| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | !! The Bundy Family |
| 4 | [[folder:In General]] |
| 5 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/married-with-children_9589.jpg]] |
| 6 | [[caption-width-right:350: '''''[[TropeCodifier The]]''''' DysfunctionalFamily]] |
| 7 | %% |
| 8 | |
| 9 | General tropes about the Bundy family as a whole. |
| 10 | ---- |
| 11 | * BadassFamily: The Bundys are not afraid to kick ass individually or as a family. Even Peggy and Seven get their shots in. |
| 12 | * BlameGame: Constantly play this with each other over who's more to blame for their poverty, but it's usually Peg who starts the blame game. Ironically, Peg deserves the most blame for squandering their limited resources on useless non-edible items such as dresses and supposedly make-up, bras, perfumes and accessories. |
| 13 | * BornUnlucky: The "Bundy Curse" effectively dooms all Bundys to constant bad luck and crappy family lives. |
| 14 | * TheBully: The Bundys are always putting down people with petty insults. Al's favorite target is the women who frequent his shoe store, Peg's favorite target is Al, Kelly and Bud's favorite targets are each other. |
| 15 | * BullyingADragon: If you're not a Bundy yourself, insulting or degrading one of them is the surest way to getting a beating, humiliation or worse. The only non-family members who get away with it are Marcy and her husbands, and they're almost family themselves. |
| 16 | * CatchPhrase: The family have some shared catchphrases, including the family cry of "Whoa, Bundy!" or "Thanks, dad" whenever Al screws up. |
| 17 | * ConsistentClothingStyle: Al typically wore a long-sleeved button-down shirt and slacks, Peggy wore tight long-sleeved shirts (which often showed off her cleavage), tight spandex pants and heels, Bud wore T-shirts, jeans and hightops, and Kelly wore short skirts and either boots or high heels. |
| 18 | * ConstructionCatcalls: Peg and Kelly have both deliberately walked by construction sites in revealing clothing to get these. Al and Bud are a partial example in that they're not construction workers but they regularly catcall attractive women...including Kelly when they didn't realize it was her. |
| 19 | * TheCorruptor: Living around the Bundys turns people into clones of them such as Kelly's conservative boyfriend from "Al Goes to the Dogs" who after spending a day with Al goes from wanting a respectable classy girl to wanting Playboy model types. Marcy is the prime example. She moved into the neighborhood a sweet, polite, if defensive woman who simply wanted to settle down and have an average American lifestyle, but the end of the series she's basically a female Al with a better job. |
| 20 | * DeadpanSnarker: While Al is the premier smart-ass of the show all the Bundys are prone to snappy one liners. |
| 21 | * DysfunctionalFamily: They're the TropeCodifier. It is safe to say their household income is divided as 99-1 with Peg getting the upper percentage while Bud and Kelly combined get the lower one. That leaves Al with nothing. The kids are divided on which parent is the LesserOfTwoEvils, sometimes going with mom because Al can be a bit of a ControlFreak at times especially if he demands family time, and the other times with Al himself since Peg is a lazy, negligent mother who won't feed them at all. The viewer usually only sees the kids warming up to Al, with Peg out of the picture. |
| 22 | * HereditaryCurse: The Bundy Curse started when Seamus [=McBundy=], a 17th-century blacksmith, insulted a fat witch who came into his shop. The angry witch put a curse on his entire family, condemning them to be BornUnlucky and live in PerpetualPoverty. The Bundy Curse affects male and female Bundys equally, given that Kelly isn't any better off than Al or Bud, but it's somewhat Zigzagged by Peg. Given that she married into the family and caused many of Al's misfortunes, he considers her ''part'' of the curse. On the other hand, her life is nearly as miserable as the rest of the family's, and she has the occasional FreakOut that she's stuck suffering Al's fate with him. |
| 23 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: The Bundys regularly insult, abuse and exploit each other, but they'll unite to utterly ''destroy'' anybody else who gives one of them grief. The only exceptions are Marcy and her husbands, but they're practically family themselves. |
| 24 | * IronButtMonkey: They've all repeatedly suffered slapstick AmusingInjuries, ranging from falling off the roof of their house to being electrocuted to tumbling down the basement stairs. Al gets the worst of it, but Peg and the kids get their share of injuries too. |
| 25 | * {{Jerkass}}: All four of these display this behavior. |
| 26 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: While they all might snark or screw over each other, when push comes to shove, they all really love each other. When someone tries to mess with them, they better be prepared for a beatdown from the entire family. |
| 27 | * LoserProtagonist: All of them exemplify lower-middle class mediocrity and degeneracy as a contrast to the seemingly perfect upper-middle class families of sitcoms in the 80s. |
| 28 | * LowerClassLout: They're just as morally bankrupt as they are financially bankrupt. |
| 29 | * MoneyDumb: Peg is the very worst, given how much money she spends on worthless junk and clothes, but Al and the kids aren't much better. Bud and Kelly constantly bug Al for money, often for frivolities, instead of trying to earn it themselves. Al's various {{Get Rich Quick Scheme}}s constantly fail and leave the family even deeper in debt than before. |
| 30 | * NoodleIncident: In "Luck Of The Bundys", Al says that if Bud was arrested during his college fraternity initiation, all four of the Bundys would have police records for indecent exposure. We never learn how Al, Peg or Kelly got their records for it. |
| 31 | * NutritionalNightmare: The Bundys' diets vary between high-caloric fast food, scraps of whatever they can find (sandwiches made of Tang powder or toothpaste, restaurant condiments, toaster crumbs, etc.), anything they can steal from other people (e.g. neighbors or coworkers), things normally considered inedible (mice and other vermin, soup made from boots, etc.), or simply nothing at all. |
| 32 | * PerpetualPoverty: The Bundy family are doomed to perpetual squalor no matter how many schemes or jobs they get into. |
| 33 | * SharedFamilyQuirks: The Bundys are all masters of SnarkToSnarkCombat, they're all expert fistfighters who aren't afraid to [[CombatPragmatist fight dirty]], they've all committed multiple crimes, they insult and make fun of each other when they fail or are embarrassed but will unite to destroy anyone else that does it, and all firmly believe it's NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught. |
| 34 | * ShoutOutThemeNaming: The creators are wrestling fans and stated they're named after Wrestling/KingKongBundy, who appeared in two episodes (one as a relative of Peg's and another AsHimself) and not after Ted Bundy like many initially assumed. |
| 35 | * SnarkToSnarkCombat: The Bundys regularly do this to each other and to other people. Anybody stupid enough to try exchanging barbs with them is going to get utterly annihilated. The only people who ever hold their own are Marcy and her husbands. |
| 36 | * UnfortunateNames: While they were named after wrestler Wrestling/KingKongBundy, their name is more likely to bring to mind serial killer UsefulNotes/TedBundy which has gotten mentioned a few times. |
| 37 | [[/folder]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[folder:Al Bundy]] |
| 40 | !!Alfred "Al" Bundy |
| 41 | %% |
| 42 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17115540570.21106200 |
| 43 | %% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 44 | %% |
| 45 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/oip_88_2.jpg]] |
| 46 | [[caption-width-right:300: ''Eh, love, hate, we're family, what's the difference?'']] |
| 47 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/EdONeill |
| 48 | |
| 49 | Al is the forever down-on-his-luck patriarch of the Bundy family. His defining moment (so he says) was when he scored four touchdowns in a single game as a fullback at Polk High School. Nowadays, he works a thankless dead-end job at Gary's Shoe Store in the New Market Mall. He enjoys bowling, visiting strip clubs, watching [=TV=], masturbating, pulling off risky schemes to make money and avoiding sex with the wife. |
| 50 | ---- |
| 51 | * AbusiveParents: Borderline example. His mother was an alcoholic and, in various episodes, was implied to have been abusive towards Al, but Al would share many tender moments with his father when they would share their affection for Playboys in the basement when his mother was passed out. |
| 52 | * TheAce: Al was an all-star high school football running back who could have gone to college on a football scholarship, and perhaps would have even made it to the NFL. His dreams of football stardom came crashing down when he impregnated Peg and had to get a job as a shoe salesman to support her and their child (Kelly). |
| 53 | %%* AchievementsInIgnorance |
| 54 | * ActionDad: Al is hardly a model dad, but he will stand up for his children and wife when needed -- often with violence. |
| 55 | * ActorAllusion: Al Bundy is a former football star. Ed O'Neill himself was a standout college football player who was even signed as an undrafted free agent by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he was later cut from the team during training camp. |
| 56 | * ActuallyPrettyFunny: He usually invokes this with Jefferson, who laughs at his jokes about Marcy behind Marcy's back. There have also been more than enough times where Peg had to resist laughing out loud. |
| 57 | * AllForNothing: Every time Al pulls off a scam to make money, he ends up failing, racking up debt and losing any money he gained from the scam. |
| 58 | * AllMenArePerverts: Zigzagged. He enjoys "nudie bars", Playboy magazines and trashy TV shows, but hates the very thought of sex with his wife. Not that she does much to entice him, either. |
| 59 | * AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: |
| 60 | ** When Al's neighbors mistakenly thought he'd died, they began dancing in the streets and singing ''Ding Dong, The Shoe Man's Dead!'' |
| 61 | ** When Al and his family moved to the supermarket to get away from the angry mob for sapping the neighborhood's electricity, the entire neighborhood had a campout where they reunited with old friends and sang songs like, ''If I Had A Hammer (I'd Drive It Through Al Bundy's Skull)'' |
| 62 | ** In the final episode of the "England Trilogy", concessions at the trial by combat being held to lift the curse on Lower Uncton featured t-shirts emblazoned with "I Saw Al Bundy Die". |
| 63 | ** When he moved out of the neighborhood after briefly splitting up with Peggy, they had a parade to celebrate. |
| 64 | ** "Damn Bundys" sees Al go to Hell and is soon joined by the rest of the cast. Marcy explains that she died by falling into the grave while dancing next to it. Jefferson was next because "It was a conga line." |
| 65 | * AngryWhiteMan: A rather ''sympathetic'' example. He's also a bit more nuanced in that, while he despises feminism and political correctness, he has no issues regarding race and while he will make fun of CampGay and ButchLesbian stereotypes, he can be quite accepting of homosexuals. The French are the only cultural group he hates. He's extremely bitter about how the world is changing, in that women are no longer expected to StayInTheKitchen and that the educated nerds are more likely to be successful than he is as a former JerkJock who believed that SchoolIsForLosers. |
| 66 | * AnimalMotifs: |
| 67 | ** Marcy has compared Al to everything from a pig to a three-toed sloth to a shaved ape. Peg also compares Al to a gorilla she saw at the zoo. |
| 68 | ** Peggy has compared Al to "a big stupid guard dog" and her "faithful old hound dog." |
| 69 | * AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Him and Peggy had several of these moments. |
| 70 | * BerserkButton: Whenever Al catches someone hitting on his wife or having sex with his daughter, he goes into full TranquilFury mode before administering the obligatory NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. |
| 71 | --> '''Al:''' Hi Jake, I'm sorry Kelly didn't introduce us. But before you go to the room, let me introduce you to the rest of the house. This is the end of the bannister. '''*WHAM*''' Oh, and uh, meet my wall. '''*THUD*''' What's that, Jake? You say, how do you get out? Well, how 'bout the door? |
| 72 | --> '''Jake:''' Oh, please don't! |
| 73 | * BrokenAce: The definition of the term "peaked in high school", now completely miserable in almost every way. |
| 74 | * BlindWithoutEm: One episod reveals he's very short sighted and needs to get glasses. However, he finds seeing his family, especially Peg, clearly so disturbing that he ditches his glasses. |
| 75 | * BloodKnight: Al relishes the chance to fight. According to Peg, he was like that when they were dating. She once asked him to beat up another guy, and he did so without even asking why. |
| 76 | * BookDumb: Al is by no means an academic, given that he didn't ''need'' to be as a high-prospect football player in high school; unfortunately, his dreams got destroyed due to an injury and he had no backup plan because of his neglectful studies, which led to his mediocre life. That said, Al is, in reality, much smarter than this trope would suggest, as he's great at complicated schemes and has a keen wit to match. |
| 77 | * TheBore: Since he's accomplished nothing after high school and has no life, he'll usually rant on and on about his job at the women's shoe store and how much life sucks. Everyone on the show tries avoiding him. |
| 78 | * BornUnlucky: To the point where he recognizes that any time he experiences good luck, it just creates an equal amount of bad luck for later. |
| 79 | * BoyfriendBlockingDad: |
| 80 | ** Al regularly pummels Kelly's boyfriends. Justified in that Kelly's dates (most of them; the early episodes had Kelly dating a lot of nice, normal guys, more-or-less) really are the kind of scumbags that no sane, competent father would want near his baby girl. He doesn't even get angry or fly into a rage over it. He just calmly and dispassionately beats the hell out of them and shows them the door(after hitting them with it first). |
| 81 | ** He also tells off the older woman whom he thinks is having an affair with the underage Bud, calling her a "cradle-robbing pervert" and brings in the cops to arrest her. It's the wrong woman, unfortunately, but the right reaction. |
| 82 | * BrilliantButLazy: Given his surprising intelligence, Al could have made a better life for himself despite his injury. Instead, he uses his intellect for sarcasm and occasional schemes to make more money. |
| 83 | * TheBully: Although Al is more on the receiving than giving end of bullying, he often fat shames the women who come to the shoe store he works at as he knows there aren't any shoes he can sell them that's their size. |
| 84 | * BumblingDad: He has a failing relationship with his family, whom all only milk him for all the money he's worth (as emphasized in the show's intro). |
| 85 | * ButtMonkey: Makes meager pay at his dead-end job at a shoe store, lives with an ungrateful family who disrespects him and only take away his life earnings (especially Peg) and gets frequently belittled and bullied by Marcy who frequently comes to visit the house. Not even extra or background characters seem kind to him. His pay for an entire year came out to just $12,000. |
| 86 | * BuxomBeautyStandard: Al's favorite nudie mag is called "Big 'Uns." It's also mentioned that he avoids going to the strip club during A-cup night. |
| 87 | * CareerEndingInjury: Al had received a scholarship to play football in college, but ended up breaking his leg thanks to a tackle he received while he was distracted by Peg's shouting. |
| 88 | * CatchPhrase: "...four touchdowns...", "A fat woman [verb]ed into the shoe store today...", "Let's rock," and at NO MA'AM meetings, "Focus, gentlemen, focus!" |
| 89 | * CatchphraseInsult: He likes to call Marcy "chicken". |
| 90 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Early episodes had Al willing to engage in sex with Peg. |
| 91 | * CharacterTics: Is usually seen with his hand down his pants, a habit he practiced since childhood. |
| 92 | * TheChewToy: Some episodes have ended with him horribly injured and covered in bandages. |
| 93 | * CigarChomper: On the rare occasion that he was victorious or about to have good fortune (particularly in the earlier seasons), Al would be seen happily smoking a cigar. |
| 94 | * ConMan: He pulls off an awful lot of GetRichQuickScheme[=s=] such as a frivolous lawsuit, an illegal daycare center in his own workplace, sheltering a foreign exchange student for $500 a month inside his house's cold ''fully'' open garage and trying to defraud a librarian for a 30-year overdue library book which [[LaserGuidedKarma never really work out in the end]]. |
