Married With Children - The Complete Eighth Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
The three-disc set features all 26 episodes of the classic 1980s sitcom parody, starring the less than loveable and most unforgettable Bundys - Ed O'Neill (TV's John from Cincinnati), Katey Sagal (TV's 8 Simple Rules), Christina Applegate (TV's Samantha Who?), David Faustino (National Lampoon's Pucked), Amanda Bearse (Give or Take an Inch), and Ted McGinley (TV's Hope & Faith), along with guest stars Danny Bonaduce (TV's The Partridge Family), Gary Coleman (TV's Diff'rent Strokes) and Dom DeLuise (Blazing Saddles).
Highlights of this season include Peggy switching seats with Al at a basketball game and ending up being chosen for the $10,000 free throw contest, while Kelly and Bud buy a car to share and then are forced to double date. Everyone thinks Bud has flipped out when they overhear him speaking with his "cool" alter-ego, and in a hospital mix-up, Al is accidentally circumcised after he's injured playing baseball. Finally, Al could get a brand new car as his old Dodge nears 999,999 miles, but it remains to be seen if he can hold out.
What I Like About You - The Complete First Season
by Peter Marc Jacobson
from WB Television Network, The
"You are my sister. You're supposed to drive me crazy." Twenty-eight-year-old organization freak Valerie Tyler loves her 16-year-old sister Holly. Even if Holly is rambunctious. Spontaneous. Impulsive. Disconcerting. And definitely disorganized. Then Holly moves in with Val, and the sisters discover they may make better siblings than roomies. Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth star as the Tylers and Simon Rex and Wesley Jonathan star as two of the men in their lives in this bright, giddy comedy set in Manhattan - and in the hearts of sisters everywhere. Pop some corn and plop on your fuzzy slippers for all 22 Season One Episodes, plus funtastic bonuses. Romance, laughs, family: That's What I Like About You.
Married with Children - The Complete First Season
by Amanda Bearse
from Sony Pictures
Domestic bliss was never like this! Get ready for those outrageous Bundys in MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON featuring all 13 hilarious episodes from the show s groundbreaking debut season introducing everybody s favorite dysfunctional household. This taboo-shattering hit series was often deemed too hot for TV bringing a blue-collar brand of raunchy humor to America s idyllic 80s TV family where father definitely doesn t know best! Remastered and available on DVD for the first time ever this collector s favorite lets you get reacquainted with this middle-class clan of lovable losers hard-working lug Al (Ed O Neill) his couch-potato wife Peg (Katey Sagal) sexy teen daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate) hopelessly horny son Bud (David Faustino) and prudish neighbors Marcy and Steve (Amanda Bearse David Garrison) as they try to get along without getting on each other s nerves! For better or worse the Bundys may be broke but this is one family that s rich in delightfully demented attitude wild characters and racy humor!System Requirements:Starring: Ed O'Neill Katey Sagal Christina Applegate David Faustino Running Time: 302 Min. Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396016514 Manufacturer No: 01651
When Married... with Children debuted on Fox TV on April 5, 1987 (followed by The Tracey Ullman Show a half-hour later), the grungy sitcom became an instant flagship for Rupert Murdoch's upstart network. The program's much-publicized working title, Not the Cosbys (a dismissive reference to the cheerful vitality of Bill Cosby's hugely popular television clan on NBC's The Cosby Show) was a dead giveaway. Married... with Children was going to be a trashier, raunchier, and far more cynical view of the American nuclear family. But it turned out the series actually fell into other caustic-domestic entertainment traditions, notably the Don Ameche and Frances Langford radio comedy series from the 1940s, The Bickersons, and Jackie Gleason's TV classic, The Honeymooners.
The jokes were savage, key relationships were marked by ennui and indifference, and the Bundy family name couldn't help but make one think of America's most notorious, real-life serial killer at the time. Yet the show had a hint of Golden Age Hollywood gloss, a retro-screwball feel that one could detect in the snappy verbal warfare between husband Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and wife Peggy (Katey Sagal). The characters, and the show, eschewed sentimentality, which certainly opened the floodgates to comic cynicism but also kept a door ajar for moments of genuine sweetness. A decade later, however, by the time Fox cancelled the increasingly expensive series, Married... with Children's first-season tone would be considerably different, replaced by a stronger reliance on running jokes and character stereotypes, particularly concerning Bundy children Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino).
