Married... with Children: Living or Dead?

About Married... with Children

Married... with Children is an American television sitcom that aired on Fox, created by Michael G. Moye and Ron Leavitt. Originally broadcast from April 5, 1987 to June 9, 1997, it is the longest-lasting live-action sitcom on Fox, and the first to be broadcast in the network's primetime programming slot. The show follows the lives of Al Bundy, a once glorious high school football player turned hard-luck women's shoe salesman; his obnoxious wife, Peggy; their attractive, promiscuous, and clueless daughter, Kelly; and their girl-crazy, wisecracking son, Bud. Their neighbors are the upwardly mobile Steve Rhoades and his feminist wife Marcy, who later gets remarried to Jefferson D'Arcy, a white-collar criminal who becomes her "trophy husband" and Al's sidekick. Most storylines involve Al's schemes being foiled by his own cartoonish dim wit and bad luck. The series comprises 259 episodes and 11 seasons. Its theme song is "Love and Marriage" by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, performed by Frank Sinatra from the 1955 television production Our Town. The first season of the series was videotaped at ABC Television Center in Hollywood. From season two to season eight, the show was taped at Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, and the remaining three seasons were taped at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. The series was produced by Embassy Communications during its first season and the remaining seasons by ELP Communications under the studio Columbia Pictures Television. In 2008, the show placed number 94 on Entertainment Weekly's "New TV Classics" list.