Married... with Children/YMMV

• Acceptable Targets:
  • Fat women, at least in Al's view. Bud and Kelly also occasionally lament the fact that they still live with their parents well into their twenties. The fat women would snark back, at least.
  • The French. No one ever had anything nice to say about them.
  • Oprah and other talk shows.
  • Al had a constant hatred of Michael Bolton and Joe Piscopo for the entire run of the show.
  • They hated Al right back. "Hundreds of organizations are claiming credit for the bombing of the Al Bundy Scoreboard including; The National Organization of Women, The National Organization of Fat Women, and the government of France." In addition, Al had to hang out with fat women/have his plans ruined by them more times than one can count.
  • Additionally, most of the depictions of the Deep South were straight out of Deliverance. Especially funny since the Bundys were pretty white trash themselves (and Peg's side of the family were a bunch of inbred hillbillies from Wisconsin).
• Awesome McCoolname: "Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal!" Such an awesome name (and smooth delivery) that the audience cheered every time she said it - no exceptions.
• Non Sequitur Scene: Jefferson's hallucination after he gets clobbered by Marcy

Fantasy Girl: What a crummy fantasy.
Jefferson: I know... my wife's mad at me. It's hard to concentrate.

• Brain Bleach: What Al needs whenever he sees Marcy in dessous or a fat woman (particularly Peg's mom) naked or in sexy clothes. One episode had Al saying that he went blind because his eyes were trying to protect his heart from an attack.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Local reporter Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal. Just saying her name got a huge reaction.
• Foe Yay: Al and Marcy.
• Funny Aneurysm Moment:
  • One episode had Al trying to sell his car, and one of the interested buyers are two stereotypical Middle Eastern terrorists with a clock bomb, asking Al to give them the car and directions to the Sears Tower. This was cut in reruns in 1993 (during the first World Trade Center bombing) and 2001 (during the second one on September 11), but is now reinstated.
  • The "It's A Wonderful Life" Christmas episode where Al's guardian angel is Sam Kinison, especially the part where Kinison is yelling to the heavens, "I'm coming home!" Who would've thought that would be a harsh reality?
  • In the "She's Having My Baby" episode after Peg announces that she's pregnant.

Peg: Oh Al, isn't it a dream?
Al: It'd better be.

• • • And given what happened to Katey Sagal later that year, and what the producers were forced to do to the baby plotline as a result...
• Growing the Beard: The show became much, much funnier when Flanderization kicked in and the show turned into a live-action cartoon, while still keeping the main themes and jokes, though some have stated that the show grew the beard when Terri Rakolta complained about the show's crude humor and more people started to tune in to see what she was talking about.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The season six Aborted Arc (pardon the pun) of Peggy being pregnant, followed by Katey Sagal losing her child to a miscarriage, and the entire storyline being made into an elaborate dream sequence, ending with an episode where Al is a private eye being framed for a murder he didn't commit.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: On the season six episode, "The Egg and I," Al screams, "I don't wanna be on ABC!" when he rants about his taxes and the possibility of cameoing on a TV show to pay it off. Years later, Al Bundy (or rather, his actor, Ed O'Neill) is now on the ABC sitcom, Modern Family (the actress who plays O'Neill's wife on Modern Family—Sofia Vergara, even mentioned on SNL that it's every Colombian immigrant girl's dream to move to America and marry Al Bundy).
  • See the Les Yay entry below, keeping in mind that Amanda Bearse in Real Life is an out-and-proud lesbian.
• Hollywood Homely
  • Bud is depicted as very unattractive and someone that only a woman with no standards would date or have sex with despite being played by the not remotely ugly David Faustino.
  • Marcy counts as the female equivalent, as Amanda Bearse wasn't really all that bad. For example, in the episode "The Egg and I", she shows off her body in lingerie; Al screams "I'm blind! My eyes, my eyes!" but the studio audience does Wolf Whistles.
• Jerkass Woobie: As much as Al can be an utter jackass, you can't help but feel sorry for having a crap job, a sarcastic, manipulative wife, two kids who don't respect him, and an entire neighborhood (and possibly universe) who curses the day he was born.
• Les Yay: Played for laughs between Marcy and Peggy in the episode "Live Nude Peg", when Peggy complains that she's lonely:

Peggy: It's been so long since someone touched me.
Marcy: (puts her arm around Peggy) Poor Peggy. I'm so sorry.
Peggy: You know, Marcy, that boyish cut really becomes you.
Marcy: (takes her arm away) Well, Peggy, there must be something you can do. With Al.

• • And then there were the moments involving Kelly. One episode involved Marcy and Peg getting tickets to a stage performance of The Jeffersons and dragging their husbands along with them. Al and Jefferson forced Bud and Kelly to go in their place, disguised as them. At one point during the performance, Marcy starts talking dirty to Kelly, who she thinks is Jefferson, and mentions what they could do while the lights are out. The play ends with this exchange.

Bud: I can't believe this actually worked. Mom was so convinced I was Dad, she actually picked my pocket during the show.
Kelly: What are you complaining about? At least you didn't get a hickie.

• • • When Al joined a softball league and went on a road trip, he forced Bud and Kelly to fill in for him at the shoe store. They discuss the effects the job had on them:

Bud: I don't know what it is, but something about this job makes me want to start telling old high school football stories.
Kelly: Yeah? Well, something about this job makes me want to start reading Big 'Uns.

• Memetic Mutation: Just try to convince ANY male on the internet that Al Bundy is not a God among men.
• Most Annoying Sound: Marcy D'Arcy's Evil Laugh.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: A woman's attempts to boycott the show succeeded only in making it more well-known.
• The Scrappy: Seven, who was intended to become a permanent addition to the cast. But he was so despised by viewers that he was quickly written out of the show.
• Seasonal Rot: Season seven when Seven was brought in to the Bundy house after being left by his parents was not liked by fans or even the cast. It did bounce back with season eight, but, the ratings weren't as high as they were prior to this point.
• Tear Jerker: For a really hilarious sitcom, only one episode was rather sad, and that episode was "Requiem For A Briard", where Buck dies, but comes back as Lucky.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Al. All of the Bundys are rude, unpleasant and oafish but none are as callous or uncaring as Al. Of course, put yourself in his shoes and see just how nice you are to your annoying neighbors, your nagging wife, your floozy daughter, your perverted son, your redneck in-laws and all the fat women who insist they're a size five and won't take 'no' for an answer.