| 95 | * CosmicPlaything: The biggest one in the series. And that's up for a very stiff competition. |
| 96 | * CrazyJealousGuy: Even though he bemoans the fact that he's married to Peg, Al doesn't take kindly to other men hitting on Peg, and he usually ''hits them'' in retaliation. |
| 97 | * DeadpanSnarker: How he makes most of the show's jokes and provides the humor. |
| 98 | * {{Determinator}}: Despite all the misery he's been through, Al still keeps on going and refuses to take the easy way out by killing himself. Al notes this on the Season 3 premiere "He Thought He Could" (where Al finds an overdue library book and confronts the evil librarian who constantly put him down as a child) and claims that this is what makes him a winner, rather than a loser. |
| 99 | * DealWithTheDevil: He makes one in "Damn Bundys". |
| 100 | * DeterminedDefeatist: Al knows that he's miserable, that his life sucks, and that it's probably never going to get any better. He knows that pretty much everything he does is doomed to fail, and that any good luck just means an equivalent amount of bad luck will be round to bite him in the arse later. He still keeps on going, no matter what, and he will ''never'' give up. |
| 101 | * TheDogBitesBack: |
| 102 | ** In "Peggy Made a Little Lamb", Al ate Peggy's home economics exam (an ''entire'' roasted rack of lamb) after Peggy neglected to feed him anything for almost a decade since they married. |
| 103 | ** In "976-SHOE", he sabotaged Marcy's position as bank president and got her demoted to drive-up window teller simply just to spite her for all the times she's mocked him for his lower class standing. |
| 104 | * EnragedByIdiocy: Several episodes have him {{Face Palm}}ing, slamming his head on the table, or rubbing his temples in frustration when Kelly says or does something particularly idiotic. |
| 105 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: In an audition, no less. When O'Neill auditioned, he was required to act like he was walking through the front door and then say his lines. He did the entrance, but before saying his lines, he did what no one else thought to do - let out a defeated sigh over returning home. This bit of ThrowItIn won him the part. |
| 106 | * EveryoneHasStandards: |
| 107 | ** Al tends to be {{Squick}}ed out by Bud's rubber sex dolls and the fact that Bud masturbates instead of scoring with a real woman - which is quite hypocritical given Al often regrets marrying a materialistic gold-digger and goes out to nudie bars. He also vehemently objects to Bud dating his forty-year-old teacher, suggesting [[JailbaitTaboo that would be beneath his standards to him too.]] |
| 108 | *** "You can date all the 40 year-old women you want when you're 70!" |
| 109 | *** He DOES like the nekomimi poster Kelly gave Bud to make fun of him though. |
| 110 | ** Throughout the series, there are a couple of times when Al has the opportunity to cheat on Peg with a smoking-hot babe. He always refuses, because adultery is a line he refuses to cross. |
| 111 | ** He was flat-out terrified when he learned some prospective buyers of his Dodge were planning to bomb the Sears Tower. |
| 112 | ** He openly despises Marcy, but even he is willing to call out Jefferson and Steve for freeloading off her. |
| 113 | ** Played for laughs after Griff was released from prison due to a practical joke played on him. |
| 114 | --->'''Al''': You said you wanted to remarry. |
| 115 | --->'''Griff''': [[PrisonRape Not to a 250 pound Philippino]]! |
| 116 | --->'''Al''': Since when are you prejudiced? |
| 117 | * FagHag: |
| 118 | ** {{Gender Flip}}ped by Al and Marcy's cousin Mandy. Al initially thinks Mandy is hot, but when he learns she's gay that doesn't prevent them from being good friends and going to baseball games or playing football. |
| 119 | ** While Al does make some gay jokes (particularly earlier in the show) that would be inappropriate in the modern day, the one time he spends significant time with a gay man he's quickly enchanted by the fact that the guy has a job, can cook, and likes sports. |
| 120 | * FaintInShock: He does this several times. It's usually caused by Peg's antics like spending $2,000 on an interior decorating class or feminizing his private bathroom with pink accessories. |
| 121 | * FatalFlaw: His constant high expectations. The reason he starves? He has faith in his good for nothing wife to make him food. When it seems like he's about to come into money he immediately splurges it all only for the money to not come through and put him deeper in debt. |
| 122 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Melancholic. |
| 123 | * FutureLoser: His proudest moment in his life is scoring four touchdowns in a single game while in high school. |
| 124 | * GloryDays: He considers his school football career his best days, especially the time he scored four touchdowns in one game alone. |
| 125 | * HarmfulToMinors: A couple of episodes implied that his mom was an alcoholic (before eating a sandwich made of toothpaste, Al thinks back to his mom cheerfully telling him he'll be President of the United States, with adult Al snapping, "Yeah right, Mom! Try saying that when you're sober!") and his dad was pretty much how Al would turn out in the future (except Al's father abandoned his wife and kid for a hooker. While Al may hate his family for being greedy, lazy, petty, sarcastic, and borderline criminal, he would never leave them for a hot babe, though that's usually because the hot babes don't go for guys like him). |
| 126 | * HatedByAll: Except for his NO MA'AM buddies, Al is universally hated by all his neighbors. When they mistakenly thought he'd died, they sang ''Ding Dong, The Shoe Man's Dead!'' and were rather upset to learn they were wrong. They also held a parade when Al briefly split up with Peg and moved out of the neighborhood. In one episode, Al even says that the entire city of Chicago curses the day he was born. |
| 127 | * HeCleansUpNicely: Admit it: you wish you looked as cool as he did in his godfather suit. |
| 128 | * HenpeckedHusband: Except on a few rare occasions, it's clear that Peggy is the true head of the household. As he himself notes, Al is more like the ox who's destined to plow the fields until he keels over stone dead. |
| 129 | * HeroicBSOD: Al suffered a couple of these over the course of the series after particularly traumatic or horrifying experiences (being beaten at bowling, accidentally looking up a fat woman's dress and seeing her "Saturday" underwear on a Wednesday, being forced to have sex with his wife, etc.) |
| 130 | * HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: As bad as Bud and Kelly's childhoods were, several episodes imply that Al's was even worse. His mother was an alcoholic, and his father abandoned the family for a hooker. |
| 131 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: Al doesn't respect attractive women's boundaries, but he is clearly disgusted when Kelly talks about the same thing happening to her. |
| 132 | * {{Hypocrite}}: |
| 133 | ** While he is right the Peg's frivolous spending is ruining the family's finances, he's been known to spend large sums on his stupid get rich quick schemes that inevitably fail. |
| 134 | ** Despite lamenting how poorly he's treated in his menial profession, "The Gas Station Show" and "Old Insurance Dodge" show that if given the opportunity, he'd act the same towards menial workers. |
| 135 | * ICouldaBeenAContender: A talented athlete whose career ended at age 18 due to marrying young and suffering a leg injury. |
| 136 | * IWasQuiteALooker: It's implied Al was a big hit with the women in his younger days as a football star, and even when the show takes place he catches the eye of a fair many women, despite generally being described as unattractive. |
| 137 | * InformedDeformity: Al is invariably described as many kinds of disgusting, including, but not limited to having a near toxic odor, teeth so rotted they are green, hygiene so bad he barely changes underwear, and is generally looked upon as hideous. Watching the show, Al is a pretty normal middle aged schlub, albeit with an unflattering bald spot and a miserable expression. |
| 138 | * JadedWashout: He was the original trope namer, being a man who peaked too early and never being able to achieve anything of similar success. |
| 139 | * JerkJock: Al was a football star in high school, before his life went to hell when he married Peg. At least the "jerk" part of this trope stayed true. |
| 140 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Deep down, and we do mean ''deep'', he really does love his family and does what he thinks best for them. |
| 141 | * JockDadNerdSon: With Bud. Al was a JerkJock in high school, and his belief that SchoolIsForLosers has remained with him, both during his high school years and in his adult life. Bud is more academically inclined, as he gets good grades in high school and is the only Bundy family member to have been accepted in ''and'' finish college. |
| 142 | * KavorkaMan: Oddly enough, yes, at least in spirit. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amzXBrtTHNI As this video shows]], he attracts quite a few beautiful women, but always has to reject them. |
| 143 | * KubrickStare: When he sets his mind on doing something -- whether it be holding a barbecue or [[ItMakesSenseInContext stinking up the bathroom to scare away Peg's interior design class]] -- he'll glare straight at the camera with a demented smile on his face. |
| 144 | * LazyBum: Played with. He does work a job at a women's shoe store in a mall, but he's too lazy to work for a better job to boost his income, he's too lazy to be more assertive towards his nagging, frivolously-spending wife, and whenever he's home he just tries pulling off schemes to get rich quick. Some episodes show that Al isn't a very hard worker at the shoe store, as even in the store he'll pull off get-rich-quick schemes or waste too much time caressing young, attractive women's feet. |
| 145 | %%* LazyHusband |
| 146 | * LetsGetDangerous: Al might be a loser in most areas of life, but he's really good at fighting. When he states [[PreAssKickingOneLiner "Let's Rock"]], it typically indicates that he is about to beat someone senseless. If he didn't say that, but George Thurgood's ''Bad to the Bone'' started playing, it was also this. |
| 147 | * LousyLoversAreLosers: Most of the time Al is deliberately avoiding having sex with Peggy, and on the rare occasion they do have sex, Peggy will end up disappointed with how quick and terrible he is in bed. Soon her mocking him for his "[[SpeedSex 5-second sex]]" became a RunningGag that got more and more {{exaggerated|Trope}}, such as lasting ''two'' seconds after a stay in the hospital. |
| 148 | * MeaningfulName: ''All'' the bad things happen to Al. |
| 149 | * MundaneMadeAwesome: Anyone can get ready to cook a barbecue, but Al does it to ''Bad to the Bone''. |
| 150 | -->"Let's cook." |
| 151 | * NeverMyFault: Al tends to blame his family for everything that has gone wrong in his life. Never mind that he was the one who thought SchoolIsForLosers and was sure he could coast forever on his football talents, leaving him with no real skills or education when he got injured, lost his scholarship and became trapped in his SoulSuckingRetailJob. |
| 152 | * NoAccountingForTaste: His marriage with Peg. |
| 153 | * OnlySaneMan: While Al does have his own moments of naively wasting money, he is usually the only one who objects to the times his wife and children frivolously throw away his money on non-essential luxuries such as new dresses, restaurant meals (rather than groceries), Christmas presents and even a heavy early-model computer that didn't work at all. |
| 154 | * PapaWolf: Ask any of Kelly's sleazy boyfriends; even Bud was subject to Al's protective streak on more than one occasion. |
| 155 | * ParentalFavoritism: To Kelly. |
| 156 | * PerpetualFrowner: He's always seen either frowning or cringing in agony. |
| 157 | * ThePigPen: One of the {{Running Gag}}s in the show centres around Al's personal hygiene. His feet are so toxic to the point that [[ItMakesSenseInContext his dirty socks can be used as]] ''[[ItMakesSenseInContext starship fuel]]'', he rarely showers, and his teeth are that special shade of golden-yellow referred to as "Bundy Yellow". When he puts his feet in a body of water, it kills all the fish in it. |
| 158 | * PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Al frequently makes disparaging remarks about [[NonActionGuy passive men]], [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys those of French Nationality]], feminists, fat chicks, and women in general, but to his fans he is one of the funniest and most memorable television characters of all time. Oddly though for a "conservative white-trash" stereotype, Al Bundy is ''not'' a racist and is surprisingly supportive of homosexual men. |
| 159 | * PornStash: Earlier seasons had him collect real-life nudie magazines like "Playboy". Later seasons showed him reading and collecting "Big 'Uns". |
| 160 | * ThePowerOfFriendship: Surprisingly so when Steve returns for the first time. Steve is a wanted man for taking a rare hawk egg and whoever turns him in gets a $10,000 reward, but Al is insistent on sticking by a friend in spite of the fact that he could ''really'' use the money. It helps that he doesn't care much for law enforcement, anyway. |
| 161 | * PsychopathicManchild: He sometimes molds into this, most notable when in "Psychic Avengers" the family failed to renew his TV Guide subscription on time and he started throwing a cacophonous tantrum even going as far as to blame Kelly and Bud for no reason other than InsaneTrollLogic. |
| 162 | * RealMenEatMeat: Al's preference for food is everything meat, which he rarely ever has. Vegetables are considered inferior by Al. |
| 163 | -->'''Al''': I'm so hungry I could eat a vegetable. |
| 164 | ** On the other hand, he gets enthusiastic about starting a vegetable garden (albeit his ideas on what to grow include beans, potatoes, ham, and ''pizza''). |
| 165 | * SanitySlippage: Several episodes imply that missing out on his football dreams, decades of selling shoes to fat women and Peggy burying him in debt have all taken a toll on his sanity. He occasionally threatens to run amuck and destroy everyone around him, has multiple nervous breakdowns and he can become completely unhinged when pursuing something he's obsessed with, whether it be a new car or a song title he's trying to remember. |
| 166 | * SchoolIsForLosers: Al firmly believes this, and gives Bud grief for studying hard and getting good grades. Al ignored his own high school studies, convinced he could coast through life on his football skills. When he got injured and lost his scholarship, he had no other real skills and was doomed to spend the next 30 years having fat women shove their sweaty feet in his face. |
| 167 | * SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp: By his own admission, he wasn't just the resident big dumb bully of his school but he was also plenty mean. |
| 168 | * SeductionProofMarriage: Even though Al is very unhappy in his marriage and leers at every attractive woman, when he gets an actual chance to cheat on his wife, he always stays faithful. |
| 169 | * SexGod: The reason why Peggy keeps pestering Al for sex is because he is very good when he wants to be. It's just that years of marriage have killed his enthusiasm. |
| 170 | * ShutUpHannibal: Al gives a [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome glorious one]] to the librarian when she calls him a loser. Instead, [[http://youtu.be/jyLmSAnoR6g Al bluntly points out that, despite all the misery and hell he's gone through in his life]], the mere fact that [[{{Determinator}} he keeps on going]] and [[DeathByDespair hasn't killed himself]] is what makes him a ''winner''. |
| 171 | -->'''Al:''' So you think I'm a loser? Just because I have a stinking job that I hate? a family that doesn't respect me? A whole city that curses the day I was born? Well, that may mean loser to you, but let me tell you somethin'. Every morning when I wake up, I know it's not going to get any better until I go back to sleep again. So I get up, have my watered-down Tang and still-frozen Pop-Tart, get in my car with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments to fight traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes on the cloven hooves of people like you. I'll never play football like I thought I would. I'll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I'll never again know the joy of driving without a ''bag'' on my head! But I'm not a loser. Because despite it all, me and every other guy who will never be what he wanted to be are still out there, being what we ''don't'' want to be 40 hours a week for life. And the fact that I haven't put a gun in my mouth, you ''pudding'' of a woman, makes me a ''winner''! |
| 172 | * SmallNameBigEgo: Al thinks that playing high school football and scoring four touchdowns in a championship game make him a big shot. He also thinks that other people should be impressed when he mentions this. Naturally enough, he's wrong on both counts. |
