20th Century FoxDysfunction: the condition of having poor and unhealthy behaviors and attitudes within a group of people.
Make that "group" a couple and—boom!—you've described how dozens upon dozens of duos relate to each other on TV.
And we don't just mean the usual breakup-to-makeup antics, or constant teasing by one that's tolerated by the good nature of the other. We mean the kinds of companions who, should you find yourself in such a twosome, your friends would be on the horn staging an intervention, stat!
(Ha, kidding. Good friends totally wouldn't stage an intervention. They'd patiently support you to your face, talk about you behind your back and then let loose with all the barbs and zingers they'd been keeping under wraps once you and the offending significant other break up, all for the sake of making you feel better. That is friendship.)
From the obvious such as Chuck and Blair, Carrie and Big, and Fitz and Olivia, to the less obviously toxic (Ross and Rachel, FTW?), we've been watching couples of all ages engage in the most disturbing of behaviors since the dawn of TV time.
But none of the aforementioned couples were even married (at least not until much, much later). What of the Mr. and Mrs. couples who had actually agreed to till death did they part?
And worse yet...have children?!
In the course of two minutes in one episode, Ed O'Neill's Al asks what's for dinner and Katey Sagal's Peg asks what he'd like. "I'd like a nice juicy steak," he says, to which she replies, "Why that's just waiting for you on the table." But there's nothing on the empty table. "Made you look...you'll never learn," she giggles. Then she asks if they should open a savings account "like any moderately successful 13-year-old." He has money saved up, but for a socket wrench set "to tighten more nuts than you did in high school."
There were 262 episodes of this.
And yet...
They had each other. Theirs was an archaic awfulness, a surface form of torture that can't really compete with the malicious mind games of today's TV couples.
Sure, they watched idly by as ditzy daughter Kelly, um, dated a lot and dweeby son Bud never, um, dated at all. But for all their perceived selfishness, Al and Peggy weren't as begrudgingly stuck with each other as they pretended to be.
Neither of them ever cheated. It was the neighbor's husband who ran off. At any perceived slight to the family (minus his own slights, of course) Al was always ready to kick some ass. He and Peg mocked the world together, safely ensconced on the couch.
Maybe the show wouldn't last now because every episode, for a good solid 22 minutes apiece, was more of the same. It was very much one note, a long-running sex/weight/selling-women's-shoes joke made interesting by some—particularly in hindsight—perfect casting, anchored by O'Neill's deadpan delivery and Sagal's whiny buoyancy.
Back in 1987, though, Fox needed to take a risk and there was no one else like Al and Peg on TV at the time. And there have been plenty of imitators since, but no one could keep the joke going as long as they did.
Dysfunctional? No doubt. But miserable? Peg and Al Bundy were having more fun being married, with children, than they would ever admit.
Don't miss the final installment of E!'s Nostalgia Week with a look back at Married...With Children—including some amazing early interviews—tonight on E! News at 7 & 11 p.m.
Speaking of dysfunction, Katey Sagal talks Sons of Anarchy