That evolution makes watching Married... with Children's first 13 episodes, once again, quite instructive. Those programs are all on this two-disc set, including the startling pilot, in which Al and Peggy lock horns over marital politics and enlist naive new neighbors Steve (David Garrison) and Marcy (Amanda Bearse) in a battle of the sexes. There's also the classic "Whose Room Is It, Anyway," concerning the Bundys' competition to connive Steve and Marcy into building a recreation room, and "Thinnergy," a very funny piece about a diet that supposedly boosts sexual interest. --Tom Keogh
Married with Children - The Complete Seventh Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
Married With Children was nominated for seven Golden Globes® and seven Emmy Awards® over the course of its run, including best actor and best actress nominations for Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal. Married With Children continues to reign as one of the most shocking TV comedies ever produced and the seventh season continues the tradition. The Bundy family - led by ever-scheming Al (O'Neil), lazy housewife Peg (Sagal), promiscuous yet naive daughter Kelly (Applegate), and sexually frustrated son Bud (Faustino) -- lives their lives in complete disarray. This season, there's a new man in the house when Peggy's relatives leave their young son with the Bundys. Al takes a job as a topless bartender to help with bills, Kelly buys a motorcycle, Bud starts his own fraternity to meet girls, and Peggy spends so much that Al can't retire.
Married with Children - The Complete Second Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
America's favorite dysfunctional family strikes back in MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN: THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON compiling all 13 hilarious episodes from the show's classic sophomore season remastered on DVD for the first time. Called "too hot for TV" during its original run (1987-1997) see why this Emmy and Golden Globe®-nominated hit series is even raunchier trashier and more outrageous fun than you remember! There goes the neighborhood all over again as Al (Ed'ONeil) Peg (Katey Segal) Kelly (Christina Applegate) Bud (David Faustino) and neighbors Marcy and Steve (Amanda Bearse David Garrison) discover the flipside of domestic bliss. Launching upstart Fox TV while revolutionizing sitcoms forever let this collector's two-disc set take you back to those crazy cynical '80s - "til death do us part" was never supposed to be like this!System Requirements:Starring: Ed O'Neil Katey Segal Christina Applegate David Faustino Amanda Bearse David Garrison Running Time: 509 Min. Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396028432 Manufacturer No: 02843
Perhaps the definitive episode of Married... with Children is near the end of the second season, when Al and Peg Bundy (Ed O'Neill and Katey Segal), pretending to be their recently married neighbors, go on a game show that tests how willing each newlywed is to torture their spouse. This episode has everything: The cascade of blithe insults, the cheerful shredding of all dignity, the outright celebration of humanity's worst instincts-- everything that has led self-satisfied arbiters of "culture" to proclaim Married... with Children the most sordid, distasteful sitcom in the history of mankind. In short, it's sheer genius.
As the petty, miserable, conniving, yet perversely vital Bundy family, O'Neill, Segal, Christina Applegate, and David Faustino give performances that walk a fine line between outrageous satire and painful truth. It's the anti-Cosby; family breeds contempt. Children scoff at their parents, parents resent their children, husbands and wives eye each other with suspicion and disdain. Episodes hinge on neutering their oversexed dog, fighting the phone company, and trying to humiliate a high school nemesis in a bowling tournament, but it's all an excuse for squalid delirium. This is not an ironic description of the show; Married... with Children is both ruthless and deeply funny. (Though created by men, Married... with Children was frequently produced, written, and directed by women, which is unusual in the sitcom world. This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with its sense of humor, but its eagerness to skewer and roast sacred cows is shared by such women-driven shows as Roseanne and Absolutely Fabulous.) The jokes are like blunt instruments, yet delivered with a unique panache that got honed to razor sharpness in the second season. If you've never experienced the Bundy clan, this is an excellent place to start. --Bret Fetzer
Married with Children - The Complete Fourth Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