| 173 | * SmellyFeetGag: Al's feet are so toxic that he can kill all the fish in a lake just by dipping his bare feet in them, they cause his bowling shoes to molder and rot, and his dirty socks can be used as ''starship fuel''. |
| 174 | ** Many of the fat women Al deals with at the shoe store also have these. As his guardian angel (played by Creator/SamKinison) points out, a good day for him is when he doesn't encounter any new foot diseases. He justifies his pseudo-vacations to Bud by pointing out that, after dealing with "fat sweat" all year, he might just run amuck and destroy everything in sight if he didn't occasionally take time off. |
| 175 | * SoulSuckingRetailJob: He sells shoes for a living and hates every second of it. He's tried numerous attempts to get out of that job for a better one, but because StatusQuoIsGod, it never lasts and he's never escaped the shoe selling business. |
| 176 | * SpannerInTheWorks: His Dr. Shoe idea ends up being a catalyst to Steve and Marcy breaking up. Steve gave Al the first loan and ultimately got fired for it, which infuriated Marcy. Thing is, Steve ended up liking not having a job, which made Marcy even angrier. |
| 177 | * SpeedSex: Peg constantly mocks him for not being able to last in bed for more than a few [[strike:minutes]] seconds: |
| 178 | -->'''Peg''': I used to call you the Minuteman. Now I long for those days. |
| 179 | ** One episode shows them going upstairs to have sex while Kelly puts a slice of bread in the toaster. They come back down, adjusting their clothes, just as the toast pops out. |
| 180 | * StrawMisogynist: He makes it very clear he hates women all in all, especially since he lives with one who splurges all his hard-earned money on herself, has to deal with a nosy ultra-feminist neighbor and gets lots of attitude from obese women who were shopping for shoes at his store. The only women he seems to get along with at all (and by get along, we mean ogle for his own gratification) are the ones he encounters when he visits a nudie bar or reads a Playboy mag. |
| 181 | * SuicideAsComedy: Al isn't actively suicidal (for the most part anyway), but he ''frequently'' jokes about wanting to kill himself or otherwise die, mostly as a means of expressing misery and/or frustration. |
| 182 | * ThemeMusicPowerUp: George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" plays just before Al does something utterly ''awesome''. |
| 183 | * ThrowTheDogABone: Though very rare and never in any large fashion since StatusQuoIsGod, every now and then Al does come out a winner. |
| 184 | * TranquilFury: Typical mode for Al when actually delivering a beating. |
| 185 | * UglyGuyHotWife: With Peg, though he doesn't consider her attractive. Given her personality, ItMakesSenseInContext. |
| 186 | * UltimateJobSecurity: The way Al insults the fat women who come into the shoe store would have gotten him fired many times over in RealLife, but he manages to keep his job anyway. Gary (his boss) has stated that she wouldn't fire Al because he'd make more money on unemployment. This is given a couple twists in the show's last ChristmasEpisode. Gary fires Al and Griff in favor of younger counterparts, who work much harder. However, those guys end up quitting when Al mocks them for heading down the exact same path he did. Gary has no choice but to rehire Al and Griff. In a NewJobEpisode, Al leaves the shoe store for a new job. When he loses the new job and returns to his old one, he finds out ''nobody'' applied for it. |
| 187 | * UndyingLoyalty: Despite everything, and despite how much he may hate his life, Al is very much devoted to Peg and his kids. It says a lot that despite his shitty life, he never once actually abandons the three of them like he's wont to threaten, and does at least try his best to provide for them. |
| 188 | * UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: He's an obnoxious burnt-out lout who often responds to everything with bitter sarcasm who was created as a contrast to the wise and respected sitcom patriarchs of his time. |
| 189 | * WouldHitAGirl: It's implied that he's punished Kelly for causing trouble by swatting her with a baseball bat, though this has only happened off-screen. In "The Gas Station Show", he strangles Kelly hard for putting the car in Park mode while he had to push it many miles to the gas station. |
| 190 | * WorkOffTheDebt: Many episodes say that Al has lots of debt thanks to Peg's excessive shopping (Kelly and Bud also played some role in that) and might even rack up fresh new debt depending on the episode's plot. In "976-SHOE", Al really screws up when he ends up owing $100,000 to two distinct banks by taking out two loans of $50,000 to fund a horrid business plan of a hotline for shoe advice and the Judge orders Al has to pay the entire $100,000 for the rest of his life. |
| 191 | * WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Al admits in "Grime and Punishment" that he always felt this way about Bud. They had ogling women in common, but Bud's aptitude for school made it hard to relate otherwise. However, in the cited episode, Bud manages to force Al to live in the basement until he makes needed repairs and gets help from the other characters to annoy him into giving in. When it's all over, Al is actually proud of Bud for acting like a true Bundy. |
| 192 | [[/folder]] |
| 193 | |
| 194 | [[folder:Peggy Bundy]] |
| 195 | !!Margaret "Peggy"/"Peg" Bundy née Wanker |
| 196 | [[quoteright:189:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/peggy_bundy.jpg]] |
| 197 | [[caption-width-right:189: ''Oh honey, I'll give you [[BuxomBeautyStandard Big 'Uns]]!'']] |
| 198 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/KateySagal |
| 199 | |
| 200 | Peggy is Al's wife, born and raised in a backwater area in the Midwest called Wanker County. She actively refuses to seek employment, expecting Al to be the (sole) breadwinner for their family without returning the favor to him by cooking or buying groceries. She's usually out shopping for ridiculous, non-essential items and eating fast food or can be found on her favorite couch with a TV remote in one hand and a handful of Bon Bons in the other. |
| 201 | ---- |
| 202 | * AbusiveParents: As awful and neglectful a parent as Peg is towards Kelly and Bud, she's actually a better parent than her own parents were to her. |
| 203 | * ActionGirl: Peggy is usually content to let Al administer the beatings. This does not mean she can't kick your ass six ways to Sunday. |
| 204 | * AllTakeAndNoGive: If Al were asked to choose which trope suits her character best, it would be this. |
| 205 | * AllWomenLoveShoes: Peggy wears fancy shoes everywhere she goes, even to the beach. |
| 206 | * AlphaBitch: During her high school years. |
| 207 | * TheBadGuyWins: Most episodes play in her favor. She gets to bleed Al dry of all his hard-earned cash and if that's not enough she'll just go stealing from other people. She's even stolen cash outright from the register at the shoe store Al works at, and [[KarmaHoudini never got caught for it]]. |
| 208 | * BadLiar: |
| 209 | ** She keeps saying that she's a hard-working housewife and mother whenever Al criticizes her laziness, with it very likely Peg is BelievingTheirOwnLies. |
| 210 | ** She refuses to cook at all by telling Al she's allergic to fire.... despite being a heavy smoker. |
| 211 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: She's constantly pestering Al for sex, though she finds his usual SpeedSex performance to be disappointing. In "Hot Off the Grill", meanwhile, Al's sexual appetite goes into overdrive and she's eventually begging him to stop, in a reverse of their usual dynamic. |
| 212 | * BigEater: Peg does nothing all day but sit on the couch stuffing herself full of Bon Bons, and yet she never seems to gain a pound[[note]]though her mother is enormous, so there's the possbility that calories catch up to Wanker women all at once[[/note]]. Peg also mentions she eats at fast food joints such as Burger King and Denny's frequently while leaving no money left for her children or Al to eat. |
| 213 | * BuxomBeautyStandard: |
| 214 | ** Al once punched out a guy making a comment about his wife's large assets in one episode. |
| 215 | ** When Al cups his hands to show Peggy's size while trying to buy her a new bra in "Her Cups Runneth Over", the salesgirl tells Al he's a lucky man. |
| 216 | * CatchPhrase: |
| 217 | ** A shrill, whiny, strangely two-syllable, plaintive cry of "Al...!" which sometimes is a calmer and usually more seductive "Oh, Al..." |
| 218 | ** "BON BON!" in an impatient, rash voice |
| 219 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Early episodes had Peg doing, an albeit crappy job at, housework, as opposed the more familiar Peg, whom Marcy later called in a final season episode "the laziest bitch in Chicago." |
| 220 | * ClingyJealousGirl: To ridiculous ends. She was even jealous of Marcy's cousin hanging out with Al ''after'' she found out Mandy was a lesbian. |
| 221 | * CreditCardPlot: Peg abuses credit cards to fund her extravagant shopping sprees and a police officer had to confiscate them when she fell behind on payments. |
| 222 | * TheDitz: She's arguably the second dumbest of the Bundy family after Kelly. In one episode, she thinks $8 is enough to feed herself and the kids at a Denny's restaurant, instead of a grocery store where you can buy more food for $8. |
| 223 | * EightiesHair: Oddly, for a show that started in the '80s, her hair actually became more pronounced after that decade was over. It was far more subdued in the first season. |
| 224 | * EntitledBitch: She freely spends more money than Al makes on frivolous items and blames him for not making enough money even though she contributes less than nothing to the household. This even goes to their sex life where she expects sex despite showing no respect towards Al and doing nothing to deserve it. Even when they do have sex, she emasculates Al for not being good enough despite the fact it's her personality that makes him not want to put in any effort. |
| 225 | * EvenBadWomenLoveTheirMamas: As much as a lazy JerkAss that she is, she genuinely loves her mother, moreso than any other canon family member, except maybe her Dad. |
| 226 | * EvilRedhead: At least if you believe Al about her role in destroying his life by forcing him into marriage. |
| 227 | * FagHag: Played straight and subverted ''in the same episode'' when Peg has a close friendship with a gay man, to the point where they actually begin dancing together at an upscale nightclub. The subversion comes when the gay man's husband thinks that his mate and Peg are having an affair, and tries to tell Al about it. When Al learns that the husband has a job, likes to cook and enjoys watching sports on TV (except for soccer, which he doesn't think is really a "man's game"), Al briefly falls head-over-heels in love. |
| 228 | %%* FieryRedhead |
| 229 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Choleric. |
| 230 | * GirlyRun: A mild example in that Peg doesn't do much running, but her distinct walking style reflects this trope. According to Katey Sagal, it mostly comes from the shoes Peg wears. |
| 231 | * GoldDigger: Peg, despite the fact that her husband has a crappy job. |
| 232 | * {{Gonk}}: In-Universe, at least. While Peg dresses very promiscuously, the majority of men on the show dismiss her. Al doesn't find her attractive, preferring to read porno magazines and watch shows of other women and refuses to have sex with her at all. However, this can change DependingOnTheWriter: for instance in one episode, she tries becoming an exotic dancer with huge success. |
| 233 | * TheGrimReaper: Peg's been associated with Death by Al more than once. When Al actually met the Reaper face to face, she was played by a wigless Katey Sagal. |
| 234 | * HandsOffParenting: Peg is ''not'' an attentive mother. Most of the parenting is done by Al, who, well, usually isn't great at it. |
| 235 | * {{Housewife}}: [[SubvertedTrope In title only]]. In the early episodes, she did a mediocre job of cleaning and cooking. In the later episodes, she just stopped doing housework all together. Ironically, Peg is almost never home when it's daytime for some reason, indicating she's always out shopping or eating with Al's money. |
| 236 | --->'''Peg''': (''to Kelly'') Gee, maybe Mommy will make us breakfast. (''Kelly stares back hard at her, angrily'') |
| 237 | * {{Hypocrite}}: |
| 238 | ** She has the nerve to mock Al constantly for how little money she makes, even while she refuses to look for a job herself, and has also complained to Al for not working two jobs instead of just one. |
| 239 | ** She also likes to bully Al for having his life been such a failure or for his high school record of failing classes, when she herself is not living the grandiose life either. |
| 240 | ** During the "We Are the Old" music number in "Rock of Ages," she appears alongside the ''kids'' to sing the "They are the old" part of the chorus. She is, of course, the same age as Al. |
| 241 | * ImpossiblyTackyClothes: Wears everything people came to hate from late-80s/early-90s fashion. |
| 242 | * InSeriesNickname: Peggy or Peg. |
| 243 | * ItsAllAboutMe: Her selfishness goes to extreme lengths in the sense that she let the kids starve by splurging all of Al's income on a dress for an upcoming prom. |
| 244 | * KarmaHoudini: She took advantage of her family in some really awful ways, but you could count all the times she got punished on only one hand, which is especially jarring when said family almost always pays for their many faults. Explained by Al to Kelly and Bud: "She's not a Bundy by blood, she's a Bundy by marriage. She's PART of the curse." Which means the kids come to a sad realization... |
| 245 | * KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Her KarmaHoudini status makes it all the more sweeter during the rare moments when she ''does'' get a comeuppance. After being tricked by Peg into having sex with her for nine months in order to conceive another child and get a $500,000 inheritance, Al learns that she's been taking birth control pills to keep from getting pregnant. In full TranquilFury mode, he fakes Peg's home pregnancy test to make it look like she's really got a bun in the oven. Peg is completely horrified, and when she tries to console herself with the $500,000 Al points out to her that another relative beat them to it (the lawyer who read the will married a Bundy relative who was in prison, and is planning on having him killed so she can keep the money for herself). This makes Peg suffer a complete VillainousBreakdown, as Al tortures her with the thought of the coming morning sickness, weight gain and diaper changes. The episode ends with Peg running upstairs screaming and puking from morning sickness, as Al contentedly plans to continue the torture and realizes that he can't buy that kind of satisfaction for half a million dollars. |
| 246 | ** To top it off, there are many jokes that also happen to her throughout the show at her expense. (Like in the season 7 finale "The Proposition" which has a scene where [[spoiler:Kelly tries to tease Al but unknowingly insults her mom, much to her chagrin]], "If I were a Rich Man", which ends with her and the kids [[spoiler: attempting to commit suicide out of grief when they learn Al didn`t steal money from Steve`s bank and that she is financially poor as usual]] and "Alley of the Dolls" which has [[spoiler: the Bundys lose a bowling game to a rival, meaning Peg has to dress up as a bowling pin on the grounds of a bet established before the game.)]] |
| 247 | * LazyBum: Al remarks that a toilet works harder than she does. In the Jim Jupiter episode, Peg remarks that there are two things she refuses to ever do in the house and those "two" things are 1) cook, clean, sew, vacuum, iron and parent and 2) exercise. And yet [[{{Hypocrite}} Peg has the nerve to chastise Al for watching TV when he gets home]] instead of looking for more jobs to take on. |
| 248 | ** Marcy calls her "The laziest bitch in Chicago" to her face. She is also, according to an internet search Al did, scientifically documented as the most useless person in the world (even moreso than a shoe salesman). |
| 249 | * LethalChef: Peg in the early episodes (one of the scenes in the opening credits shows her smoking while making a salad -- and when it goes to the scene of Amanda Bearse as Marcy, it shows Marcy about to eat the salad and finding Peg's cigarette on her fork); the later episodes don't have her cook at all (often ordering pizza, not eating at all, or stealing money to go out to a cheap restaurant and eat). Occasions include Al using the money from the "No Chicken, No Check" insurance company to force Peg to buy meat, Peg's insanely obese mom starting to make money as a phone sex operator, and Peg suffering amnesia and Al brainwashing her into being a competent housewife. |
