The show Married... with Children revolves around Al Bundy, his wife Peggy, their children Kelly and Bud, next-door neighbor Marcy and her husband Steve Rhoades. Rhoades leaves in Season 4 and is eventually replaced by Jefferson D'Arcy.
Overview Actor Character Seasons 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Ed O'Neill Al Bundy colspan="11" Katey Sagal Peggy Bundy colspan="11" Christina Applegate Kelly Bundy colspan="11" David Faustino Bud Bundy colspan="11" Amanda Bearse Marcy D'Arcy/Rhoades colspan="11" David Garrison Steve Rhoades colspan="4" colspan="1" colspan="2" colspan="1" colspan="1" colspan="2" Ted McGinley Jefferson D'Arcy colspan="4" colspan="7" The creators of the show named the "Bundy" family after their favorite professional wrestler, King Kong Bundy, though some fans mistakenly believed that the name was derived from serial killer Ted Bundy. King Kong Bundy once appeared on the show as Peggy's hick inbred uncle Irwin, and again appeared as his wrestling persona, since "NO MA'AM" (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood, a fictional club depicted on the show) were big fans of the wrestler.
The Bundys' next-door neighbors Steve and Marcy Rhoades, were named after another pro wrestler, Dusty Rhodes, who was well-known during the show's run.
Main characters
Al Bundy
Alphonse "Al" Bundy (Ed O'Neill), the head of the Bundy family, is doomed to fail in all aspirations because of the "Bundy curse." Once a promising fullback for fictional Polk High School (his proudest moment in life was scoring four touchdowns in a single game), he was on his way to college on a scholarship until he broke his leg, and ended up as a shoe salesman at "Gary's Shoes" in the "New Market Mall", located in an incorporated area of suburban Chicago. Shortly thereafter, Al married Margaret "Peg" Wanker on May 10, 1971, after allegedly proposing while inebriated. The two later went on to have two children, Kelly and Bud. In a season five episode that aired in 1990, it is mentioned that Al is 43 years old. Much like the name "Rhoades", the creators chose the surname "Bundy" after professional wrestler King Kong Bundy (Christopher Alan Pallies, who later guest-starred as one of Peggy's 'Wanker' relatives).
Al often spends time attempting to recapture his glory days, but is usually undermined in spectacular fashion by frequent bad luck and poor judgment. He considers his family to be the cause of his failures, and his resentment of them (and aversion to sex with Peg) provides much of the show's humor. Despite his familial disappointments, Al frequently displays begrudging devotion to his wife and children. He is protective of his daughter Kelly and commonly beats up her boyfriends. When he becomes aware that Peg frequented a male strip club, he threatened one of its strippers, saying that "if my wife loses anything in your pants, so will you." On a semi-regular basis, he is seen bonding with his son, Bud. Despite his attraction to other women, he remains faithful to his family and chooses not to cheat on them, demonstrating his commitment and love for them.
He frequently goes to "nudie bars" and strip clubs with his friends, the most prominent of which is called "The Jiggly Room", featured during the series' final four seasons. The only thing that seems to consistently put Al in the mood for sex with his wife is watching her do manual labor, which very seldom happens.
Al is said to have extreme foot odor, prefers the escapism of television and bowling over his dysfunctional family, and life of drudgery and starvation (as Peg refuses to cook, she claims that she is allergic to fire, despite the fact that she smokes cigarettes in the early seasons) and is often seen in his trademark couch potato pose — seated on the sofa with one hand stuck under the waistband of his pants. The foot perspiration is not his only health issue; once, in 1983, he had a bad case of dandruff. He also has terrible teeth, as noted in the episode "Tooth or Consequences," where his extremely poor dental hygiene leads to a trip to the dentist with typical bad luck results. A running gag in the series is Al's apparent habit of overflowing the toilet when using the bathroom.
Another running joke used throughout the series is that being a shoe salesman, Al earns little more than minimum wage. In the episode "How Bleen Was My Kelly", Al uses a desktop computer to find how much money he makes on a daily basis and learns that he makes less than a local paperboy. By using the computer's search engine, Al learns that everyone around the world, from a dirt vendor in Pakistan to an Eskimo blubber chewer in Nome, Alaska, makes more money in one day than Al does by selling women's shoes, except for one person, Peg.
When Al returns home, he often tells an anecdote about his work, almost always beginning with the words "A fat woman came into the store today".
Al's favorite television series, the fictional Western show "Psycho Dad", was a source of joy and entertainment that Al seemingly, at times, wanted to emulate. He would hum the words to the theme song, and pretend to "shoot" his fictional gun while watching the show. His other joys were Westerns, often John Wayne films, most notably Hondo, until Peg's family ruined his recording of the movie by taping over it with a song dedicated to her. He has also referenced Shane when the clan ruined his enjoyment of that movie.