The most popular underachievers of the early 90s the Bundys delivered a constant deluge of politically incorrect macho jokes replete with sexual innuendo and an unabashedly crude flavor. The fourth season doesn't disappoint with patriarch Al (Ed O'Neil) a women's shoe salesman and misanthropic malcontent perennially battling his shopaholic wife's spending sprees as well as her amorous advances. Peg (Katy Sagal) for her part is a ditzy but curvaceous redhead who shows surprising cunning when it comes to getting her way. Daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY) takes after her mother in every way a blond bombshell with a deficient IQ. Bud Bundy (David Faustino) rounds out the family with his anomalous intelligence and high opinion of himself running contrary to his success with the ladies. In this season the Bundy's influence on neighbor Steve (David Garrison) finally becomes too much for his wife Marcy (Amanda Bearse) to handle and she divorces him. This provides incentive for Peg to take newly-single Marcy to Las Vegas where the pair's gambling ambition far outweighs their coffers.System Requirements:Starring: Ed O'Neil Katey Sagal Christina Applegate Running Time: 511 Min. Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396114678 Manufacturer No: 11467
It's fitting that the producers of Married...With Children--The Complete Fourth Season were too cheap to pay for the rights to the show's classic theme song, the jaunty Sinatra tune "Love & Marriage," replacing it with some crappy instrumental. Not because the season is lousy--on the contrary, the show's crass and cynical wit is in full bloom--but because if the Bundys themselves were putting this out, they'd blow off the theme song as well. One of the longest-running sitcoms ever, Married...With Children portrayed American domestic life as bitter, sleazy, and perpetually hungry, yet bound together by the loyalty of the mutually damned. Emasculated shoe salesman Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill, Dutch, Spartan), his lazy and unsatisfied wife Peg (Katey Sagal, 8 Simple Rules), his dimwitted slut of a daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate, Anchorman, View from the Top), and his horny, conniving son Bud (David Faustino, The Trouble with Frank) all bicker and scheme to achieve any meager improvement of their lives. For example, Peg wants to buy an idol of Tubro, the fat Panamanian god of money, hoping that good luck will help her win the lottery; so she sells Al's beloved Playboy collection, launching Al into the depths of despair until he musters the shreds of his manhood and orders her to retrieve them. Or when Al, feeling suicidal on Christmas, gets a glimpse of how happy his family would be if he'd never been born and decides to live to keep their lives as awful as his has been. But it's not simply the parade of suburban atrocity that makes the show funny--it's the zest of the cast, who wallow in their white trash characters with gusto and commitment. Their glee gives the show a sardonic bite that transforms the squalor into something strangely giddy and transcendent, a vivisection of human pettiness that an 18th century novelist like Thackeray would appreciate. The fourth season features a startling array of guest stars, including Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element), Joe Flaherty (SCTV), Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Beverly Hills 90210), screaming comedian Sam Kinison, and former porn starlet Traci Lords. --Bret Fetzer
Married with Children - The Complete Sixth Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
Married with Children still reigns as one of the most shocking TV comedies ever produced and the sixth season is no exception. The Bundy family continue to live their daily lives in complete disarray. Kelly lands her own talk show Al gets a job as a private detective Bud dates an extreme sporter Peg and Marcy (Amanda Bearse) discover that they are both pregnant and Steve Rhoades (David Garrison) returns to reclaim his wife. The season climaxes with a three-part episode in which the Bundys visit England.Episodes:1) She's Having My Baby2) She's Having My Baby (2)3) If Al Had a Hammer4) Cheese Cues and Blood5) Looking for a Desk in All the Wrong Places6) Buck Has a Belly Ache7) If I Could See Me Now8) God's Shoes9) Kelly Does Hollywood (1)10) Kelly Does Hollywood (2)11)Al Bundy Shoe Dick12)So This is How Sinatra Felt13)I Who Have Nothing 14)The Mystery of Skull Island15)Just Shoe It16)Rites of Passage17)The Egg and I18)My Dinner with Anthrax19)Psychic Avengers20)High I.Q.21)Teacher Pets22)The Goodbye Girl23)The Gas Station Show24)England Show (1)25)England Show (2) 26)England Show (3System Requirements:Run Time: 600 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396159808 Manufacturer No: 15980
Even the many detractors of long-running sitcom Married with Children have to admit that sustaining such a superlative level of crass, cynical bile for so long is a artistic feat. The Bundy family--defeated father Al (Ed O'Neill, The Bone Collector), frustrated mother Peg (Katey Sagal, 8 Simple Rules), even more frustrated son Bud (David Faustino, Pucked), and slutty, dimwitted daughter Kelly (Christina Applegate, Anchorman)--savaged every earnest cliche imaginable about family affection as they clawed and fought for any scrap of food, money, respect, or dignity in their squalid lives. The cast completely understood the show's humor and bit into every vicious jab with zest.
