How Married with Children became a success? Streisand effect?


Married with Children was a sitcom that aired in the late 80s and early 90s featuring a family. The family members were Al Bundy (dad), Peggy “Peg” Bundy (wife) and they had two children, Kelly Bundy, daughter, and Bud Bundy, son. The family lived in Chicago, Illinois in a residential middle-class neighborhood.

Al, was a shoe salesman, who worked at “Gary’s Shoes & Accessories for Today’s Woman” with a part-time employee named Griff. Peg was a stay-at-home mom, who did absolutely nothing except for shopping for personal items, such as clothing, shoes etc., Kelly, was the daughter who on the show was perceived to be kind of stupid, and in some cases slutty, and their son, Bud, was always trying to get a girlfriend, but seemed to never actually get one.

Al was no stranger in making comments about women that would often be rude, crude, inappropriate, and even offensive, especially when it comes to the physical appearance of large, plus size and morbidly obese women. An example is in one episode that I personally remember is when a morbidly obese customer came into the shoe store as she wanted to try on some shoes, her son had asked if he could receive a balloon, and our response was you already have a balloon sitting next to you, referring to the child’s mother being morbidly obese.

Another person who is often a target, Marcy, the neighbor. The neighbor Marcy, live with her husband named Steve Rhoades, but she divorces Steve and remarries to Jefferson D’Arcy. (This happens in the fourth season.) Al also started a group called “NO MA’AM” (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood).

At the time this sitcom was a new show and ABC, CBS, NBC all turn down the idea of the sitcom, but a new network called FOX (not Fox News) wanted to give this a try to see if this will be a hit and get viewers to watch their network since they were competing with already established networks, including PBS. At first when FOX decided to air Married with Children the ratings aren’t looking too promising, that’s until Terry Rakolta, an anti-obscenity activist from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan did not like what her children had seen on TV. Her kids had watched the episode of “Her Cups Runneth Over” (season 3, episode 6), which prompted her to start a boycott and write a letter asking Fox to cancel the sitcom because she thought the sitcom was raunchy for TV.

In response to her boycott and letter, Fox did not give into her by canceling the series. Instead, Fox decided to change the time-slot from airing at 8:30 PM to 9 PM, they also decided not to air an an episode, titled “I’ll See You in Court” (season 3, episode 10) as it could be potentially offensive. This episode is often referred to as the lost episode, most likely would’ve aired on Sunday, February 19, 1989, 13 years later in 2002 the episode did eventually air on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 when FX broadcasted the episode and was made available on DVD.

Five years later, the creators of Married with Children did an episode about Terry Rakolta about how she tried to get the sitcom cancelled titled “No Pot to Pease In” (season 9, episode 9), although did not specifically mention her, the episode was about a woman from Michigan.

While she did cause several advertisers to temporarily suspend advertisements when this sitcom is broadcasting and with Fox she did not get the effect that she wanted. Instead, it had the opposite effect by backfiring on her as this drew more attention, more awareness to the sitcom which led to higher ratings and with higher ratings advertisers, that temporarily left, they also slowly came back. The sitcom stayed on the air for 11 seasons.

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