| 250 | ** Her lethal chef skills at times proved beneficial for her family. For example, her leftover Mystery Meal had the Bundy house and everyone in it quarantined for six months. The people inside at the time included the band Anthrax, favorites of the Bundy kids who apparently really enjoyed those six months. |
| 251 | ** And then there was her attempt to develop and market her own line of Bon Bons. Al and Jefferson each need both hands to lift them, and several hours to chew through a single bite. Curiously enough, Marcy and Buck didn't have any trouble eating that one bite, although they both suffered a crazed, hours-long sugar high afterward. |
| 252 | * LiteralMinded: Usually to Al's detriment, like when she "left a plate warming in the oven" (it was literally just a plate left in a hot oven, which Al burned his fingers on). |
| 253 | --> '''Al:''' How does she find the time. |
| 254 | * TheMagazineRule: She occasionally reads "Modern Wife" magazine. Its articles include how to build up your husband by lying, and how to tear him down again. |
| 255 | * MasturbationAsSexualFrustration: There are multiple jokes about how Peg uses vibrators and other "toys" to cope with Al's pop-gun performance in the bedroom. |
| 256 | * TheMillstone: Oh, god, is she ever. If Al has a failure in life, chances are high that it was Peg's fault. While Kelly and Bud at least make an attempt to help their father, Peg either obliviously screws up or deliberately fails. |
| 257 | * MsFanservice: Or at least that's what Peg thinks she is. |
| 258 | * MsRedInk: She constantly spends money on useless junk she gets at everything from the Home Shopping Network to yard sales, she blows more money on pointless luxuries like a storage locker (for all the junk she buys), an interior design course, a painting of herself and male exotic dancers. |
| 259 | * MyBelovedSmother: When Kelly once decided to move out, a devastated Peg compensated by being this to Bud. |
| 260 | * NeverMyFault: Their PerpetualPoverty isn't her fault for overspending, it's Al's fault because he doesn't make enough money to afford her. |
| 261 | * NoblewomansLaugh: Peggy naturally laughs like this, but without the fan or the limp wrist. |
| 262 | * ObnoxiousEntitledHousewife: To an absolutely ridiculous extent. She refuses to do any sort of housework or cooking, much less get a job to help support the family. She constantly spends what little money Al makes on all sorts of useless junk, and then says that he should get a second job to keep up with her spending. She constantly whines and throws tantrums whenever Al or anyone else asks her to do something for the family or refuses to do something she wants. |
| 263 | * PetTheDog: For all of her negative qualities (and believe us, there are a lot of them), at her core she really does love Al and her kids. |
| 264 | * PrettyFreeloaders: Al, Kelly (in the later episodes), and Bud are typically the ones earning money. Peggy is the one helping them spend it. Whether they agree or not. |
| 265 | * SecretIdentityIdentity: When Peg hears that Al is going to be a judge at a stripper pageant at the nudie bar, she's so upset that she enters the pageant herself using a Middle Eastern-style gimmick that keeps her face veiled and calling herself by the stage name of "Jasmine" because Marcy implied that the reason Al likes nudie bars over her is because she doesn't know anything about stripping and she wanted to prove her wrong. Not only does she win the pageant, she becomes a full-time exotic dancer and turns Al on so much when he watches her at the nudie bar that he starts doing her on a regular basis. Unfortunately, Al doesn't realize that Peg and Jasmine are the same person, and he ends up screaming Jasmine's name during sex. When Peg realizes that Al is only being turned on by Jasmine, she gets angry at "that slut" for destroying her marriage. Marcy has to remind Peg that ''she's'' Jasmine. |
| 266 | * SeductionProofMarriage: She ogles and leers at attractive men the same way Al does to attractive women, and multiple men have even hit on her, but she would never cheat on Al. |
| 267 | * ShockinglyExpensiveBill: She runs many of these up, much to Al's chagrin. Highlights include the $2,000 she spent on an interior design course (that she never planned to actually get a job with) and the $2,500 she spent on a painting of herself (which shocked Al so badly he fell out a second-floor window, landed head-first on concrete and seemingly met God, who gave him an idea for a new kind of shoe). |
| 268 | * SmokingIsNotCool: Especially in early seasons where she used to do it when she tried to ''cook''. |
| 269 | * SpoiledBrat: She's clearly the happiest and most well-nourished of the Bundys since she gets to spend the lion's share of the household income for herself. And when she does lose her temper, it's usually when Al asks her to start doing anything to contribute to the family, whether it be cooking or cleaning. |
| 270 | * StickyFingers: It's not uncommon for Peg to resort to stealing money or tradable goods to sell for extra cash, even if it's from her own children. She's even stolen cash right out of the cash register at Al's shoe store. |
| 271 | * ToughLove: Her own parents didn't let her get away with the things she does now she's a Bundy. When Peggy was pregnant and back with her parents and desperately wants some bacon, her father hands her a knife and tells her she knows where the pigs are. |
| 272 | * TrademarkFavoriteFood: Bonbons. She also craves the Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's often. |
| 273 | * UngratefulBitch: To Al. She has no kind words for Al who provides all the income in their household. Also read {{womanchild}} below. |
| 274 | * {{Womanchild}}: Instead of cooking and cleaning for Al to thank him for all the hard work he does to provide income for the family, she instead acts like a third child to him by being AllTakeAndNoGive even having the nerve to get angry and feel like she's being punished whenever Al asks her to make dinner. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
| 276 | |
| 277 | [[folder:Kelly Bundy]] |
| 278 | !!Kelly Bundy |
| 279 | [[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kelly_bundy.jpg]] |
| 280 | [[caption-width-right:250: ''I can be anything I want to be, it's the 90s.'']] |
| 281 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/ChristinaApplegate |
| 282 | |
| 283 | Kelly is the Bundys' only daughter. She's as unsuccessful as her parents (only holding a few part-time jobs and Z-list acting gigs, with the Bundy Curse ruining the few chances she gets to hit it big), she's also not nearly as bright (to put it lightly). |
| 284 | ---- |
| 285 | * AbusiveParents: Al and Peg can be considered outright abusive to Kelly and Bud. Sometimes with physical threats, but mostly it was neglect, emotional anguish, and financial abuse. And if they do bother to feed, clothe, immunize, advise and care for their children, it's usually in a bizarre and ass-backwards way that's considered illegal in the real world. While Al isn't a very good father, he at least does grant the kids allowances (as shown in the opening sequence) and works hard at a shoe store to provide for them. Peg mistreats the kids simply out of [[ItsAllAboutMe selfishness]] except for occasional PetTheDog moments. |
| 286 | * AchievementsInIgnorance: On occasion. One episode had Bud distracting her by giving her a ''[[Literature/WheresWally Where's Waldo]]?'' book. She runs all over town trying to find Waldo and, at the end of the episode, he's sitting next to Kelly at the dinner table. |
| 287 | * ActionGirl: It's usually not her first option, but Kelly is most certainly her father's daughter, and was shown in numerous occasions pummeling people who incur her wrath. |
| 288 | * AffectionateNickname: Al often calls her "Pumpkin", and Bud sometimes calls her "Kel". |
| 289 | * AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Her boyfriends are various sleazy bikers, hoods, and ex-cons with nicknames like Mayhem, Pinworm, Salt Water, and Stab Wound. It's even {{Lampshaded}}: |
| 290 | -->'''Buck''': Where does she ''find'' these guys? |
| 291 | * AlphaBitch: During her high school years. Most of her friends back then also qualify. |
| 292 | * AttentionDeficitOohShiny: Kelly could be easily distracted, particularly by shiny things. When she banged her head as a little girl and her IQ went down a few zillion notches, the first thing she focused on was her "shiny, shiny shoes." |
| 293 | * BareMidriffsAreFeminine: She's a [[TheDitz ditzy]], boy-crazy teenage girl who very often wears crop tops. She even wears them in the winter during the ChristmasEpisode, "It's A Bundyful Life," to prostitute herself out to boys to buy her free dinners. |
| 294 | * BasementDweller: A few gags imply that she's too stupid to take care of herself and she'll always be dependent on Al and Peg, with Al suggesting she'll have to mooch off Bud in the future. |
| 295 | * BeggarWithASignboard: Bud and Kelly have been so desperate for money that they're reduced to panhandling. Sometimes they'll pretend to be {{Hobos}}, with Bud pretending to be a ShellShockedVeteran and Kelly being a blind girl, and sometimes they'll hold up a sign reading "Bundy-Please Help!" and "This Man Is Our Father" next to a picture of Al. |
| 296 | * BewareTheSillyOnes: It doesn't come up often because the Bundys are their own worst enemies and the family doesn't pull punches against outside threats, but if Kelly knows that someone she cares about has been sincerely hurt, her retribution is swift, brutal, and alarmingly clever, ''especially'' when it comes to avenging Bud. |
| 297 | * BigSisterBully: To Bud. She regularly insults and physically assaults him through punches and slaps. She's also not above having her many group of friends bully him as well. |
| 298 | * BookDumb: Early episodes had Kelly be smart, but not really into schoolwork. |
| 299 | -->'''Al:''' (''reads her report card'') F. F. F. D. What happened, Kel? You ''attend'' one? |
| 300 | * BorrowedCatchphrase: Kelly has repeated Al's catchphrase of "let's rock" more than once. She's also copied Al's famous couch pose by sitting down and putting her hand down her skirt the way Al does his pants. She even borrowed Al's "a fat woman came into the shoe store today" line when she recounted her bad experiences dealing with fat women when she worked as an amusement park gate attendant. |
| 301 | * BrainlessBeauty: Kelly didn't invent the [[DumbBlonde Dumb Slutty Blonde]] stereotype, but she certainly helped popularize it. In fact, Applegate has been spending the rest of her career [[PlayingAgainstType trying to get away from that image]]. Her low intelligence is also deconstructed, she has failed multiple jobs where she just had to be pretty because she was too stupid to follow basic instructions: She lost a high-paying weather bunny gig because she couldn't read the teleprompter and she got bitten by venomous insects when she mixed up which arm had bug spray on it. |
| 302 | * BrattyTeenageDaughter: In the early episodes before she was played up as an exaggerated stereotype of the dumb, promiscuous blonde. |
| 303 | * ButtMonkey: Her every attempt at being a GoldDigger fails despite her beauty, she goes from being the most popular girl at school to working as a BurgerFool waitress in a run-down diner, she's flat broke and still living at home when some of her classmates are milking ''two'' ex-husbands for alimony, her modelling and acting career mostly consists of bit parts, and she's fired from the few high-paying jobs she actually manages to get. |
| 304 | * {{Catchphrase}}: Might yell "Hey!" when she gets (or at least feels) insulted or mistreated. |
| 305 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Early episodes had Kelly as smart, just uninterested in school, as opposed to the complete idiot of later episodes. |
| 306 | * ChildhoodBrainDamage: The series had a flashback in which Kelly (TheDitz) was shown to be very intelligent as a young girl, until she hit her head during a car ride. |
| 307 | %%* CloudCuckoolander |
| 308 | * DaddysGirl: Of everyone in his family Al seems to have the softest spot for his daughter and the feelings are mutual. |
| 309 | * DarkHorseSibling: Between Bud and Kelly, it was believed that Bud would be the more successful of the two, due to being a lot smarter than Kelly was. However, thanks to Kelly's beauty and sex appeal, she's the one who's had more overt success over the years, having been a model, commercial actress, and television star on numerous occasions. |
| 310 | * DatingWhatDaddyHates: Kelly's taste in men tends towards [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys various sleazy hoods, bikers, and ex-cons.]] No wonder Al beats up her boyfriends on a regular basis. |
| 311 | * DeathGlare: Kelly gave Bud several of these, usually when he got her in trouble with her parents or her boss at work or when he insulted her sluttiness. |
| 312 | * DelayedReaction: When another family member insulted Kelly's intelligence, she'd either agree or laugh along with them before belatedly realizing that they were mocking her. |
| 313 | * {{Delinquents}}: Kelly did this a lot more than Bud. Various jokes referred to her getting in car chases with the police, having a criminal record for indecent exposure, and not being allowed to cross state lines. When a man dressed as a police officer comes to the door, Peg immediately assumes he's here for Kelly before she realizes he's the stripper Marcy got Peg for her birthday. |
| 314 | * TheDitz: Though in the earlier episodes, she wasn't that dumb, and was only made fun of for having bleached-blond hair, being a slut, dating sleazy guys, and committing petty crimes [like speeding, sneaking out of the house, stealing money from Al, and vandalizing public property]. Lampshaded in an episode which showed that Kelly used to be very intelligent as a child, until she hit her head during a car accident. |
| 315 | -->'''Al:''' Kelly? What's the color of an orange?\ |
| 316 | '''Kelly:''' What, no multiple choice? |
| 317 | * DistractedByTheSexy: Kelly sometimes invokes this, such as when she distracted the teenage sons of the rival family the Bundys were bowling against (in Season 2's "Alley Of The Dolls") or distracted the scientist running a sex experiment with Bud so that Amber could mess with it (in Season 9's "User Friendly"). |
| 318 | * DudeMagnet: She spends many hours per day grooming and adding onto her appearance to suit this trope. |
| 319 | * DumbBlonde: She fits the stereotype to a T, being a vacuous, ditzy, and blonde. Though it's implied in various episodes that she's not a natural blonde. |
| 320 | -->'''Bud:''' You ''can't'' be this dumb!\ |
| 321 | '''Kelly:''' I can be anything I wanna be, it's TheNineties! |
| 322 | * DumbassHasAPoint: If any character figured out something that eluded the rest of the cast, it was usually Kelly. |
| 323 | * EightiesHair: Her hairstyles in the early seasons are highly evocative of the decade's look for young women in general. |
| 324 | * EveryoneHasStandards: She's usually easy to the point of ''insane'', but even she has her limits. Arrogance is a huge turnoff for her. She'll sometimes reject (and at times, punch) {{Jerkass}}es who annoy her too much with their bragging. |
| 325 | ** While this is definitely a case of DependingOnTheWriter, various episodes have implied that Kelly's friends make her look prudish. Her friend Fawn, for example (known as "Fawn, Fawn, Let's Get it On") considers ''fifteen minutes'' an extraordinarily long time to go without sex. |
| 326 | * EveryoneLovesBlondes: Kelly is a blonde and she's considered to be supremely attractive by nearly everyone in the show. |
| 327 | * FilleFatale: She's a very promiscuous teenage girl. Various jokes referred to her dating all her male high school teachers, being a SerialHomewrecker, juggling multiple boyfriends at once and using DistractedByTheSexy for various purposes. |
| 328 | * {{Flanderization}}: In Season One, Kelly was of average intelligence, but [[BookDumb not a great student]], and many of her dates were [[DatingWhatDaddyHates not great guys]]. Her fashion sense was normal as well. By early Season Two, her outfits were starting to get more revealing, she openly admitted to being sexually active in front of her parents, and by the latter half of the season was falling for obvious pranks set up by Bud. As the series went on, her lack of brain power [[TooDumbToLive had risen to cartoonish levels]], as had her sluttiness (her "little black book" was shown to be the size of a phone book, and included one of her friend's ''fathers'') and [[{{Stripperific}} porn-star fashion sense]]. |
| 329 | * FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: The Foolish to Bud's Responsible. |
| 330 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Sanguine. |
| 331 | * FreudianExcuse: The episode where Kelly is used as a guinea pig for Al's Shoe Lights invention has a throwaway line that implies that Kelly is promiscuous (or "runs into the arms of strange men") because Al is a bad father and everyone else in the family treats her like a ButtMonkey. |
| 332 | * GeniusDitz: She has, on a couple of occasions, shown herself to have a few shining moments of surprising competence. |
