50 Fun Facts About Married with Children

On which network did Married... with Children air?

It was the first primetime series the network ever broadcast. It ran from April 1987 to June 1997.

What distinction does the show hold on that network?

Eleven seasons and 259 episodes is a long run by any measure. Only cartoons have lasted longer there.

In which city is the Bundy family home?

The suburb is fictional but the city is not. Al supports its sports teams with grim loyalty.

What is Al Bundy's job?

He hates it and says so in almost every episode. The shop sits in a shopping mall.

What is the name of the shop where Al works?

It sits in the fictional New Market Mall. He loses or quits the job several times and is always rehired.

What is Al's endlessly repeated sporting achievement?

It happened in the 1966 city championship for Polk High.

Which fictional school did Al's team beat in that championship game?

The game was the city final in 1966. His own school was Polk High.

What kind of car does Al drive?

It is only ever called by its make on screen. The model shown is sometimes a Plymouth Duster instead.

Who did Ed O'Neill say he based his performance on?

He said so in a 2016 interview. The performance ran for eleven seasons.

Which actress played Peg Bundy?

She later starred in Sons of Anarchy and voiced Leela in Futurama. She sang professionally before acting.

What is Peg Bundy's maiden name?

Her family come from a fictional Wisconsin county of the same name. The joke got past the censors for a decade.

Which three chores does Peg flatly refuse to do?

The family lives on frozen food and takeaway as a result. Her hair, however, is immaculate at all times.

What changed about Peg's appearance after the first two seasons?

The bouffant and the spandex stayed throughout. She had been a brunette to begin with.

Why did the writers give Peg a baby storyline in season six?

The storyline was later reversed on screen. The show handled it in a way few sitcoms would attempt.

Which actress played Kelly Bundy?

She was fifteen when the show began. She won an Emmy years later for a guest role in Friends.

Where did the actress who played Kelly say she found the model for the character?

It was an exotic dancer called Cindy in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II. The character became less realistic and more extreme as the series went on.

How is Kelly portrayed in the first season, compared with later ones?

After the first year she steadily becomes denser and more provocative. The wardrobe changed with the writing.

What work does Kelly take up after leaving school in 1990?

Her advertising work includes the notorious Verminator campaign. Her brother, by contrast, keeps a high grade point average.

Which actor played Bud Bundy?

He was thirteen when the show started. His character is born on screen in January 1974.

How does Bud compare academically with the rest of his family?

He maintains a high grade point average right through school. It does him no good at all socially.

What is the name of Bud's suave alter ego?

He eventually merges with the persona. The results are rarely dignified.

Which song is the show's theme tune?

Frank Sinatra performs it. The choice is entirely sarcastic given what follows.

Who performs the show's theme song?

The song was written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen in the 1950s. It had originally been a wholesome hit.

What are the surnames of the Bundys' next-door neighbours?

Steve and Marcy move in early in the run. Marcy stays for the whole series, remarrying along the way.

Which anti-man support group does Marcy found?

Al runs the rival organisation with the longer acronym. The two groups exist mainly to insult each other.

What does the acronym NO MA'AM stand for?

Al founds it in the later seasons. The joke is that the name is longer than the group's list of achievements.

Who attempted to organise a boycott of the show in 1989?

She was a viewer from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The campaign made the show far more famous than it had been.

How many episodes of Married... with Children were made?

They were spread across eleven seasons. That is the longest live-action run in the network's history.

How many seasons did the show run?

The network cancelled it without a proper finale.

In which year was the series cancelled?

The decision came from the network. The cast learned about it in the press.

Which studio produced the series?

The network only distributed it. The early episodes were taped at a rival network's facility.

Where were the first two seasons recorded?

It is an odd footnote for a show that defined a rival network. Later seasons moved elsewhere.

Roughly how many viewers was the show averaging each week in its early-1990s peak?

That put it among the most watched programmes in America. The boycott campaign had helped rather than hurt.

In which year did Married... with Children premiere?

The first episode aired on 5 April. The network itself was only weeks old.

What are the names of the two Bundy children?

One is the dumb blonde of the family, the other the frustrated brains. Both still live at home well into adulthood.

In which year was Kelly Bundy born, according to the character's biography?

That makes her fifteen when the series starts. She graduates from high school in 1990.

On which date is Bud Bundy born, according to the character's biography?

He is the younger of the two children. He is also the only one with an academic record worth mentioning.

What is Bud's full first name?

His middle name is Franklin. Almost nobody on the show ever uses either.

Which actor played Al Bundy?

He went on to Modern Family two decades later. He based the role on a relative.

What was Al before he sold shoes?

He never stops mentioning the four touchdowns. The rest of his life has been downhill since 1966.

Al Bundy scored his famous four touchdowns as a fullback for which fictional school?

He was offered a college scholarship, then broke his leg and married his high-school sweetheart while drunk. The Bundy curse took it from there.

Bud Bundy's nickname comes from what?

The Budweiser-inspired name suits a family whose patriarch once led a violent protest against a tax on beer that spared wine.

What was the working title of Married... with Children, mocking the era's wholesome family sitcoms?

Fox executives told creators Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye to be as outrageous as the big three networks would never allow.

The spin-off Top of the Heap starred which future Friends actor as Vinnie Verducci?

Vinnie had dated Kelly on the parent show. Top of the Heap flopped, as did its own spin-off, Vinnie & Bobby, a year later.

When Steve Rhoades leaves Marcy in season four, what does he go off to become?

He later resurfaces as the dean of Bud's college, a job he got by blackmailing the previous dean, for whom he had worked as a chauffeur.

Which senator said walking in on his kids watching the show launched his war on pop culture?

Jesse Helms simply called the show 'trash'. The Media Research Center named it the worst show of the 1995-96 season.

The 'Lost Episode' that Fox pulled in 1989 was finally broadcast in 2002 on which channel?

'I'll See You in Court' has the Bundys trying a motel to spice up their love life. Spike later reportedly paid $12 million for rights to every episode.

What was the title of the 2006 Russian remake, in which the Bundys became the Bukins?

Argentina's Casados con Hijos ran 215 episodes and stayed in weekly reruns for years; Germany's remake reached twice the US audience and was still cancelled.

Who played Kelly Bundy in the original unaired pilot, before the part was recast?

Hunter Carson was the pilot's Bud. The producers worried about chemistry with the parents, reshot every scene and paid their 15-year-old new Kelly $20,000 an episode.

The exterior shot of the Bundy house was filmed in a subdivision of which Illinois suburb?

The opening's expressway shot was lifted from National Lampoon's Vacation, complete with the Griswolds' green family truckster.