Al also owns a "faithful" 1974 Dodge that invariably had failed brakes, constant breakdowns and numerous other problems associated with its age and mileage. At the time of the fourth season at least, Al was still paying it off, despite it being well over 20 years old. By the eighth season, the Dodge had passed one million miles. Al's Dodge actually appears to be a 1972 Plymouth Duster in one early episode; however, it is only referred to as "The Dodge" and is supposedly constructed of the various parts of other wrecked and mangled Dodges.
The producers originally wanted to cast comedian Sam Kinison as Al Bundy. However, they ultimately chose not to, due to the profaneness of Kinison's comedy routines. Kinison would later play Al's guardian angel in the episode "It's a Bundyful Life", spoofing Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The producers also considered Michael Richards for the role. The producers stated in interviews that they were also attempting to determine what a good "mission statement" would be for the show, and ultimately went with the first sound heard on the first episode — that of Al flushing a toilet.
Peg Bundy Margaret "Peg"/"Peggy" Bundy, Wanker (Katey Sagal), is Al's lazy, self-indulgent wife. She refuses to work, cook, or clean the house (although Peg occasionally displays an ability for domestic aptitude). She cites her laziness as family tradition, getting upset with Kelly when she gets a job. She claims that Wanker women never work, and in old pioneer days, "Wanker women were getting their hair done while Wanker men got theirs scalped." During the day, she likes to watch daytime talk-shows, sit on the living room couch, and eat copious amounts of ice-cream BonBons (without ever gaining weight). Peg is a redhead (brunette in the first two seasons) with a bouffant hairdo, and she usually wears combinations of modern-day 1980/1990s and dated 1960s-styled fashions with skin tight Spandex pants and shirts, and stiletto heels, which make her walk in a unique way. Peg smoked cigarettes in the first four seasons, but then quit. Her favorite TV shows are Oprah and Donahue, but she also enjoys watching the Shop at Home Network. Peg continually squanders what little money Al makes on extravagant spending sprees, including everything from expensive clothes to useless trinkets, and even steals from her children to get extra cash.
Peg and Al married in 1971. Late in the first season, she says she married Al on a dare, although this may have been just a sarcastic comment. In the fourth season, it was revealed that she did not actually graduate from high school, failing to meet a half-credit in home economics. She later returned to school, earning her diploma, but only by stealing Kelly's final exam and tricking her into going to summer school.
Her family, the Wankers, hail from the fictitious rural Wanker County, Wisconsin, where "as Einstein put it, everyone's relative." At Peg and Al's high school reunion, her rival greeted her with "Peggy... Peggy Wanker... don't bother to thank her." It is never made clear how she managed to go to high school in Chicago with Al when her parents apparently never left Wanker County.
Unlike Al, Peg greatly desires marital sex despite constantly complaining about Al's lack of endurance and Al's general antipathy towards sex with her. She does not seem to mind her husband ogling other women, reading pornographic magazines, or going to strip joints. Her enthusiasm has caused some of the male strip joints she visits to establish the "Bundy rule," where women can no longer go into the back rooms to meet the dancers, nor is the establishment responsible for anything lost down a dancer's costume.
During season six, Peg becomes pregnant (Sagal's own pregnancy being written into the show). However, Sagal suffered a miscarriage, so the writers turned the whole story arc into one of Al's nightmares. Sagal became pregnant twice more during the series' run, but instead of writing those pregnancies into the show, the producers used camera shots from above the stomach or wrote episodes without the character of Peg, explaining her absence by having her set out in search of her missing father (who appeared in a few episodes, played by Tim Conway), and only occasionally calling home.
Despite her continuous put-downs of Al and general indifference towards their family, she demonstrated genuine feelings towards him on at least one occasion when a successful childhood classmate (Vanna White) comes back to town and reveals she has long harbored feelings for Al, offering Peg $500,000 for one night with him. Though they initially agreed to the offer, Peg ultimately refuses, as she can't bear the thought of Al being with another woman. During a televised cast reunion, Katey Sagal said that she believed Peg "thought [Al] was hot" due to her inability to keep her hands off him.
The role was originally offered to Roseanne Barr, but she turned it down. The producers cast Sagal, who came up with Peg's appearance, wanting to satirize the TV housewives of the 1960s. Entertainment Weekly listed Sagal's role as Peg for the "Biggest Emmy Snub." In 2009, Peg was included in Yahoo!'s Top 10 TV Moms from Six Decades of Television for the decade 1987–1997. In May 2012, she was one of the 12 moms chosen by users of iVillage on their list of "Mommy Dearest: The TV Moms You Love".
In one of the episodes, Peg's birthday is mentioned, which is on April 12.
Kelly Bundy Kelly Bundy (Christina Applegate) is the older child in the Bundy family, born in 1972. "Pumpkin," as Al often calls her, is promiscuous and beautiful, tends to hang out with "slacker" guys, and exemplifies the stereotypical "dumb blonde". Al is annoyed by Kelly's promiscuity and tends to treat her various love interests with a combination of derision and violence; in numerous episodes, he leads them to the front door, feigning friendliness, only to walk them head-first into the wall before tossing them out the door.