80% of her earnings. Kelly is very fond of her pets, even when unable to sufficiently care for them. Buck, the family dog, was generally considered to be hers, and she was the most upset when he died. However, when Buck was to be neutered, Al (not wanting to have Buck fixed) says "Buck is Bud's dog and we have to get Bud's permission." But Peg asks Bud if it is ok to neuter "his" dog, Bud does not seem to care and simply says "sure".
Her favorite comic strip is Garfield. Her less-than-stellar reading skills led to many comedic situations in which she would read the Garfield comic aloud, mispronouncing lasagne as "luh-SAG-nee." She also watches cartoons such as Looney Tunes under the impression that it is a nature show.
Budrick Franklin "Bud" Bundy (David Faustino) is the second child, born around 1975. He was named after Al's favorite beer, Budweiser. The first word Bud spoke was "hooters." He believes himself to be attractive, sexy and smooth, but often is typically caught in sexually humiliating scenarios. He is also shorter in stature than his sister, and a lot shorter than his mother. He does not appear to know how to impress women upon meeting them and is often rejected. It is unclear when he actually lost his virginity, as it was depicted that he may have bedded women as far back as age 14, but in the fourth season it is mentioned that he is still a virgin. Later in the series, he manages to have one-night-stands, including one with his cousin's fiancee, played by Joey Lauren Adams. He tries to get girls with the help of various alter-egos, including street rapper 'Grandmaster B' -- a persona often ridiculed by his family with the epithets 'Bed-wetter B', 'Cross-Dresser B', 'Grandma B', 'Grand Marshall B',[1] etc. (Interestingly, David Faustino has actually been featured in a few rap albums in real life, and manages a nightclub.) Another alter-ego is 'Cool Bud', Bud's sexual, suave side with which he eventually 'merges', prompting him to become more 'cool'. Bud has been known to fail at romance, as those attracted to him are often undesirable (such as fat hotel guests, dowdy college librarians, and male hotel workers). Bud also takes an interest in Marcy; when Steve leaves her, he actively pursues her. After playing a trick on Kelly to prove her stupidity, Kelly proves not to be so foolish by making Bud and Mrs Rhoades falsely believe they spent the night together. (Bud asks Marcy, "You are on the pill right?" In response, Marcy looks nervous).
Out of the Bundys, Bud seems to be the most ashamed of the family as he often pretends to not know them. He is also arguably the most academically intelligent. He ridicules Kelly as a promiscuous dimwit, and although he quite frequently uses her ignorance to his benefit, he occasionally feels obliged to defend her when others exploit her foolishness -- but he is known to scheme against his own family. He makes honor roll throughout high school, and gets himself through college (and even earns scholarship money which his family spends without his consent). During his college years, Bud is portrayed as the leader in his social circle (most of whom are stereotypical "losers"), as he appears to be the only one with the least bit of self-confidence. He is also Kelly's agent, receiving 80% of everything she makes.
Although he is occasionally bullied and beaten by bigger men, Bud has inherited his father's talents for fistfighting, once teaming up with Al to singlehandedly beat up an entire gang of teenage punks while helping Peg's father find a bear from Wanker County on the loose in Chicago. In one episode, he has also assisted his fellow Bundys when they brawl with another family -- Al beats up the father, Peg beats up the mother, Kelly beats up the daughter and Bud beats up the son. On his eighteenth birthday, Bud also helped Al at a strip club brawl.
Buck (voiceover by writer Kevin Curran; on special episodes Buck is voiced by Cheech Marin) is the family dog. He is often "heard" by the audience through voiceovers that tell what is on his mind. He is just as disgusted with the family as the others. Peggy dotes on him, sometimes even cooking for him. Though extremely lazy, Buck has a huge, insatible sexual appetite. 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.
A character whose voiceovers were performed by writer Kevin Curran, Lucky is the spaniel that the family gets after Buck dies. He is the reincarnation of Buck, but no one in the family ever realizes this. In the episode "Lez Be Friends", the Bundy kids have difficulty entertaining a depressed Lucky; it is revealed that Lucky is gay, with a leather-clad pit bull as a companion.
