By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 47 seconds ago

In 1987, Fox debuted Married…With Children, a subversive sitcom about the most dysfunctional family ever put onscreen. The show is filled with “how did they get away with that” jokes and, as an added bonus, happens to star two of the decade’s hottest actors. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a dime to experience these raunchy laughs for yourself, as Married…With Children is currently streaming for free on Tubi.

The basic premise of Married…With Children is that a slobby, schlubby shoe salesman is raising a family that includes a lazy wife, a ditzy daughter, and a dirtbag son. They get into various TV show shenanigans, but what sets this show apart is its dark humor and complete subversion of the family sitcom formula. Basically, this was a show as hilariously mean-spirited as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but it premiered back when the airwaves were dominated by more family-friendly fare like Who’s the Boss and Growing Pains.

A Shockingly Great Cast

The cast of Married…With Children includes David Faustino (best known outside of this show for his voice work on The Legend of Korra) as young Bud Bundy and breakout bombshell Christina Applegate (best known for Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead) as young Kelly Bundy. Katey Segal (best known for voicing Leela on Futurama) plays Peg Bundy, a stunning housewife who is despised by her husband. That husband is played to hapless perfection by Ed O’Neill, someone best known to younger sitcom fans for his long-running role as a perpetually-perplexed patriarch on Modern Family.

When Married…With Children came out, it was a smash with audiences looking for something other than another cookie-cutter sitcom about another overly perfect little family. The show’s comedy has also stood the test of time, and it currently has a 97 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While there are not enough professional reviews for the show to have a critical score (poor Al Bundy gets no respect), most of the critics who reviewed the show agree that it is perfectly cast and filled with writing as acidic as it is infectiously hilarious. 

Everyone Fell In Love With TV’s Crankiest Husband

It’s almost impossible to overstate what a monster hit Married…With Children really was. To this day, it is the longest-running sitcom ever aired on Fox, and at 11 seasons and 259 episodes, it’s also one of the longest-running sitcoms in television history. Whether you’re an old fan looking for some comedy comfort food or a new fan looking for a few dark laughs, this is the dirty, binge-friendly pleasure you’ve been looking for.

As an ‘80s kid, I watched Married…With Children at a young age, and if I’m being honest, I didn’t really process what was so subversive about its humor. All I really knew was that Kelly was hot, Peg was hotter, and Al’s cranky punchlines were funny. Returning to the show now as a family guy (complete with a Peter Griffin-like waistline), though, I find myself appreciating its dark humor now more than ever.

The Darkest Laughs The ’80s Had To Offer

You see, the central gag of Married…With Children is that Al Bundy has achieved the American dream: he has a steady job, a beautiful wife, two healthy kids, and a big house to raise them in. Nonetheless, he has inexplicably found that the dream has turned into a nightmare.

His customer service job offers endless abuse from the public, his children are idiots, and his wife has transformed henpecking into an art. All Al really wants to do at the end of a long day is disassociate and obsess about the good old days, which makes him an almost shockingly modern figure in the world of ‘80s television comedy.

Another way that Married…With Children was ahead of its time was how it focused on the comedy that can only come from dysfunctional and hilariously broken people. Seinfeld debuted two years later and became a cultural phenomenon, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which debuted 18 years later) arguably perfected the formula of “jerks behaving badly.” Arguably, those other shows’ outsized success would have been impossible if Married…With Children hadn’t shown how hungry audiences were for an alternative to saccharine-sweet sitcoms.

The Original Doomer

In this way, Married…With Children is weirdly timeless: it still works well as a kind of antisitcom, and if you grew up watching ‘80s staples like Who’s the Boss, you’ll still laugh (and laugh hard) at how transgressively this show breaks all the rules. But if you’re a bit young for those vintage sitcoms, you’ll still enjoy the adventures of Al and Peg Bundy because they are of a piece with later cynical programming like It’s Always Sunny. Basically, Al Bundy is the original doomer, and whether you’re here to laugh at his jokes or ogle his wife, there’s a lot to love in this vintage sitcom.

Will you agree that Married…With Children is one of the best raunchy sitcoms in television history, or would you rather work in a shoe store than finish a single episode? The only way to find out is to run for the remote (go channel your glory days as a high school running back!) and stream it for free on Tubi. Come for the killer theme song and stay for the hottest ladies the ‘80s had to offer!