| 333 | ** In "Kelly Knows Something", she was capable of learning a huge amount of sports trivia in 48 hours. |
| 334 | ** In "Cheese, Cues and Blood", she's shown to be an excellent pool player. |
| 335 | ** "You Gotta Know When to Hold Them", she's able to predict the winning numbers in roulette. |
| 336 | ** In "Kelly Takes a Shot", she masters archery in a week. |
| 337 | ** In "You Can't Miss", she mentions that she watches ''Series/MeetThePress'' religiously. |
| 338 | ** In "T*R*A*S*H," she is able to precisely calculate the trajectory to launch trash in to the D'Arcy's attic with a catapult. |
| 339 | --->'''Bud:''' You know, it's amazing how you can figure out such a difficult mathematical equation but yet you can't find your way out of a frat house. |
| 340 | --->'''Kelly:''' I can so! All I have to do is say "I'm pregnant" and the next thing I know, I'm in the alley! |
| 341 | * GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity: She's repeatedly fired from several of the jobs she gets due to everything from refusing to wear a bikini to trying to help her family defraud the company she's working for to the diner she works at being closed for health code violations to her plain stupidity. |
| 342 | * GirlyGirlWithATomboyStreak: She's a promiscuous DumbBlonde AlphaBitch who loves miniskirts and shiny things, but she's also willing to physically fight people who piss her off, even if it's not her first resort. |
| 343 | * GoldDigger: This is the closest she's come to a career goal (in a late-season episode, she complains that some of her high school friends are "already collecting alimony from ''two'' ex-husbands"), but she's rather poor at choosing targets. In one episode she tries dating a Senator (with her parents' blessing), not picking up hints that he's married. (Hints like his [[FailedASpotCheck wife calling and threatening her]].) In another episode, she falls for "the ex-husband of [her] dreams" at her high school reunion, disregarding that she treated him cruelly back when he was a "nerd", and is easy prey for [[BestServedCold his revenge plan]]. (Which Bud helps him with, as he has one of his own against another girl.) |
| 344 | * GoodLookingPrivates: A few jokes alluded to Kelly dating various soldiers. |
| 345 | * HellBentForLeather: Occasionally, sometimes at somewhat appropriate times (while hustling pool) and sometimes at not-so appropriate times. (When acting as a maid of honor at a wedding). |
| 346 | * HelloSailor: A few jokes also alluded to Kelly dating sailors on shore leave. |
| 347 | * HeadTurningBeauty: Every male in the show drools over Kelly. Even Al and Bud have catcalled her when they didn't realize it was her. Her beauty is also why Al crucially favors her over Bud (just watch "Al with Kelly"). |
| 348 | * HiddenDepths: Provided she doesn't let her ego get in the way, she's actually very good with children. |
| 349 | * HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Many jokes are made about what a lousy mother Peg was to Bud and Kelly. The show itself is pretty much built around how this trope applies to the Bundy children. |
| 350 | * HiredForTheirLooks: During her brief stint as a raingirl. She was bound to have a contract that pays $250,000 a year for three years (for a total of $750,000) but she was never tested by the network for literacy and got fired on Day One for mispronouncing every word on the teleprompter. |
| 351 | * HormoneAddledTeenager: Obsessed with guys. |
| 352 | * {{Hustler}}: In one episode, she made money hustling pool with Jefferson managing her. (Unfortunately, Al ruined what would have been her biggest payout.) |
| 353 | * {{Hypocrite}}: |
| 354 | ** She sometimes complains Bud mistreats her and should be nicer to her, despite how she administers a lot of physical assaults to him and tries to kill his self-esteem at every turn (i.e. calling him "Toad Boy"). |
| 355 | ** Kelly also rebukes Bud's sexist pick-up artist tactics but she herself is a GoldDigger who tries to score with rich men and get their money. |
| 356 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: Kelly frequently teases Bud and mocks his bad luck with women, but she'll also enact revenge on anyone who hurts or humiliates him. In one episode, Bud is set up for a PrankDate by a girl and humiliated; Kelly punishes the girl by tying her up in a school hallway wearing only a towel with Buck's leash tied to the towel (and then calling for Buck as she and the other students enter, at which point the end credits start). |
| 357 | * InSeriesNickname: In the household, only Peg seems to call her Kelly. |
| 358 | ** "Pumpkin", but only Al calls her this. |
| 359 | ** Bud sometimes calls her "Kel". |
| 360 | * ItAmusedMe: The main reason she often makes fun of Bud. That's not to say though that competition with Bud over Al's ''very'' meager income can't also be a key factor. |
| 361 | * JerkassBall: DependingOnTheWriter, she can come off as a bitch rather than her more traditional (and funnier) dumb and slutty personas. |
| 362 | * LikeParentLikeChild: Kelly's inherited many of her personality traits from her parents. She inherited her beautiful AlphaBitch tendencies and general sluttiness from Peg. From Al, she inherited his ButtMonkey tendencies and general tendency to fail at life after high school, going from being the most beautiful and popular girl in school to working as a waitress in a run-down diner and having an acting career that barely qualifies as Z-list. |
| 363 | * LikesOlderMen: She dated all the male teachers in high school, and the school principal hated Kelly for seducing her husband. She also dated a couple of wealthy men who were nearly Al's age. She's also slept with enough older married men to know that it's common for them to have trouble "getting it up." |
| 364 | * {{Malaproper}}: Such a common feature of her dialogue that fans call them "Kellyisms" and have assembled a list of them [[https://marriedwithchildren.fandom.com/wiki/Kellyisms here]]. |
| 365 | * {{Metaphorgotten}}: A few seasons in, this became a RunningGag for her. |
| 366 | -->"Daddy, it is so hot you could lay an egg on the sidewalk." |
| 367 | * MsFanservice: If you don't understand why Kelly Bundy '''is''' this trope, you've obviously never seen the show. The studio audience gave loud cheers and wolf whistles whenever she appeared. She'll spend half to most of the episode in a bikini if the episode is about a heatwave or the beach. |
| 368 | * MySkullRunnethOver: Kelly is so stupid, her brain easily becomes "full". She has to start forgetting other things in order to make room for new facts, whether it be to pass her school exams or appear on a sports trivia game show. Bud compares it to taking a gallon of knowledge and pouring it into a shotglass of a brain. |
| 369 | * NeverLearnedToRead: Kelly is barely literate, despite that one episode revealed that she was smart as a kid, but suffered a head injury in the Dodge and became an idiot (though an earlier episode attributed Kelly's idiocy to Peg's low birth weight when she was pregnant with Kelly). While she was hired as a weathergirl for a $250,000 per year contract, she was fired on her first day because she kept misreading the teleprompter. |
| 370 | * ParentalNeglect: Especially on her mother's end, who's even the source of the page quote on the main trope page. Peg blatantly refuses to do anything resembling work, including housework, cooking, or anything for anyone who isn't herself. She's not only a lazy mother who refuses to cook and feed her children, she goes as far as to even spend all of Al's money that was supposed to buy food for Kelly and Bud on ridiculous luxuries for herself such as Bon-bons, perfumes and make-ups and trendy sumptuous clothes. She's also blown money for everything from the electric bill to the kids' eye exams at the male nudie bar. |
| 371 | -->'''Peg:''' Mommy just wants to have a little fun, and all you can think about are your empty little stomachs! |
| 372 | * PingPongNaivete: Kelly could either make sarcastic, witty remarks and pull off clever plans, or be a vacuous idiot and childishly gullible. |
| 373 | * PrettyFreeloaders: She makes no effort to apply herself at high school so she can pursue a successful career later on and become self-sufficient. She instead relies upon other men and teenage boys, including her father Al, to supply her with all of life's most basic essentials such as food and housing. |
| 374 | * ProudBeauty: She's very aware of how beautiful she is, and even more proud of it. She's bragged about everything from making men pour champagne into their bare hands to making them come out of comas. |
| 375 | * ReallyGetsAround: Her easiness is a source of constant jokes from Bud. |
| 376 | * ServiceSectorStereotypes: When Kelly becomes a waitress, one of her former teachers uses this to scare girls into doing better in class than Kelly did. |
| 377 | * SerialHomewrecker: Several episodes allude to the fact that Kelly [[ReallyGetsAround sleeps around so much]] that [[ButForMeItWasTuesday ending a marriage is not a big deal for her]]. Her three closest friends, introduced in the later seasons, also have no qualms about sleeping with married men, or stealing boyfriends. |
| 378 | * SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Kelly manages to bust out some big words for such a "bombastic simpleton". [[{{Malaproper}} She doesn't always use the right words]], but sometimes she's spot-on. |
| 379 | * SiblingRivalry: The typical interactions of Bud and Kelly feature this. Doesn't stop them from teaming-up for a common cause. |
| 380 | * ShowSomeLeg: Her typical weapon against men, whether she wants to distract, manipulate, or seduce. Happens in several episodes. |
| 381 | * SnarkBall: Kelly is portrayed as an utter idiot, yet she's capable of delivering witty remarks, especially in fights with Bud. |
| 382 | * SoBeautifulItsACurse: Several jokes alluded to her being constantly groped and harassed by men, which she didn't enjoy. |
| 383 | * SpannerInTheWorks: For rather obvious reasons, Kelly had a tendency to screw up whatever scheme she became involved in. It's even {{lampshaded}} by Peggy at one point as the Bundys and the D'Arcys are being arrested by the police, when she notes that it probably wasn't a good idea to let Kelly in on the plan. |
| 384 | * SpoiledBrat: It's clear that she's pretty much spoiled rotten by Al, and in "Al with Kelly" where the two were left alone in the house, Kelly took over the house and bossed Al around all day long. |
| 385 | * TheStraightAndArrowPath: She shows surprising talent for modern archery in a late-season episode, able to win a contest by [[WilliamTelling shooting an apple off of Bud's head.]] |
| 386 | * TapOnTheHead: Completely inverted. Kelly banged her head as a small child when Al had to suddenly brake the Dodge. Her IQ plummeted a few zillion notches, turning her into the idiot we all know and love. |
| 387 | * TookALevelInDumbass: Kelly had perhaps the most extreme version of this trope ever. It is actually possible to pinpoint the exact moment she went from merely BookDumb to an outright idiot: Season two, Episode 14. In that episode Kelly falls for a prank by Bud when he coaches her on a book report on ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'' which she hasn't read (Bud feeds her the plot of ''Series/GilligansIsland'' instead.) Not so strange considering even pre-bimbo Kelly was always an awful student, but then having become a laughingstock in front of the whole school, she falls for the same prank ''again'' when Bud promises to help her on her report on Creator/EdgarAllanPoe (this time tricking her into talking about ''Series/TheAddamsFamily''.) Thus was born one of the iconic BrainlessBeauty characters. We're shown (in a flashback) that Kelly was bright enough as a young child (having no problem reading, for instance), until a car accident dumbed her down a notch. |
| 388 | * WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs: Over the course of the series, her statuses have included student, spokesmodel, video slut, model, babysitter, pool hustler, greeter at an amusement park, waitress, weather girl, the Verminator (a spokesman for a pest control) and finally actress. |
| 389 | * {{Womanchild}}: Kelly could be childishly gullible, loved shiny things, collected ''{{ComicStrip/Garfield}}'' comics and watched cartoons. Several jokes also implied she is too stupid to take care of herself and will always be dependent on her parents. |
| 390 | [[/folder]] |
| 391 | |
| 392 | [[folder:Bud Bundy]] |
| 393 | !!Budrick Franklin "Bud" Bundy |
| 394 | [[quoteright:256:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bud_bundy.jpg]] |
| 395 | [[caption-width-right:256: ''Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm your new boyfriend.'']] |
| 396 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/DavidFaustino |
| 397 | |
| 398 | Bud is Kelly's younger brother. Probably the smartest and most decent member of the Bundy clan, although he's still usually quite willing to throw the others under the bus at any given time. Is completely obsessed with girls and sex, so he spends a lot of his time thinking of ways to get laid, but rarely has much luck on that front. He keeps his collection of blow-up dolls a secret from everyone except Kelly, who loves to pick on him for it (among other things). |
| 399 | ---- |
| 400 | * AbusiveParents: Al and Peg can be considered outright abusive to Kelly and Bud. Sometimes with physical threats, but mostly it was neglect, emotional anguish, and financial abuse. And if they do bother to feed, clothe, immunize, advise and care for their children, it's usually in a bizarre and ass-backwards way that's considered illegal in the real world. While Al isn't a very good father, he at least does grant the kids allowances (as shown in the opening sequence) and works hard at a shoe store to provide for them, Peg mistreats the kids simply out of [[ItsAllAboutMe selfishness]] except for occasional PetTheDog moments. |
| 401 | * AccidentalMisnaming: During his Grandmaster B phase, the Grandmaster part was often replaced with such terms "Ghostbuster," "Crossdresser," "Mixmaster," "Court Jester," "Grand Bastard," "Gas-passer" and "Grandfather." This infuriated Bud, but delighted everyone else. |
| 402 | * AllegedlyDateless: The show plays Bud up to be a gross, repugnant troll of a guy... but he's gotten laid a fair amount, by a fair amount of women, but most of that is swiftly ignored. |
| 403 | * AlliterativeName: '''Bu'''d '''Bu'''ndy. |
| 404 | * AnnoyingYoungerSibling: He sometimes tries to pimp out Kelly for either a good grade at school (the Brazilian poster), or for money. |
| 405 | * BasementDweller: Like Kelly, he still lives at home well-after finishing school. In Season 10, he makes a point of moving into the basement in order to get some privacy. |
| 406 | * BigGuyLittleGuy: With his family, being 5'3, compared to Kelly (5'5), Peg (5'10) and Al (6'1). |
| 407 | * BeggarWithASignboard: Bud and Kelly have been so desperate for money that they're reduced to panhandling. Sometimes they'll pretend to be {{Hobos}}, with Bud pretending to be a ShellShockedVeteran and Kelly pretending to be a blind girl, and sometimes they'll hold up a sign reading "Bundy-Please Help!" and "This Man Is Our Father!" next to a picture of Al. |
| 408 | * BeleagueredAssistant: In many later-season episodes when Bud and Kelly embarked on some sort of scheme, he usually ended up suffering the consequences of Kelly's screw-ups. |
| 409 | * BestServedCold: Bud's likely finest moment is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVTem99RCfA shown here]], where he gains revenge on a girl who played a ''very'' cruel prank on him, and also helps an old classmate (who's now a millionaire) gain revenge against Kelly for a similar prank |
| 410 | * BrilliantButLazy: Easily the smartest one in the family and the only one to graduate from college. However, he focuses more time on trying to get laid or other schemes than anything else, which hampers his ability to succeed in the real world. |
| 411 | * ButtMonkey: Often the butt of physical assault and verbal insults from Kelly. Other times he humiliates himself trying to impress a girl and failing. |
| 412 | * CasanovaWannabe: He deploys a lot of Pick-up artist tactics to no success or only attracting mean GoldDigger girls disgusted by how little money his family has. |
| 413 | * CaughtWithYourPantsDown: Several times, but the biggest one was in "Bud Hits The Books," when he was caught masturbating in Trumaine University's library and was almost banned from getting his diploma. |
| 414 | * CharacterTic: Tends to crack his fingers after making a wisecrack at Kelly (and others). |
| 415 | * CombatPragmatist: While Bud was perfectly capable of handling himself in a straight fight, he continued the proud Bundy tradition of cheating by smashing larger opponents over the head with bottles or chairs, or by hitting them below the belt. Needless to say, this made Al especially proud of his boy. |
| 416 | * EmbarrassingMiddleName: Bud's not too thrilled about his middle name being "Franklin", which is ironic considering his first name is that of a beer brand. |