Seven-year-old Seven (Shane Sweet) is adopted by the Bundy family after being abandoned by his own parents, cousins of Peggy from Wanker County (Linda Blair, Bob Goldthwait). True to the Bundy name, he quickly proves himself to be manipulative, conniving, and good in a fist fight. Although the character was intended to generate fresh storylines, the show's writers ultimately found it difficult to work the boy into the show’s adult-themed scripts. The character was abruptly dropped to the delight of the viewers. (A poll showed that more than 80% of the viewers did not like that character). His final appearance was in the episode "Peggy And The Pirates" where Peggy sends him off to bed so that she can make love to Al. The character was never to be mentioned again, except for three occasions in Season 8. one in which his face appears on the side of a milk carton over the words, “Have you seen me?” Another instance is when Marcy and Jefferson comes over to inform the family that Seven has been staying with them, and has learned to chant "Kill the Bundys" with the neighborhood. In episode 0823 ("Kelly knows Something"), when Al is teaching sports trivia to Kelly we see numerous (many essential) facts leaving her brain as she is learning. A picture of Seven flows out of her brain, indicating that she will no longer remember him. See also: Jumping the Shark.[2]
Heard only in frightening voiceovers by Kathleen Freeman and ground-shaking gags (making her an unseen character), she lives with the Bundys in later seasons. There are vague and comical references to her gigantic weight. This woman is mostly the victim of Al's abrasive, behind-the-back, and hatred-filled insults. She was set to be played by Divine, who died before production. She works a phone sex line under the moniker "Butter."
Efrem Wanker, Peggy's father, was played by Tim Conway, appearing occasionally in the last three seasons. It is implied that he was drunk and held a shotgun to Al's head at Al's and Peggy's wedding. (He calls Peggy by her true name "Margaret"). Unlike many other sitcoms, where the father-in-law usually disapproves of the husband having married his daughter, Peg's father approves of Al so much so that he held a gun to Al's head to force him to follow through on the marriage Al had drunkenly proposed to Peg.
Marcy D'Arcy (Marcy Rhoades from Episodes 0101-0512, played by Amanda Bearse) is Peggy's best friend, Al's nemesis, and the family's next-door neighbor. Though she considers herself to be better than the Bundy family, Marcy often sinks to their level. She originally worked as a loan officer at the city bank (in a higher position than her husband Steve), and then as the manager of the Kyoto National Bank since the second season. But for a brief time, she was demoted to drive-up window teller as punishment for approving a loan Al could not repay. She wins back her old job after frugging on her boss's desk for 20 minutes, clad only in a slip, while the other drive-up window tellers toss quarters at her.
Initially, Marcy was a sweet, wholesome newlywed, but years of living next to the Bundys apparently warped her into a character almost as outrageous as the Bundys. She contemptuously bickers with Al, and revels at his misery. Marcy seems to have a disturbing dark side and enjoys sharing her past memories with Peg, but often tends to get lost in them. At various points in the series she is identified as Republican who looks down on the lower class Bundy clan, but at other times she is portrayed as a man-hating radical feminist and environmentalist. Al's most frequent targets are Marcy's tiny chest and her chickenlike stance when annoyed.
One of the running gags in the series has Marcy often mistaken for a young boy; when she reminisces about her first training bra, Al asks "How old were you then - twenty-five?!". Her cousin Mandy (also played by real-life lesbian Bearse) is a lesbian. Despite wanting to appear prudish, Marcy is shown to be a very sexual person, and it is revealed to have a rather sordid sexual history, such as the "Little Bo Peep and the Cop" game.
Although Marcy and Al are usually adversaries, they often unite in common causes such as when Steve loses his job and later when Jefferson comes into the series. Their teamwork is attributable to the fact that they are both breadwinners, giving them occasional moments of mutual understanding.
Steven "Steve" Bartholomew Rhoades (David Garrison) is Marcy's first husband. He is a banker who seems unfazed by his lower position than Marcy at the city bank. (When Marcy moves up to a high position at another bank, he gets her former job). Steve initially condescends to the Bundys but eventually becomes more like them, and generally turns to Al for male bonding. Marcy was initially attracted to him because of his self-centered materialism.
