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Married With Children : Season 1 (Complete) [1987]
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When Married... with Children debuted on Fox TV on April 5, 1987 (followed by The Tracey Ullman Show a half-hour later), the grungy sitcom became an instant flagship for Rupert Murdoch's upstart network. The program's much-publicised working title, Not the Cosbys (a dismissive reference to the cheerful vitality of Bill Cosby's hugely popular television clan on NBC's The Cosby Show) was a dead giveaway. Married... with Children was going to be a trashier, raunchier, and far more cynical view of the American nuclear family. But it turned out the series actually fell into other caustic-domestic entertainment traditions, notably the Don Ameche and Frances Langford radio comedy series from the 1940s, The Bickersons, and Jackie Gleason's TV classic, The Honeymooners. The jokes were savage, key relationships were marked by ennui and indifference, and the Bundy family name couldn't help but make one think of America's most notorious, real-life serial killer at the time. Yet the show had a hint of Golden Age Hollywood gloss, a retro-screwball feel that one could detect in the snappy verbal warfare between husband Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and wife Peggy (Katey Sagal). The characters, and the show, eschewed sentimentality, which certainly opened the floodgates to comic cynicism but also kept a door ajar for moments of genuine sweetness. A decade later, however, by the time Fox cancelled the increasingly expensive series, Married... with Children's first-season tone would be considerably different, replaced by a stronger reliance on running jokes and character stereotypes, particularly concerning Bundy children Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino). That evolution makes watching Married...with Children's first 13 episodes, once again, quite instructive. Those programs are all on this two-disc set, including the startling pilot, in which Al and Peggy lock horns over marital politics and enlist naive new neighbors Steve (David Garrison) and Marcy (Amanda Bearse) in a battle of the sexes. There's also the classic "Whose Room Is It, Anyway," concerning the Bundys' competition to connive Steve and Marcy into building a recreation room, and "Thinnergy," a very funny piece about a diet that supposedly boosts sexual interest. --Tom Keogh
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £12.32 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk
Long over due!
Review date: 2007-09-21 Rating: 10 out of 10
This should have been released on DVD here in the UK years ago and now it's finally here. This was truly a ground breaking TV series. Forget the Brady Bunch, forget the Partridge family, this is the Bundy's. A show that dared cross the line before anyone else, showing US family life as it was for so many people.
Al Bundy, a man who had the chance for a life as an American Football Player, instead got his girlfriend pregnant and now lives a life as a Ladies shoe salesman while supporting a money grabbing wife, a man eater of a teenage daughter and a destructive son and to top it off, lives next door to two very annoying neighbours.
Staring Ed O'Neill & Kathy Sagal (who played the voice of Leela in Futurama) and others. Married with Children is truly a gem of American TV and lasted 11 years, buy series one and laugh for hours, guaranteed.
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Reviews
Absolutely Brilliant!! - Buy it !!
Review date: 2007-09-09 Rating: 10 out of 10
This show is all about the "wars" that go on in real families - I defy any married person to watch this & find a situation, attitude, phrase, etc that they can't relate to. It is simply brilliant. Buy it with caution though cos you WILL end up watching it over & over!!
I'm home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review date: 2007-08-29 Rating: 10 out of 10
A long overdue region two dvd release for the complete first season of married with children, an american comedy that ran for eleven years from 1987. Focusing on the bundy family, father al is a loveable loser, a washed up high school football star trading on past glories and working in a shoe store. Wife peggy is a formidable woman who'd rather watch talk shows than do housework, daughter kelly is a bimbo, and son bud likes the ladies. but they don't like him. strait laced new neighbours marcie and steve fit uneasily into all this.
the style of this season is more traditional sitcom, later years having gotten into fantasy territory and character jokes instead, and a few elements that appear later, such as al's lack of hygiene are surprisingly absent this early on.
Anyway, the bundys are a realistic and believable family, and easy to like, over the course of this season. all thirteen half hour episodes are presented over two discs. the only extra is a forty two minute long special programme from 2003, in which the cast get together again to look back at the show, complete with lots of clips.
A great start to a great show. hope we don't have to wait too long for season two
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Katey Sagal
Amanda Bearse
David Faustino
Ed O'Neill
Christina Applegate
Creators:
Ed O'Neill (Primary Contributor)
Katey Sagal (Primary Contributor)
Recording label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
EAN: 5035822159617
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-08-27
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 302 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1987
Language: English (Original Language)