The sixth season of this satirical show was controversial among fans. While some episodes are hugely popular (including a two-parter in which Kelly's public-access tv show becomes a hit, when Bud becomes faux-rapper Grandmaster B, or when Peg and Al's anniversary includes a visit from the speed metal band Anthrax), the storyline about Peg becoming pregnant (which ended abruptly when Sagal had a miscarriage in real life) and the season-ending three-parter about the Bundys going to England were criticized as desperate and pandering. But watching Married with Children on dvd makes those accusations seem beside the point. Even in its most cartoonish episodes, the show tossed off brutally bitter jokes that upturned our culture's sacred cows, spat in the face of both the priggish and the politically correct, and will make devoted viewers cackle with glee. As American culture grows more and more timid, Married with Children glows more brightly. Guest stars include former porn star Traci Lords, Jon Lovitz (The Critic), Fred Willard (Best In Show), and a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc. --Bret Fetzer
Married with Children - The Complete Third Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
There goes the neighborhood all over again! Third time s the charm as MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: THE COMPLETE THIRD SEASON has even more twisted fun in boldly subverting TV s domestic nest smashing taboos and stereotypes as this wildly popular often controversial hit series breaks all the rules dirtying up TV s prim and proper landscape on its way to earning a place in pop-culture infamy. Petty backstabbing and always at each other s throats just the way we like em The Bundys became true American icons during their original hit run holding up a cracked mirror to our own lives damaged goods and all.System Requirements:Starring: Ed O'Neil Katey Segal Christina Applegate David Faustino Amanda Bearse David Garrison Running Time: 510 Min. Copyright Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2005Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 043396083707 Manufacturer No: 08370
Married with Children - The Complete Fifth Season
by Brian Levant
from Sony Pictures
Another season with the less-than-loveable Bundys! More dysfunctional fun with Al Peg Kelly and Bud in a season where Kelly interviews for a job Al becomes the neighborhood stud Bud gets in a car accident Peg takes up ballroom dancing and Marcy marries Jefferson.System Requirements:Run Time: 576 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 043396146426 Manufacturer No: 14642
The Drew Carey Show - The Complete First Season
by Drew Carey
from American Broadcasting Company (ABC)
Drew Carey the character is a lot like you and me: a smarter-than-he-looks average guy with an underwhelming job some unfulfilled dreams and the support of great friends. And it just so happens that he's played by the very funny Drew Carey who's also the co-creator and occasional writer of The Drew Carey Show. This complete Season One DVD Set reminds us why we laughed along with Drew for nine smash-hit seasons. We meet Drew and his buddies Oswald Lewis and Kate. Drew meets Mimi the cosmetics-challenged co-worker from hell. And everybody meets jobs instead of careers lumpy bods instead of supermodel sleek and Cleveland instead of Manhattan. It's like real life. Just a whole lot funnier.Running Time: 489 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 012569801608 Manufacturer No: 80160
After the release of a six-episode Television Favorites sampler, The Drew Carey Show has earned a well-deserved promotion, DVD-wise, with this complete first-season set. Few television workplace comedies so keenly or hilariously captured the mind-numbing drudgery and soul-crushing despair of cubicle culture as The Drew Carey Show, a kindred spirit to the "Dilbert" comic strip. The pilot episode introduces the bespectacled, buzz-coiffed Everyman, a "go-getter" in his seventh year as the assistant director of personnel in a Cleveland department store, a position, he notes, "of indirect respect and oblique power." The giddy delights of The Drew Carey Show are many, from the smile-inducing theme song, "Moon Over Parma" ("We're going bowlin' / So don't lose her in Solin") to one of TV's most likeable ensembles: Ryan Stiles as goofy Lewis (or, as Jason Alexander joked on Comedy Central's Drew Carey roast, "Kramer-lite"), Diedrich Bader as Oswald (less of a doofus here than in later seasons), Christa Miller as tomboyish Kate, Drew's lifelong platonic friend and unrequited crush, Kathy Kinney as Mimi, Drew's office nemesis, who is Bluto to his Popeye. The appealing Katy Selverstone is also featured as Lisa, with whom Drew has a secret inter-office romance that will last but this one season.
After the enormously telegenic Friends cast, Drew and company are "a cold little splash of reality," portraying relatable, regular people. In this first season, the series is still finding its feet (enjoy them while you can: Drew's hillbilly neighbors, and the voice of Kevin Pollack as Drew's abusive boss, Mr. Bell). But by season's end, as guest star Jamie Lee Curtis (as Drew's hard-partying barber) polkas with Mimi in the hilarious episode "Playing the Unified Field," the series has established its spontaneous, off-center niche. While there are no episode commentaries, this set puts in some valuable overtime with "Life Inside a Cubicle," a retrospective in which cast and series creators reflect on the series' rocky beginnings. --Donald Liebenson
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