Steve seemed to be a fairly demure and buttoned-down character, compared to his wife and the Bundys, although he did show a dark side. As a banker, Steve took sadistic pleasure in humiliating people who bullied him in high school by making his former tormentors (many of whom were stuck in poor, dead-end jobs similar to Al's) grovel for bank loans, which he flatly refused. Steve also got his job as Dean of Bud's college by blackmailing the man who employed him as a chauffeur.
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, preferring to avoid being typecast in one role, and 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 the final episode shot (though confusingly, not the final episode aired) in which he was a regular character, Steve is disenchanted with his and Marcy's yuppie lifestyle and is increasingly interested in becoming an outdoorsman (a real-life interest of Garrison's). He then disappears, with the explanation that he left Marcy to become a forest ranger at Yosemite National Park. In later seasons, Garrison would reprise the Steve Rhoades character on four occasions, returning to guest star in individual episodes (with Steve having pursued other careers in the meantime), as he eventually returns to professional life to become the Dean of the Bud's college. This episode was to be the pilot of a spin-off series that never happened.
Jefferson Milhouse D'Arcy (Ted McGinley) is Marcy's second husband (age unknown but younger than Steve Rhoades), a prettyboy who marries her for money. Self-centered and lazy, he is a male equivalent of Peggy. Marcy met Jefferson (a bartender) at his workplace after a bankers' convention, where 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 a close friend of Al's and often angers Marcy when bonding with him; unlike Steve Rhoades, who was more of a foil or straight man to Al, Jefferson tends to be more encouraging and attuned to Al's behavior. Marcy constantly bosses around Jefferson to keep him in check. However, behind her back, Jefferson often insults Marcy and ignores her orders. When Marcy's favorite squirrel Zippy dies, Jefferson tells her that he would 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 nether regions.
Marcy keeps trying to make Jefferson get a job, but he constantly finds ways to weasel out of doing so. On the rare occasions when Jefferson actually does get a job, or is about to get one, Marcy makes him stop, as the jobs (working at the shoe store, working as an aerobics instructor) usually entail him working with beautiful women. When this happens, Marcy usually forces him to go back to his regular de facto job as her gigolo.
He claims that he was a CIA agent in the past (code-named "Bullwinkle"), and it is later revealed to have a commission as 1st Lieutenant in the National Guard. His ties to the CIA are never proven conclusively but strongly hinted to be authentic; it is proven he has some powerful Washington friends when he is able to get an audience with Congress on short notice, and members of the United States Secret Service recognize him as an old colleague and speak to him in code. But perhaps the most clear evidence comes in Episode 0820 ("The D'Arcy Files"), when the new part-owner of the Chicago Cubs is a former CIA target named "Walter Traugott" who is out to get revenge on his erstwhile captors. Jefferson privately reveals his history to Marcy and never retracts it; moreover, Traugott comes into the shoe store and presents Al a number of pictures of Jefferson with Castro, Arafat and other world leaders, saying Jefferson is a villain and offering a reward for turning him in. Al waffles, but the point becomes moot when Jefferson is in the room, watching the Cubs game, and the stadium announcer says that "El Bundy" is paging Walter Traugott. Jefferson pretends that he is going to have to kill Al for selling him out, but then laughs and dismisses the whole thing as an "April Fool's" prank on Al, asking, "If I was really a spy, couldn't I have just made a call and had Walter killed?" Laughing himself now, Al leaves for a party, but as Jefferson turns to watch the TV, the announcer incredulously notes that Traugott has just fallen out of the luxury box to his doom. Jefferson just smiles and blows quietly into a kazoo, a shot which became his trademark in the opening credits of later seasons. Jefferson claims that his last mission for the CIA was a failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro. It is hinted that the reason he cannot get a job is because he is in hiding since Castro has put a price on his head; although at one point they met face to face later in the show.