| 417 | * {{Flanderization}}: With each successive season, Bud gets more and more pathetic and inept with women. |
| 418 | * FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: The Responsible to Kelly's Foolish. A few jokes mention that he was the only Bundy without a criminal record for a while. |
| 419 | * FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Phlegmatic. |
| 420 | * HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Many jokes were made about what a lousy mother Peg was to Bud and Kelly. The show itself is pretty much built around how this trope applies to the Bundy children. |
| 421 | * HormoneAddledTeenager: Obsessed with girls. |
| 422 | * HypocriticalHeartwarming: While he calls Kelly a slut and bimbo a lot, he doesn't like it when anyone else does so, and can be surprisingly protective at times. (In one episode, he pretended to console a guy who had tried to take advantage of her, then hugged him, not telling him he had just been with a girl who had chicken pox.) |
| 423 | * InformedDeformity: David Faustino's a pretty good-looking (if short) guy, but on the show, girls think he's repulsive, and he is depicted as unattractive and someone that only a woman with no standards would date. Kelly constantly knocks him for his acne problems, which aren't really visible to the audience. Granted, for all the women turned off by his looks, far more are repulsed by his personality. |
| 424 | * JockDadNerdSon: With Al. |
| 425 | * LikeFatherLikeSon: Bud is just as much of a pervert as his father: |
| 426 | -->'''Amber''': ''(To Bud)'' You're amazing. Where do you learn this kind of behavior?\ |
| 427 | '''Al''': ''(Watching'' The Centrefold Weed-Whacker Murders ''on TV)'' No, you can't hide under the tree stump! He can burrow! Don't you see? He's half mole! |
| 428 | ** He also seems to have inherited Al's less-than-spectacular bedroom skills: |
| 429 | -->'''Ariel''': I didn't say it was the best. I said you ''did'' your best. |
| 430 | ** Bud carries on several of the Bundy family traditions, such as cheating to win in fights and competitions (see CombatPragmatist above), getting into a bar fight on his 18th birthday like every other male Bundy before him and getting a horrible revenge on family members who cross him. These moments always made Al proud of his boy, even when he was the one suffering the revenge. |
| 431 | * LoserSonOfLoserDad: Bud hasn't sunk to the same level of personal failure as his father, since he got good grades in school and sometimes makes good money as a talent agent or in other temporary professions. On the other hand, Bud has never gotten the same kind of action Al did in high school, and is frequently reduced to [[MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration rubbing one out]] whenever he feels horny (at least once daily), so it balances out. |
| 432 | %%* LovableSexManiac |
| 433 | * MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration: Bud is both incredibly horny and incredibly unsuccessful with women. He often resorts to self-pleasure, even in public places like a university library. |
| 434 | * ParentalNeglect: Especially on his mother's end. She blatantly refuses to do anything resembling work, including housework, cooking, or anything for anyone who isn't herself. She's not only a lazy mother who refuses to cook and feed her children, she goes as far as to even spend all of Al's money that was supposed to buy food for Kelly and Bud on ridiculous luxuries for herself such as Bon-bons, perfumes and make-ups and trendy sumptuous clothes. She's also blown money for everything from the electric bill to the kids' eye exams at the male nudie bar. |
| 435 | %%* SexAsRiteOfPassage |
| 436 | * SiblingRivalry: The typical interactions of Bud and Kelly feature this. Doesn't stop them from teaming-up for a common cause. |
| 437 | * TheSmartGuy: Arguably the brightest of the Bundys and by far the best educated one. On the other hand his hormones usually keep him from achieving his goals. |
| 438 | * ThrowTheDogABone: Most of Bud's attempts to get laid fail. But every once in a while he ''does'' succeed, which often results in the studio audience cheering in approval. |
| 439 | * TokenGoodTeammate: About as token good as you'll get from a show like this, but if anyone shows moral concerns about the rest of the family's behavior, it's usually him. |
| 440 | * TotallyRadical: His "Grandmaster B" persona is him trying to act like a rapper, which only earns him the mockery of his family. |
| 441 | * TheUnfavourite: While neither Bud nor Kelly were well looked after by their parents, Bud seems to have been the more neglected given Al's BoyfriendBlockingDad act towards his daughter. Although even Bud is subjected to this a few times. |
| 442 | * WhiteSheep: The first few seasons had several references to how Bud was initially the only family member without a criminal record. One episode had Bud describe himself as "the only member of this family who hasn't yet been fingerprinted." Another episode had Al mention that once Bud was arrested for his college fraternity initiation, all four of the Bundys would have records for indecent exposure. |
| 443 | [[/folder]] |
| 444 | |
| 445 | [[folder:Buck]] |
| 446 | !!Bucky |
| 447 | !!!'''Voiced By:''' Creator/KevinCurran, [[Creator/CheechAndChong Cheech Marin]] |
| 448 | |
| 449 | The Bundys' first family dog. |
| 450 | ---- |
| 451 | * ApatheticPet: His mental voice frequently made clear his disdain for the deadbeat family he was stuck with. In one episode he is sent to get help after Al and Bud get lost in the woods, he goes home and leaves them to their fate. When Buck finally passed away, he is tried in heaven for his past {{Jerkass}}ery (though not towards the Bundys, [[KangarooCourt the judge was a cat]]), and, as a CoolAndUnusualPunishment, is reincarnated as the Bundys' new puppy, Lucky. |
| 452 | * AscendedExtra: Originally, he was just the family dog. Over time, he became a TalkingAnimal with several episodes focusing on him. |
| 453 | * CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: In one episode, he is sick of being ignored and not fed, so he runs away to make a point. He's immediately captured by the dog catcher and his absence goes unnoticed until right before the seven-day waiting period. Buck recognizes he has only himself to blame for this mess, as (once he's found and brought home) he takes being ignored in stride. |
| 454 | * DeadpanSnarker: Buck trumps everybody in this department, even if the humans can't hear him. |
| 455 | * DirtyOldMan: A Dirty Old Dog. In one episode, he mentions that he wouldn't have any use for Kelly if she didn't undress in front of him. |
| 456 | * EatTheDog: Since they're usually malnourished, the Bundys sometimes try to eat Buck. |
| 457 | * EvenTheDogIsAshamed: When Al was caught planting an overdue library book on the shelf to get out of paying the fee, Buck returned home from a walk with a bag over his head. |
| 458 | * FateWorseThanDeath: When Buck dies and is taken to Animal Heaven, he is denied entrance for being a very bad dog (especially where cats are involved). His punishment? He is sentenced to live ANOTHER horrible lifetime with the Bundys as the reincarnated Lucky. |
| 459 | * OldDog: He spends most of his time lying on the couch, the staircase or the floor. {{Lampshaded}} when Kelly tells a pair of TV producers about her home life, and all of the clips depicting Buck show him lazing around. |
| 460 | * OneSteveLimit: Al sometimes confuses his son's name for his dog's due to being so similar. |
| 461 | * ReallyGetsAround: He hooks up with several different female dogs over the course of the series. |
| 462 | * TalkingAnimal: He can't really talk, but, as with Snoopy or Garfield, the audience can hear his thoughts. |
| 463 | [[/folder]] |
| 464 | |
| 465 | [[folder:Lucky]] |
| 466 | !!Lucky |
| 467 | |
| 468 | The Bundys' second family dog. |
| 469 | ---- |
| 470 | * IronicName: The name "Lucky" seems rather incongruent to his continued existence as the Bundy family's dog. And if his initial reaction to the realization about his reincarnation into the Bundy family is any indication, he's not likely to consider himself "lucky", either. |
| 471 | -->[[BigNo NOOOOOOOO!]] |
| 472 | * TheNthDoctor: Kinda. Buck was reincarnated into Lucky as punishment for being a very bad dog. |
| 473 | * TalkingAnimal: But only in Season 10. |
| 474 | * TookALevelInDumbass: He doesn't speak in season 11 and is generally portrayed as dumber than his predecessor throughout the season. |
| 475 | [[/folder]] |
| 476 | |
| 477 | [[folder:Seven]] |
| 478 | !!Seven |
| 479 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/ShaneSweet |
| 480 | |
| 481 | A child of one of Peg's cousins that was left with the Bundys when they abandoned him. Despite Al managing to track his parents down, he allows Seven to stay with the family. He appears in a few episodes in the seventh season (funnily enough). But due to unpopularity with the fans and the writers having difficulty working some of their jokes around him, he was quickly written out of the show. |
| 482 | ---- |
| 483 | * AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Well ''adopted'' younger sibling. Was this for Kelly and Bud since Peg kept doting on him. |
| 484 | * BrattyHalfPint: In his early episodes. |
| 485 | * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: "Peggy and the Pirates" is the last we see of him. The show would later make jokes about his disappearance, such as putting his face on a milk carton. |
| 486 | * CousinOliver: He's one of the most infamous examples of kids being brought in to bolster the cast. |
| 487 | * FaceOnAMilkCarton: As shown in one episode following his departure. |
| 488 | * HappilyAdopted: Didn't seem all that saddened that his birth parents just up and left him. |
| 489 | * MeaningfulName: Subverted. He's his parents' sixth child, but they don't know how to count. |
| 490 | * ParentalAbandonment: One of Peggy's relatives just dumped him at the Bundy house. |
| 491 | %%* PutOnABus |
| 492 | * WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Oh wait, Wanker relatives. Never mind. |
| 493 | [[/folder]] |
| 494 | |
| 495 | !! The Neighbors |
| 496 | |
| 497 | [[folder:Marcy Rhoades/D'Arcy]] |
| 498 | !!Marcy Rhoades/D'Arcy |
| 499 | [[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/married_with_children_marcy.jpg]] |
| 500 | %%[[caption-width-right:200:some caption text]] |
| 501 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/AmandaBearse |
| 502 | |
| 503 | Marcy is a bank teller who lives next door to the Bundys. She frequently belittles Al and reminds him of how much a loser he is, but has a much friendlier rapport with Peggy. |
| 504 | ---- |
| 505 | * AbusiveParents: Marcy has multiple stories about how growing up was less than pleasant. One such tale involving her mother selling her beloved dog, Chester, for fifty cents at a yard sale, and using said money to go on vacation and leave Marcy home alone, crying and begging for Chester to come back home. |
| 506 | * ACupAngst: She's mistaken for a boy several times due to her flat chest, much to her anger. Al constantly mocks her about it. |
| 507 | --> I know what they're all thinking. Marcy has the smallest breasts in the room. But I'm happy about it! They're perfectly symmetrical for my frame! |
| 508 | * AnimalMotifs: Al repeatedly compares her to a chicken. |
| 509 | * ArchEnemy: Often fills this role for Al. |
| 510 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Marcy constantly pushes Jefferson to get a job. Whenever he does, he immediately gets a lot of attention from other women. Marcy then gets jealous, forces him to quit and return to his de facto job as her [[TrophyWife Trophy Husband.]] |
| 511 | * BlondeRepublicanSexKitten: Al might find her repulsive, but there are plenty of other men who find her attractive, not to mention the cheers she got from the studio audience. She's also Republican, blonde for most of the show's run and as kinky as any character on the show. |
| 512 | * BoyishShortHair: She had a haircut like that for a large part of the series. |
| 513 | * BrattyHalfPint: She's the smallest regular character on the show and by far a rather unpleasant and entitled pain, especially in the later seasons. |
| 514 | * BreakTheCutie: Was a fairly nice (if snobbish) woman at the start of the series. A few years of living next to the Bundys and Steve leaving her, however, made her a lot more shrill and quick to lash out. |
| 515 | * TheBully: Marcy attacks Al as payback for watching misogynistic programs on TV like "Gullible Girls". She also got his favorite Western ''[[ShowWithinAShow Psycho Dad]]'' cancelled in part because she knew how much he enjoyed it. |
| 516 | * CharacterizationMarchesOn: Marcy originally started off as a more stereotypical housewife to contrast with Peg, as opposed to the dominant feminist she later became after marrying Jefferson. |
| 517 | * ChildHater: Marcy outright refuses to be a mother, going on a rant in "At the Zoo" saying they're expensive and that she'd [[WouldRatherSuffer rather have a knife plunged in her throat]] |
| 518 | * ClingyJealousGirl: Marcy constantly pushes Jefferson to get a job. Whenever he actually gets one, he typically ends up with beautiful women as coworkers and customers, which makes Marcy force him to quit. |
| 519 | * DistaffCounterpart: After Steve lost his job and especially when she married Jefferson D'Arcy, Marcy was increasingly played as a counterpart to Al, if a bit better off. Al and Marcy are both shown to be taken advantage of by their lazy spouses. This is highlighted in a Season 4 episode, where Al brings Marcy to a bar where he and other married men complain about their wives (and she complains about Steve, who has dragged his feet on getting a new job). Al is also played as being a [[StrawMisogynist diehard male chauvinist]], and Marcy [[StrawFeminist a diehard female chauvinist.]] |
| 520 | * DoesNotLikeMen: Her toxic misandry (hatred for men and all masculine things) is a contributing factor to the creation of Al's group NO MA'AM. Marcy denies she's ever a misandrist (clearly she is) and simply tells other people that she only wants equality for women, though she assumes ''all'' women are victims and are in a position of weakness. |
| 521 | * DropInCharacter: Often hanging around the Bundy house with Peg. It got to the point where Amanda Bearse's credit in the opening titles eventually involved her either having the door slammed in her face or just barging right in. |
| 522 | * EmbarrassingLastName: She is clearly not happy to be named Marcy D'arcy. |
| 523 | * EverybodyHasStandards: As much as she dislikes Al, when she found out that the reason he couldn't buy Peg a gift for their anniversary was that his family had bought everything else for it, including gifts for him with his own money she feels bad and tells Peg she should apologize to him. |
| 524 | * EvilLaugh: She was known to issue a triumphant, cackling laugh on several occasions, most notably when something particularly unpleasant happens to Al. |
| 525 | * FanDisservice: As far as Al's concerned, anyway. He treats seeing her naked or in lingerie, as well as hearing about her sex life, as BrainBleach, and in "Banking on Marcy," seeing her have an [[TheImmodestOrgasm orgasm]] in public rendered him impotent. |
| 526 | * HarmfulToMinors: Marcy mentions that all of her mother's husbands have killed themselves, her mother was emotionally abusive to her (she sold her dog at a yard sale for a trip that she didn't even take her daughter on and sold Marcy in a card game to a woman who wouldn't stop sweating), and her biological father was a drunk. |
| 527 | * HotGuyUglyWife: With Jefferson. |
| 528 | * {{Hypocrite}}: |
| 529 | ** She broke up with Steve for getting sloppy and lazy when he got fired from his job as a banker, but while she pushes her new husband Jefferson to get a job, she always makes him quit because he typically ends up working with beautiful women. |
| 530 | ** Also, while she is an advocate for women, in addition to hating men, it's also implied that she hates foreigners and the homeless. |
| 531 | ** She's constantly sounding off about women's rights but looks down on the less fortunate, including women who are on welfare or going through hard times. She's also shown to be racist towards indigenous people in "How Green was my Apple?". |
| 532 | * InformedDeformity: Okay, ''seriously'', you'd think this woman was some ugly hag the way people talk about her looks, despite the attractive actress playing her. For example, in the episode "The Egg and I", she shows off her body in lingerie; Al screams "I'm blind! My eyes, my eyes!" but the studio audience [[WolfWhistle Wolf Whistles]]. |
| 533 | * {{Irony}}: Despite hating men, Marcy tends to make herself look masculine by keeping her hair short and her chest flat. |
| 534 | * JerkassToOne: Towards Al. Marcy even at times eggs Peg to splash Al's own money on luxuries for herself. |
| 535 | * LadyLooksLikeADude: Many people often mistook Marcy for a young man in later seasons. |
