History Series / MARRIEDWITHCHILDREN

* DisproportionateRetribution: The revenge on Heather [=McCoy=] (Tiffani-Amber Theissen) went a bit too far.

** Speaking of Marcy, one episode involves convincing Marcy that she drunkenly slept with Bud and can't remember it.
** One of the darkest examples occurred in the season 10 episode "Blond and Blonder". To summarize, a cruel AlphaBitch named Mindy had played a rather heartless prank on Bud back in high school, and remains unrepentant; at their reunion, Kelly meets the now handsome and rich Eric Waters, who she had played an equally cruel prank on back then -- and now expects him to forgive. Eventually, Bud teams up with Eric to get revenge, telling his sister Eric wants to meet her on the roof, while telling Mindy that Eric wants to meet ''her'' under the bleachers. Mindy goes, and has no idea it's [[BedTrick actually Bud there]]. (As for Kelly, Eric never shows up, leaving her to wait in sub-zero weather, presumably all night.)

* HumiliationConga: Bud goes through an epic one in "Teacher's Pet". He dates two women at once, his teacher and a classmate, only to learn that she ran off with a football player and then the classmate dumps him for not bring able to hold onto the teacher. [[FromBadToWorse It only gets worse from there.]] After the substitute teacher comes in, a sweet grandmotherly figure, Al barges in, accuses ''her'' of sleeping with Bud and has her arrested. He then leaves and Bud then gets up in front of the class and insists that Al wasn't his father, believes himself to be having a dream and pulls his pants down to his underwear to "embarrass" himself awake...only to forget he wasn't even wearing underwear. And he was so humiliated by the situation, that he finally pisses himself. Al then comes back in, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere but sees the display and leaves without saying another word.]]

* EveryoneHasStandards: After perusing a copy of TV Guide, Peggy declares to Al, "Honey, ''Series/CopRock'''s on tonight, so we're (she and the kids) going to the movies." Note that Peg is well known for her love of awful television, but something as notoriously bad as "''Cop Rock''" is too terrible even for her.

** Christmases in the Bundy house usually suck. {{Noodle Incident}}s where Al and Peg hid from the kids in the room because they forgot it it Al knocking himself out from a shovel Bud left in the snow. Featured incidents include Al getting his gifts robbed by another Santa, not being able to get Christmas money out of his bank on time before it closed, and learning his prosperous Christmas gifts were damaged goods from his revolting mother-in-law discreetly working as phone sex operator.

* LethalChef: Peg in the early episodes. In the later episodes, she didn't cook at all (except when Al used the money from the "No Chicken, No Check" insurance company to force Peg to buy meat, when Peg's insanely obese mom started making money as a phone sex operator, and when Peg suffered amnesia and Al brainwashed her into being a competent housewife). However, this habit of Peg's also resulted in a bit of good luck for the kids when her leftover Mystery Meal results in the band Anthrax being quarantined to the Bundy house for an entire month.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Well, Al ''is'' a hero to many people in real life. In one episode, Al ruefully admits that, however, much he might ogle other women, at the end of the day Peg is still the one he wants.

** ''Married for Life" was the British version with Russ Abbot as Ted Butler (not Al Bundy), a pre-''Series/DowntonAbbey'' Hugh Bonneville as Steve.... Hollingsworth. ([[ShortRunner It was axed after seven episodes]].)

* CrappyHolidays: First the family goes to [[MeaningfulName Dumpwater]], Florida, where an axe murderer tries to kill them. A few series later, they visit Lower Uncton, England, where the locals... you guessed it: try to kill them.

** Peg is always the one trying to get Al to have sex (in the later episodes. The early ones had Al initiate sex or the two agree never to have it again), Kelly is constantly making out with her various sleazy boyfriends, and even Marcy at her StrawFeminist worst displays a healthy libido.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Early episodes show Peggy doing housework (even though it was established that she does a lousy job at it, especially [[LethalChef the cooking]] part), Al initiating sex, and Kelly being of average intelligence (yet still getting poor grades in school). When married to Steve, Marcy was a submissive stereotypical wife (a contrast to Peg's anti-housewife) but when she married Jefferson she became a dominant feminist.

** Kelly in the early episodes was just a lousy student who didn't care about school and was ragged on by Bud for being a sexually promiscuous petty thug. Later episodes would have her as a straight-up dumb blonde whose limited mental capacity and inability to learn may or may not have been the result of her upbringing (one episode had Al tell Peg that she should have gained more than five pounds when she was pregnant with Kelly, while others attribute Kelly's dumbness to lead paint exposure, not being fed regularly, or hitting her head while Al and Peg were driving).

** The earlier episodes also had Al and Peg as more competent parents, even if their kids didn't take their punishments seriously.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* SmokestackDrop: In "The Mystery of Skull Island", Bud is plummeting to his death over Lake Michigan after being abandoned by his skydiving instructor. His panicked voice comes over the radio saying "Uh, listen I seem to be heading towards the smokestack of a tugboat. Could use some last minute advice. Over!" Exactly what happens to him after that isn't specified, but it involved [[NoodleIncident mouth-to-mouth from a drunken tugboat skipper]].

As of 2022, an animated revival is in the works with the Creator/EdONeil, Creator/KateySagal, Creator/ChristinaApplegate, and Creator/DavidFaustino attached to reprise their roles as the Bundys.

A vitriolic, biting subversion of clean-cut 'family sitcoms' of the day, and arguably the stage-setter for the DysfunctionalFamily trend that followed, the show premiered on April 5, 1987 as the very first prime-time program ever shown by the brand new Creator/{{Fox}} Broadcasting Company. [[note]]Fox actually debuted on October 9, 1986 with ''The Late Show Starring Creator/JoanRivers'' in late night, which bombed hard; Rivers left by May 1987 and the show limped on with various guest hosts until October 1988 (excluding a period in December-January where it was replaced by the even bigger bomb ''The Wilton-North Report''). During this period Fox was essentially limited to the six stations it owned (which Rupert Murdoch had purchased from Metromedia), only beginning a true network presence in 1987.[[/note]] Along with ''Series/TwentyOneJumpStreet'' and ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'', it was one of the network's few hits before [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague the NFL]] and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' turned the network into a major player. It was a constant ratings success until it ended in June 1997; it's still Fox's longest-running live-action sitcom. This is the show in which [[Series/SamanthaWho Christina]] [[Film/{{Anchorman}} Applegate]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Katey Sagal]] got their starts. There has also been a variety of series of comic books based on the show that were published. A {{Foreign Remake}}s include a highly successful one in Argentina, ''Casado con hijos'', and a badly-received one in Israel called ''Nesuim Plus'', starring Creator/LiorAshkenazi, that ran for two seasons between 2012 and 2017.

** Downplayed with Bud. He is still seen as being rather streetwise and book-smart, [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMoments even being the first Bundy to graduate college.]] However, when it came to his approach of women or even in defending himself against Kelly, who in the early seasons he was at equal wits with and was more likely to get in some pretty good zingers on her, the CoolLoser persona of his quickly lost the "cool" part as the years went on.