He is wanted for running an investment scam wherein he sold useless plots of Lake Chicamicamico; the lake area was in fact a toxic waste dump, and Al had actually bought shares for his retirement. He is easily the most financially scheming character of the show -- even more so than the Bundys. Often, when Al stumbles into a unique financial 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 trend's 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 Gary, Jefferson convinced Al to permit the relationship so Al can milk Gary out for 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. Jefferson also convinced Al to go home to have sex with his wife so Al could win a radio contest cash prize.
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.
Amber (Juliet Tablak) is Marcy's niece. Amber's mother sent her to Marcy to get her out of her bad L.A. neighborhood. Bud keeps on trying to bed her, but succeeds only once (0904) — and that may have been a dream, as his fantasies about her became a central issue in the later episode 0923. After season nine, Amber disappears without explanation. Like most females on the sitcom, she is typically repulsed by his objectifying views of females. However, she does appear to demonstrate an attraction to Bud (remarking to Kelly in private that she thinks he is cute), and freely kisses him as a way of saying goodbye.
April-October 1987--------Sundays--------8pm
October 1987-July 1989--------Sundays--------8:30pm
July 1989-August 1996--------Sundays--------9pm
September 1996-June 1997--------Saturdays--------9pm
One episode of Married... with Children was "lost" due to the efforts of a Michigan housewife (see below); it did, however, air outside the U.S. ever since the show went into syndication. Another edited episode involved Al trying to sell his Dodge before he is contacted by a Dodge representative wanting to record the moment when the odometer on the Dodge reaches all-zeros (1 million miles) was also the source of controversy. After meeting various people, Al is approached by two men dressed in all white tunics, holding a bundle of dynamite attached to an alarm clock. The men declare, "Look, we have no time to haggle; we need car and directions to Sears Tower." This sequence was edited because of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. (The unedited version of this episode is still re-run in full on the Canadian network TVtropolis.)
In 1989, Terry Rakolta, a homemaker from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, led a boycott against Married... with Children after viewing the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over - 0306".[3] Offended by the images of an old man wearing a garter and stockings, the scene where Steve touches the pasties of a mannequin dressed in S&M gear, a homosexual man wearing a tiara on his head (and Al's line, "And they wonder why we call them 'queens,'"), and a woman who takes off her bra in front of Al (and is shown with her arms covering her chest in the next shot), Rakolta began a letter-writing campaign to advertisers, demanding they boycott the show.
After advertisers began dropping their support for the show and while Rakolta made several appearances on television talk shows, FOX executives refused to air the episode titled "I'll See You In Court - 0308".[4] This episode would become known as the "Lost Episode" and was aired on FX on June 18, 2002, with some parts cut for time reasons. The episode was packaged with the rest of the third season in the January 2005 DVD release (and in the first volume of the Married...With Children Most Outrageous episode DVD set) with the parts cut from syndication put back in.
During the boycott, ratings for Married... with Children rose due to interest in the show caused by Rakolta's crusade to have the show cancelled. The increased number of viewers kept the show on the air until 1997. According to sources on the set, the producers sent Rakolta a fruit basket every Christmas as a way of saying "Thank you."
Rakolta has been referenced twice on the show: "Rock and Roll Girl - 0414,"[5] when a newscaster mentioned the city Bloomfield Hills, and "No Pot To Pease In - 0909,"[6] when a television show was made about the Bundy family and then was canceled because (according to Marcy) "some woman in Michigan didn't like it."
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing Married... with Children on DVD in Region 1 & Region 2 (Germany only) for the very first time. Thus far they have released the first six seasons in region 1 and seasons 1-10 in region 2 due to the huge popularity of the show in Germany.
Season Releases
For the most part the episodes on the North American DVD box sets are the unedited versions as seen on the FOX network, however there are some instances where scenes have been cut or the syndicated version of an episode was placed on the DVD instead. This is most noticeable in Season 4, where 8 of the 22 episodes have some type of edit. The region 2 season 4 set uses non-syndicated versions of these episodes.
The DVD Box sets from Season 3 onward do not feature the original "Love and Marriage" theme song in the opening sequence. Instead both the opening sequence and ending credits feature a new instrumental theme song. This was done because Columbia Tri-Star was unable to obtain the rights to the theme song. It is highly unlikely that the theme song will return in any yet to be released DVD box set.