| 536 | * MoneyFetish: Even though her relationship with Jefferson is little more than a glorified gigolo, she does seem genuinely happy with her husband when Jefferson acquires a large sum of money whether the means be legal or illegal. |
| 537 | * NotSoAboveItAll: She and Al are very much alike, they simply disagree on which gender deserves more activism. |
| 538 | * PintSizedPowerhouse: Despite being one of the smallest regular characters, Marcy was a lot tougher than she looked. She's knocked out larger men with a single punch, to the point that even boxing champion Roy Jones Jr. was visibly nervous when she threatened to knock him out. She also shoved over a whole row of women like dominoes when they offered to give Jefferson a "spanking conga." |
| 539 | * ReassignedToAntarctica: Marcy's been repeatedly demoted from her cushy bank job whenever the Bundys get her in trouble: |
| 540 | ** She was demoted to drive-up window teller when Al lost $50,000 on a bad loan for his failed "Dr. Shoe" business, and when Al ratted her out for the smog control device being disconnected on her car despite her bank's environmental campaign. |
| 541 | ** Much later, she hires Kelly as a window model and gets blamed when Kelly gets the son of the bank's biggest customer beaten up by security guards when she mistakes him for a robber. Marcy becomes the bank's new window model, having to wear a chicken suit and hold a sign saying "Let Us Sit On Your Nest Egg." |
| 542 | ** As part of a complicated deal with her bank's president to get a promotion, Marcy had to dance onstage at the Jiggly Room. When her boss says she got the promotion because she could "shake it" rather than because of her negotiating skills, she punches him out and starts a bar fight that gets him arrested. This time, Marcy's demoted to drive-up teller ''machine''. According to Kelly, Marcy has to say "beep" every time someone withdraws money. |
| 543 | * ShoutOutThemeNaming: In keeping with the creators being wrestling fans, Marcy's last name when we first see her (and by extension Steve's) came from Wrestling/DustyRhodes, albeit spelled "Rhoades". |
| 544 | * SitcomArchNemesis: To Al. |
| 545 | * SocialDarwinist: She takes delight in seeing the Bundys suffer in poverty as while she is middle-class. Marcy has also said she's a Republican and that she doesn't believe in helping the less fortunate. |
| 546 | * StrawFeminist: Marcy is a proud feminist, who is also portrayed as a misandrist, masculine-looking and unattractive. Furthermore, she is shown to be a constant hypocrite regarding her beliefs (such as bad mouthing porn as a male fantasy, only for the clerk to come up to her and tell her the videos she requested earlier had come in). |
| 547 | * StrawHypocrite: Thinks women deserves better treatment, but calls men barbaric and uncivilized. Though Marcy comes off as nothing better than a bully towards Al. |
| 548 | * TheBadGuyWins: Marcy is the antagonist in most of her feuds with Al, and she usually wins. |
| 549 | * TheThingThatWouldNotLeave: She's always coming into the Bundys house and stays there for a very long time, sometimes eating their food and sleeping on their couch much to Al's consternation. That said, the Bundys steal everything from food to cable from her, so it evens out. |
| 550 | * TortureTechnician: PlayedForLaughs. Whenever someone violates her privacy or steals from her, she specifies [[ToThePain what she will do to them (usually a man)]]. It involves [[AndSomeOtherStuff (amongst other things)]] a hammer smashing their toes, [[GroinAttack using the other end of it]], a stereo to drown out their screams, setting them on fire, and skinning them alive. |
| 551 | * WhatDidIDoLastNight: This is how Marcy ends up meeting and getting married to Jefferson. |
| 552 | -->'''Marcy''': It's just that I can hardly believe that I'm now Mrs... Darling. What's your last name? |
| 553 | -->'''Jefferson''': D'Arcy. |
| 554 | -->'''Marcy''': [[RhymingNames Marcy D'Arcy]]... I'm now [[UnfortunateName MARCY D'ARCY]]! ''What have I done?'' |
| 555 | [[/folder]] |
| 556 | |
| 557 | [[folder:Steve Rhoades]] |
| 558 | !!Steve Rhoades |
| 559 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/DavidGarrison |
| 560 | |
| 561 | Steve is Marcy's first husband (Seasons 1-4). Like Marcy, Steve worked as a loan officer for a bank. He tends to stick by his wife a lot, and frowns upon Al's attempts to get him to go against her wishes. |
| 562 | ---- |
| 563 | * TheBully: Steve likes to bully and taunt Al for his low income and poor lifestyle. |
| 564 | * CommutingOnABus: David Garrison returned to play Steve several times in one-shot episodes. One notable example had the studio audience applauding him for almost a full minute when he appeared onscreen, during which Garrison humorously checked his watch while standing in silence. |
| 565 | * DeadpanSnarker: While everyone gets in on this from time to time, his sense of sarcasm is by far the more frequent and driest. |
| 566 | %%* DropInCharacter |
| 567 | * {{Fanboy}}: Of music, theatre plays, dancing, and money. |
| 568 | * {{Foil}}: To Al. Steve is ''happily'' married, has no children, works a white-collar job as a bank's loan officer and overall lives a middle-class lifestyle. |
| 569 | * FriendToAllLivingThings: He thinks of himself as being this, but unfortunately he ends up being arrested for accidentally drowning a saltwater turtle in Lake Michigan because he believed that it was being held captive at a zoo. |
| 570 | * {{Greed}}: Played with. He knows his limits half of the time (such as not to steal money from his bank's vault) but still was so greedy to win a trip to Hawaii that he wrote a bad loan for Al's shoe line and eventually ended up being fired as a result. This trait especially becomes magnified upon his returns after leaving Marcy and she (prior to their divorce) even admits to Peg that his greed was one of the reasons she fell for him. |
| 571 | * HarmfulToMinors: Steve mentions that his father committed suicide because his mother was so overbearing and unpleasant to be around. |
| 572 | * HenpeckedHusband: He starts out on fairly even terms with Marcy. As she became more shrill, he became more subservient, until, of course, he flat out leaves her to become an outdoorsman. Insert your own chicken joke here. |
| 573 | * HiddenDepths: Aside from his love of theatre and music, he is also shown to be an accomplished tap dancer. |
| 574 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: While he has no problem showing off his affluent lifestyle to others, he's actually one of the nicer characters on the show such as happily taking a group of kids camping when Al refuses to. |
| 575 | * LaserGuidedKarma: He mocked Al for being poor and having such little money for four seasons straight. Towards the end of Season 4, he loses his job as a loan officer (partly Al's fault) and goes unemployed for many months, devolving into a deadbeat LazyHusband frolicking at zoos all day with Marcy's hard-earned money, which eventually resulted in him leaving Marcy. He's had a volatile employment record since then. |
| 576 | * MommasBoy: He's very devoted to his mother, much to Marcy's annoyance. |
| 577 | * NotSoAboveItAll: |
| 578 | ** Delighted in using his position at the bank to turn down loans for people that picked on him in school. |
| 579 | ** Although he likes to hold himself above the Bundys, he will drool over attractive young women right alongside Al. |
| 580 | * TheOneThatGotAway: Even Marcy flat out chose Jefferson over Steve to his face, it's clear Marcy views Steve as this. She constantly compares Steve positively to him, only giving Jefferson looks and sexual prowess over him, and even states she wants to be buried next to Steve rather than Jefferson. Unresolved bitterness between the two, and an unwillingness to cut Jefferson loose due to sex with him being the only thing she enjoys in life akin to a drug addiction, the two never reconcile. |
| 581 | * OnlySaneMan: At least when he was a regular character. |
| 582 | * PutOnABus: He was written out as leaving Marcy so he can be a park ranger. This was done because the actor, David Garrison, was afraid of being typecast and no longer wanted a role on a weekly TV series. |
| 583 | * SanitySlippage: After being poisoned with Oak by some young boys he, Al and Bud took camping after he was fooled into rubbing it on his skin and ''tasting'' it. The fact that he didn't die from this is quite a feat. |
| 584 | * SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Him and Al. Although a fair bit of Al's cynicism rubs off on him, blurring the lines a bit. |
| 585 | * SlobsVersusSnobs: He and Marcy's (initial) relationship with the Bundys. |
| 586 | * StraightMan: To Al and his former wife, Marcy, for they're both far more excitable and over-the-top than he is and he often comments and quips on said behavior. |
| 587 | * ShoutOutThemeNaming: In keeping with the creators being wrestling fans, Steve's last name (and by extension Marcy's when she was married to him) came from Wrestling/DustyRhodes, albeit spelled "Rhoades". |
| 588 | * TookALevelInJerkass: Perhaps because of cracks that were in the marriage to begin with (or the bad influences of Al and Peg), he becomes more snarky, critical and unloving towards Marcy. Upon his many returns (especially after Marcy told him it was over for good), the two of them are outright rivals. |
| 589 | * TheBusCameBack: Garrison made a handful of return appearances, coming back in four separate episodes to reprise the role, during which time Steve Rhoades became the dean of Bud's college and came into conflict with his ex-wife on multiple occasions. |
| 590 | * NewJobAsThePlotDemands: When he guest stars in later episodes, expect him to have a new job. He's been a forest ranger/criminal, chauffeur, and a college dean. |
| 591 | [[/folder]] |
| 592 | |
| 593 | [[folder:Jefferson D'Arcy]] |
| 594 | !!Jefferson D'Arcy |
| 595 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/TedMcGinley |
| 596 | |
| 597 | Jefferson is Marcy's second husband (Seasons 5+). Unlike Steve, Jefferson doesn't hold down a steady job, believing he's "too pretty to work". He enjoys most of the same activities that Al does, and the two of them get along pretty well. |
| 598 | ---- |
| 599 | * AuthoritativeInPublicDocileInPrivate: He's a glorified gigolo (who was once in prison over a land scam and has a secret connection with the CIA) who married a relatively affluent woman (in short, a GoldDigger) but later [[BecomingTheMask become fond of Marcy]]. He's still participating in shenanigans, scams and very fond of women's company. But Marcy regularly bosses Jefferson around. He talks big to the other NO MA'AM guys, but whenever Marcy is about to bust one of their schemes he takes off his NO MA'AM shirt to reveal a YES MA'AM one. When he joined the National Guard, he started crying under pressure and saying that he wanted "his Marcy". |
| 600 | * BeautyBreedsLaziness: Genuinely believes that he's "too pretty to work." Not helping matters is that whenever he ''does'' find a job, Marcy makes him quit out of jealousy. |
| 601 | * CampStraight: He loves going to spas for manicures, is rather fussy about the condition of his hair and skin not unlike his wife and was even a ''cheerleader'' in high school, but he's still blatantly heterosexual. |
| 602 | * CargoShip: Invoked as a gag in "Route 666" when he develops an unhealthy obsession with a gold nugget. |
| 603 | -->"Will Jefferson dump Marcy and elope with his nugget?" |
| 604 | * CarpetOfVirility: Whenever his shirt is open or off, you can see that he has a nice, thick pattern of chest hair, which goes with his machismo attitude, especially whenever around the fellow members of NO MA'AM. |
| 605 | * ChickMagnet: Whenever Jefferson actually gets a job, he gets a lot of attention from women. Marcy then forces him to quit and return to his de facto job as her sex toy. |
| 606 | * ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: So much that he could give Peg a run for her money. He pretends to be loyal to Al and Marcy, but he'll often backstab or otherwise abandon them to save himself, including letting Al's various schemes blow up in his face when they no longer serve his interests, laugh at Al's jokes begind Marcy's back (both figuratively and literally), and flirt with numerous women, often within earshot on his wife. |
| 607 | * CrazyJealousGuy: He's actually become quite fond of Marcy, believe it or not. |
| 608 | ** Sometimes Marcy will gush in Jefferson's presence about how good Steve used to be in bed. This makes Jefferson take her home and promise to "rock the Steve right out of her." This is a BatmanGambit that Marcy uses whenever she wants sex from Jefferson. |
| 609 | ** When Jefferson and Steve finally meet, they begin fighting over Marcy. They try to outdo one another by bragging over where they've done the deed with her. |
| 610 | ** After Marcy has an orgasm while giving a speech at her bank, she's soon hired by other corporations to give bad news in erotic speeches. Unfortunately, she begins neglecting Jefferson, and he starts getting pouty over it. When he complains to Marcy about being ignored, she takes him home for his own "private little speech". In the last scene of the episode, Peg asks Marcy where Jefferson is, and she explains that he's in the hospital being treated for dehydration. |
| 611 | * CrazyPrepared: |
| 612 | ** The standard NO MA'AM uniform includes a T-shirt with the group's logo on the chest. Jefferson wore them, but he always wore a "YES MA'AM" shirt underneath it, which he quickly revealed whenever Marcy was about to bust one of the group's schemes. |
| 613 | ** In another episode, some hillbillies are running a scam where they charge five cents for a bottle of Coke and five dollars for a bottle opener. Al is forced to pay the five dollars, but Jefferson keeps a bottle opener on him. |
| 614 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: As much of a goofball Jefferson is, he's still a ''former CIA agent'', and as demonstrated in "The D'Arcy Files" and "I Want My Psycho Dad", he's perfectly capable of [[LetsGetDangerous ramping it up]] when sufficiently threatened or passionate enough. |
| 615 | * EvenTheGuysWantHim: Jefferson gets a job as an aerobics instructor in the last season, and he's incredibly popular with the studio's female exercisers. When Marcy finds out, she tries to make him quit: |
| 616 | -->'''Woman #1''': Hold it, sweetie. You don't just ''walk'' into a Jefferson D'Arcy class.\ |
| 617 | '''Marcy''': But I'm his wife!\ |
| 618 | '''Woman #2''': Nice try, honey. On an average day, he usually gets about four wives, plus a couple of husbands! |
| 619 | * FriendlyEnemy: With Castro; from what we know, he lost his position in the CIA after being assigned to kill Castro and failing. Later the two of them became friends. |
| 620 | * GoldDigger: A glorified gigolo (who was once in prison over a land scam and has a secret connection with the CIA) who married a relatively affluent woman. |
| 621 | %%* HandsomeLech |
| 622 | * HarmfulToMinors: Jefferson mentions that his mother was a stripper -- whose pet snake strangled her to death during one of her acts. |
| 623 | * HenpeckedHusband: Marcy regularly bosses Jefferson around. He talks big to the other NO MA'AM guys, but whenever Marcy is about to bust one of their schemes he takes off his NO MA'AM shirt to reveal a YES MA'AM one. When he joined the National Guard, he started crying under pressure and saying that he wanted "his Marcy". |
| 624 | * IdleRich: He gets so bored with having nothing to do at home yet is vastly wealthy because of his past scams and Marcy's net worth that he'll go feed the ducks.... with quarters and watch them sink. |
| 625 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He shows no remorse for his criminal past and has a rather sick sense of humor, but in later seasons he frequently goes out of his way to help the Bundys asking for nothing in return. |
| 626 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler: Jefferson is a retired CIA agent. When Al initially finds this out, he's offered a large cash reward for information leading to Jefferson's capture... however, due to their being in the middle of a prank war, Al wasn't sure if was legit or not. At the end of the episode, Jefferson scares Al before playing it off as a large-scale hoax... until we hear on the still-playing television that the man who'd offered the reward had just died while watching a baseball game.]] Never has someone blowing a noise-maker been so creepily funny. |
| 627 | * PrettyFreeloaders: Marcy is the breadwinner, Jefferson earns his keep with sexual favors. However whenever he does get good work (ie Fitness Instructor or the similar) Marcy usually gets him to stop because she is jealous of all the attention he gets from other women. |
| 628 | * PrettyBoy: He's a good looking guy, and ''very'' well aware of it. |
| 629 | * RetiredBadass: One episode involved him rappelling down into Fidel Castro's office and holding him at knifepoint - only it turned out he and Fidel were old friends from Jefferson's CIA days. |