The replaced theme song was the cause of the syndicated versions of seven episodes in Season 4, as Sony did not have access to the original masters of these episodes, and had to use syndicated prints. As the end credits had to be altered to credit the new theme song, certain scenes that originally ran during the end credits had to be replaced with a freezeframe. In most episodes affected, the original audio plays in the background while you see a freezeframe, however in a few cases a freezeframe is used, but the original audio is replaced with the theme song.
It is expected that the remaining five seasons will be released soon.
In Germany and Holland, Season 7, 8 and 9 are already out on region 2 in English and dubbed French and German. Season 10 was released on March 20, 2007. Since Season 5, a new season is released once per two months. This is due to the huge success of the series on DVD in Germany and Holland.
Also, in Argentina a remake has been done under the name of Casados con hijos. The show aired in 2005 and although it wasn't successful at first, it was aired again during summer and it got one of the highest ratings of the year and because of that, a second season has been done for 2006. The characters are Pepe, Moni, Coqui and Paola, all under the 'Argento' surname. It should be noted that the show's reruns had higher ratings than when the episodes were first aired.
A Guerra dos Pintos (War of the Pintos) was the title of the Brazilian remake. It ran for a short time on BAND, until it got cancelled due to poor ratings. Many episodes were left unaired. The Brazilian Bundys are called "Pinto" (hence the name of the series). Pinto translates to cock in portuguese, and it's also a common brazilian surname. The Pintos live in Rio de Janeiro. Al's equivalent, "Zé Pinto", is a shoe salesman just like Al. He's a former soccer player as Al is a former football player. Peggy is "Neide Pinto", Kelly is "Kelly Pinto" and Bud is "Joca Pinto" in the series. They have a dog named Cachorro (which means dog in portuguese. Their neighbours, the "Fialho"s, are based on the Rhoades, not the D'Arcys. The storylines are exactly the same as in the early original version.
In Chile, a remake was made in 2006 and 2007, with the name Casado con Hijos, and it has been getting higher ratings, beating soap operas broadcasting in the same hour. The show is broadcasted daily and because of higher ratings, it is now being shown three times a day and it has been renewed for a third season. The characters are Alberto "Tito" Larraín (Al), Quena Gómez de Larraín (Peggy), Nacho (Bud), and Titi (Kelly). Their neighbors are Marcia Durán (Marcy) and Pablo Pinto (both Steve Rhodes and Jefferson D'Arcy) with luisana lopilato.
The German sitcom Hilfe, meine Familie spinnt (Help, My Family is Crazy), showing the family Strunk, is a remake of the 26 early episodes of "Married... with Children". The show first aired in 1992.
In 2006, Hungarian TV network TV2 brought the license rights including scripts and hired the original producers from Sony Pictures for a remake show placed in Hungarian environment. It was entitled Egy rém rendes család Budapesten (in English : Married with children in Budapest, loan translation : A horribly nice family in Budapest). The main story began with the new family called the Bándis inherit an outskirt house from their American relatives the Bundys. The filmed a whole season of 26 episodes, all of them being remade versions of the plots of the original first seasons. It was the highest budget sitcom ever made in Hungary. First it was aired on Tuesday nights, but was beaten by a new season of American Emergency Room, then placed to Wednesday nights. The remake lost its viewers, but stayed on the air due to the contract between Sony and TV2. ([7][8][9])
There is a sitcom called Świat według Kiepskich (The World According to the Kiepscy), which is loosely based on Married... with Children (in Poland entitled Świat według Bundych).
Originally it was aired at public channel "La 2". The Spanish TV network Cuatro is currently showing a Spanish version called Matrimonio con Hijos (Marriage with Children).
Married... with Children is one of a handful of U.S. comedies that have been remade for Britain. The show made no great impact, perhaps because of the questionable use of wholesome family comedian Russ Abbott in the lead role, or perhaps because the original had already been shown, albeit in a late-evening slot. Also, British TV is in general more risque than American, and the BBC had already been showing shows like Married for years. The show was called Married for Life for the UK market.
Married...with Children is also popular in other countries around the world.
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