| 630 | * RunningGag: Marcy constantly pressures him to get a job. Whenever he actually gets one, she then forces him to quit because he gets a lot of attention from other women. |
| 631 | * ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: He's occasionally used his former CIA and criminal connections to help the Bundys out: |
| 632 | ** When Al's Dodge broke down because it needed a new fuel pump, he travelled to Cuba and got his FriendlyEnemy Fidel Castro to provide a new one from the thousands of old Dodges that were on the island; |
| 633 | ** When the NO MA'AM guys went to Washington to petition the U.S. Senate to get ''[[ShowWithinAShow Psycho Dad]]'' back on the air, Jefferson used his old CIA connections to enable them to speak to the Senate...and also to have Marcy and Peggy bound and gagged so they couldn't stop them. |
| 634 | ** When Kelly's boyfriend accidentally burned up Peg's couch, Jefferson used his connections with some criminals who smuggled contraband in furniture to help her track down a replacement; |
| 635 | ** When Kelly was upset after Buck's death, he got a friend of his, a crooked customs agent who would smuggle in endangered animals for a fee, to get a rare South American bird as a replacement. Kelly really liked it, but then Grandma Wanker got hungry... |
| 636 | * SpearCounterpart: To Peggy. He's very lazy and comes up with all sorts of excuses to avoid getting a job, and has been known to blow Marcy's money on expensive baubles the way Peg spends Al's money on expensive baubles. He also gets very jealous when Marcy reminisces about her ex-husband Steve, or when she generally starts ignoring him. |
| 637 | * StatusQuoIsGod: Despite his protests, Jefferson actually ''does'' manage to get a few jobs throughout the series. Unfortunately, whether he gets a job at the shoe store, as an actor or as an aerobics instructor, Jefferson typically ends up working with beautiful women. This makes Marcy force him to quit and return to his de facto job as her sex toy: |
| 638 | -->'''Jefferson''': I thought you wanted me to get a job!\ |
| 639 | '''Marcy''': Your job is to please me. And right now, I am not pleased. |
| 640 | * [[TrophyWife Trophy Husband]]: He's several years younger than Marcy and one of the main reasons he stays married to her is to mooch off her money and not have to get a job. Marcy even outright calls him a "trophy husband" in one episode. |
| 641 | * WithFriendsLikeThese: Early on, Jefferson would sell out Al or anyone else in a heartbeat if it meant making money. |
| 642 | [[/folder]] |
| 643 | |
| 644 | !! Recurring Characters |
| 645 | |
| 646 | [[folder:Luke Ventura]] |
| 647 | !!Luke Ventura |
| 648 | !!!'''Played By:''' Ritch Shydner |
| 649 | |
| 650 | Luke was a friend of Al's and a fellow worker at Gary's Shoe Store during season 1. |
| 651 | ---- |
| 652 | * TheCasanova: He often sleeps around with all kinds of women, even ones that are married. |
| 653 | * ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Only appeared in a few episodes from season 1 before disappearing for good. He gets mentioned as selling shoes elsewhere in Season 9's "Pump Fiction" but remains offscreen. |
| 654 | * {{Foil}}: To Al. While Al is a miserable person with a wife and children, as well as being quite rude with his customers and generally unsuccessful in life, Luke is quite the opposite. He's a bachelor who sleeps around with all kinds of women, charming with his customers, and all-around more successful salesman than Al is. |
| 655 | * ShoutOutThemeNaming: Like the Bundys and the Rhoades, his last name is based off a wrestler. In this case, it's Wrestling/JesseVentura. |
| 656 | [[/folder]] |
| 657 | |
| 658 | [[folder:Griff]] |
| 659 | !!Griff |
| 660 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/HaroldSylvester |
| 661 | |
| 662 | Griff is a friend of Al's, and his co-worker at Gary's Shoe Store in the later seasons. He is also one of the founding members of Al's NO MA'AM group. |
| 663 | ---- |
| 664 | * BlackDudeDiesFirst: Played with. When Al, Jefferson and Griff join the National Guard to thwart Garbage Strikers, they try to send him out first. He obviously says no and invokes this trope as the reason, bringing up other movies as evidence. They go out anyway and he's hit with an eggshell. This prompts Al to play the grieving war buddy to him. |
| 665 | * ButtMonkey: His life is nearly as miserable as Al's. That said, Al probably envies him being divorced and childless. |
| 666 | %%* DirtyOldMan |
| 667 | * DoomItYourself: Al, Jefferson and Bob Rooney recruit Griff to help them with an electrical project. Griff ''thinks'' he's traced the problem, but all he does is electrocute Al. |
| 668 | * OnlySaneMan: Compared to the rest of the cast, Griff seems to be the only character who is at least relatively grounded in reality. |
| 669 | * RememberTheNewGuy: Parodied in his first appearance. He says he's been working at the shoe store for a while now, but Bud says Al never once mentioned him. Conversely, Griff says Al never mentioned having a wife and kids. Al did tell him about the four touchdowns in a single game, though. |
| 670 | * ScaryBlackMan: Subverted when the other NO MA'AM guys frame him as a cannibal SerialKiller as part of a prank. The cops interrogating Griff in jail step away in fear when he angrily says he hasn't killed anyone, but he's just WronglyAccused. |
| 671 | * StrawMisogynist |
| 672 | [[/folder]] |
| 673 | |
| 674 | [[folder:Officer Dan]] |
| 675 | !!Officer Dan |
| 676 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/DanTullisJr |
| 677 | |
| 678 | Dan is a police officer who operates in the area where the Bundys and the D'Arcys live. He is familiar with Al and his family because he's usually the first to arrive on the scene whenever they get in trouble. He's also a member of NO MA'AM, but isn't seen as frequently at their meetings as the others. |
| 679 | ---- |
| 680 | * CorruptCop: Openly admits to being crooked, though after joining NO MA'AM he frequently used said connections to keep Al out of jail. |
| 681 | * DeadpanSnarker: Officer Dan had some of the show's best one-liners. |
| 682 | * EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: More often than not everyone calls him "Officer Dan" instead of just Dan. |
| 683 | * HeelFaceTurn: When Al started up NO MA'AM, Officer Dan regularly arrested them for their antics. ("The Legend of Ironhead Haynes" portrayed him as a member, but he was off-duty and the group hadn't done anything illegal.) When ''Psycho Dad'' was cancelled, though, he joined the group in their protest and became a full-time member. |
| 684 | * PoliceAreUseless: "There's an armed robbery in progress, so I'm gonna go park under the bridge and take a nap." |
| 685 | [[/folder]] |
| 686 | |
| 687 | [[folder:Bob Rooney]] |
| 688 | !!Bob Rooney |
| 689 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/EEBell |
| 690 | |
| 691 | Bob Rooney is one of Al's NO MA'AM cohorts. |
| 692 | ---- |
| 693 | * DirtyOldMan: Like the rest of NO MA'AM. |
| 694 | * DoomItYourself: Al and Jefferson recruit Bob Rooney to help them with an electrical project because he read the entire Time-Life series on household wiring. It didn't help, since he was just as incompetent as them. |
| 695 | * FatBastard: A textbook example. Al once used his exposed gut to scare a bunch of kids out of their Halloween candy. |
| 696 | * FullNameBasis: Everyone always refers to him by his full name. |
| 697 | %%* StrawMisogynist |
| 698 | [[/folder]] |
| 699 | |
| 700 | [[folder:Ike]] |
| 701 | !!Ike |
| 702 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/TomMcCleister |
| 703 | |
| 704 | Ike is another member of Al's NO MA'AM group. |
| 705 | ---- |
| 706 | * AmbiguouslyBi: Ike lapses into this sometimes...at least by the standards of stereotypes on this show. |
| 707 | * CloudCuckoolander: He insists that Elvis is alive, enjoys Yanni's music, and it's occasionally implied that he's bisexual. |
| 708 | %%* DirtyOldMan |
| 709 | * NoAccountingForTaste: Ike has been known to drool over elderly strippers and fat women in aerobics outfits, in other words the kind of women that give the rest of the NO MA'AM guys dry heaves. |
| 710 | %%* StrawMisogynist |
| 711 | [[/folder]] |
| 712 | |
| 713 | [[folder:Gary]] |
| 714 | !!Gary |
| 715 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/JanetCarroll |
| 716 | |
| 717 | Gary is the rarely-seen owner of Gary's Shoe Store. Despite having a name meant for males, Gary is a middle-aged woman who laments having a sad-sack like Al working for her. |
| 718 | ---- |
| 719 | * BadBoss: She pays Al starvation wages and refuses to fire him at all in hopes he'll be denied unemployment because then that would give Al a good income boost. |
| 720 | * BrokenPedestal: In "Business Sucks: Part 2" she actually seems quite fond of Al. While she sees right through his scheme of trying to disguise men's shoes as women's shoes, she blames herself for setting up Al to fail thinking that her store had been a men's shoe store having been gone so long. Later appearances has her openly contemptuous toward Al and fully aware of his terrible job performance. |
| 721 | * CorruptCorporateExecutive: She had illegal immigrants making shoes for her. |
| 722 | * Fiction500: Owns several multi-million dollar businesses, but the constant failings of the shoe store keep her at #501. |
| 723 | * GreaterScopeVillain: She's rarely seen but is explained as keeping Al trapped in perpetual poverty. |
| 724 | * Hypocrite: She gripes about being only the 401st richest person in America because her shoe store never makes enough money... but would rather keep Al around on low pay for spite rather than replace him with someone else else who'd give her store better business. Even when she finally does just that, they quit by the end of the day and she rehires Al and Griff rather than just cut her losses and shut down the store. |
| 725 | * OldShame: InUniverse. She remembers -- ''bitterly'' -- about having once invested money in one of the schemes concocted by Larry Storch that caused her to lose all she spent in said scheme, culminating in her knocking him out when she sees him again. |
| 726 | * TomboyishName: That and the fact Al never met her during the first twenty years he's been working at the store made Al mistakenly believe Gary was a man. Whenever he wasn't thinking Gary didn't even exist, that is. |
| 727 | * UnseenNoMore: Al and his coworkers at Gary's Shoes had never seen Gary to the point that Al believes it's just the store's name. In Season 9, Gary makes a visit where they learn [[spoiler:she's]] the 401st richest American because of the store's poor performance. Gary becomes a recurring character for the rest of the series. |
| 728 | [[/folder]] |
| 729 | |
| 730 | [[folder:Grandma Wanker]] |
| 731 | !!Grandma Wanker |
| 732 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/KathrynFreeman (voice only) |
| 733 | |
| 734 | Grandma Wanker is Peg's incredibly fat and hideous mother. She's so fat that her footsteps can make the earth shake, she can make the ceiling crumble simply by rolling over, and she's such a glutton that she can eat an entire pig in under a minute. Grandma Wanker comes to live with the Bundys for a while in the tenth season, much to Peg's delight and the frustration of the rest of the family. |
| 735 | ---- |
| 736 | * BigEater: Anyone who can eat an entire pig in under a minute, uses a pitchfork as an eating utensil, whose stomach begins rumbling if she doesn't get nine square meals a day and who ate her own dog after wrapping him in bacon has to qualify for this. |
| 737 | * BlackComedyPetDeath: Al implies that she wrapped her own dog in bacon and ate it. She later did the same thing to Kelly's pet bird. |
| 738 | %% * FatBitch: Oh yeah. |
| 739 | * {{Gonk}}: She's repeatedly implied to be this. Al was once blinded when he was unlucky enough to walk into the bathroom while she was having a bath. Another one of Peg's relatives explained that this was "hysterical blindness", which also happened to Grandma Wanker's doctor. |
| 740 | * ImAHumanitarian: Al hates all of Peg's relatives, but he especially dislikes Grandma Wanker. One reason is because he never liked the way she looked at him, as if he was always between "two pieces of bread." She's also eaten at least one of Peg's relatives, and bit off the tip of Grandpa Wanker's finger when he tried to feed her. Grandpa Wanker then points out that she would have eaten his whole hand if he hadn't tickled her stomach. |
| 741 | * ObnoxiousInLaws: Al and the kids both hate her. Curiously enough, she doesn't seem to loathe Al as much-one episode has Peg telling Al that Grandma Wanker never liked him, but another one lamented the way Al insulted her, considering how much Grandma Wanker loved him. |
| 742 | * TheVoice: Thankfully, she never appeared on screen. We only ever hear her dialogue, and occasionally we see the ceiling of the Bundy house buckle whenever she rolls over or she has a "belly quake". Originally, Divine (from the John Waters film ''Pink Flamingos'') was supposed to play Peg's mom, but he/she died before his/her premiere episode, so, out of respect, the writers made Peg's mom unseen. |
| 743 | [[/folder]] |
| 744 | |
| 745 | [[folder:Grandpa Wanker]] |
| 746 | !!Grandpa Wanker |
| 747 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/TimConway |
| 748 | |
| 749 | Grandpa Wanker is Peg's father and Al's father-in-law. Like all of Peg's family, he's a drunken hillbilly. He notably held a shotgun in Al's back to force Al to follow through on his drunken proposal to Peg. He splits up with Grandma Wanker during season 10, which prompts Grandma to move in with the Bundys, and Peg later sets out in the ninth season to try and find him after he disappears. |
| 750 | ---- |
| 751 | * BoyfriendBlockingDad: Surprisingly averted. Although Al generally can't stand him, he actually seems to like Al just fine, to the point where he held a shotgun in Al's back to force Al to follow through on the proposal he made to Peg while drunk. |
| 752 | * DirtyOldMan: After he splits up with Grandma Wanker, he dates a couple of women young enough to be his granddaughter. |
| 753 | * HotGuyUglyWife: Grandpa Wanker isn't exactly Creator/BradPitt, but when you consider who he's married to this obviously applies. |
| 754 | * ShotgunWedding: He did this to Al when Al and Peg got married. He did it again at the end of the ninth season, when Al and Peg were renewing their wedding vows. During the renewal, Grandpa Wanker implied the shotgun wasn't loaded the first time around. |
| 755 | [[/folder]] |
| 756 | |
| 757 | [[folder:Amber]] |
| 758 | !!Amber |
| 759 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/JulietTablak |
| 760 | |
| 761 | Amber is Marcy's niece, who hails from Los Angeles. When her parents become concerned that she's getting too wild and hanging out with the wrong crowd, they send her to live with Marcy so she can learn more "wholesome" values. Despite Marcy's warnings against getting involved with the Bundys, she quickly becomes friends with Kelly and even has a brief fling with Bud. |
| 762 | ---- |
| 763 | * DidIJustSayThatOutLoud: Amber told Bud that she'd had the best sex of her life when she slept with him, but she only said that to spare her feelings. She later accidentally revealed her true opinion of his performance when she got angry at him: |
| 764 | -->'''Amber''': I can't believe I let you have what you ''claimed'' was sex with me! |
| 765 | * EthicalSlut: To the point that she refused to sleep with Bud unless he started being nicer to Kelly. When he started being nicer to Kelly, Amber continued using her wiles as "encouragement." |
| 766 | * GoodBadGirl: Amber was arguably one of the more moral and good-natured characters on the show: |
| 767 | ** She spared Bud's feelings when she claimed that he'd given her the best sex of her life, when in fact she was rather underwhelmed by it. |
| 768 | ** She was willing to give Bud another chance even after he groped her breasts and used his "movie theatre popcorn trick" on her. |
| 769 | ** She used her wiles to force Bud to start being nicer to Kelly. |
| 770 | * SheIsAllGrownUp: Bud first met her six years ago, when she was thirteen. Marcy shows him a picture of what she was like then, and Bud screams in recognition. When he meets her in person, she's now nineteen and puberty has been ''very'' kind to her. |
| 771 | [[/folder]] |
| 772 | |
| 773 | [[folder:Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal]] |
| 774 | !!Miranda Veracruz de la Jolla Cardinal |
| 775 | !!!'''Played By:''' Creator/TeresaParente |
| 776 | ---- |
| 777 | * ButtMonkey: The news team always send her to cover Bundy-related craziness. She's fully aware of it. |
| 778 | * FullNameBasis: Always introduces herself with her entire name. |
| 779 | * IntrepidReporter: Shows up to provide news coverage in later seasons. |
| 780 | * OverlyLongName |
| 781 | * SpicyLatina: She's got a fiery temper and hails from [[{{UsefulNotes/Ecuador}} a country named after the Equator.]] |
| 782 | [[/folder]] |
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