A BUNDY THANSKGIVING

Married…with Children

Season 11 (1996)

Married…with Children was one of those 90s shows that was banned in my childhood home for being too crude, along with Roseanne and The Simpsons.  While I bemoan being deprived of the excellent latter shows until adulthood I never really regretted my lack of exposure to the Bundy clan.  I like Katey Sagal’s untraditional housewife character of Peggy but overall the show just never appealed all that much to me.  It can’t really even be called a sitcom because it’s more a satire with broad humor and archetypal characters.  It’s a like a MADtv sketch that goes on for too long.

Christina Applegate sharing popcorn with a turkey.  A sentence I never thought I'd write.

This Thanksgiving offering relies on the show’s typically oafish characters being oafs, such as Kelly bringing home a live turkey as a pet and being too painfully dumb to realize that the rest of the family wants to kill and eat it.  The main storyline revolves around Al seeking out a sweet potato pie from Aunt Maddie’s bakery, the one happy Thanksgiving memory from his childhood. 

First he discovers the bakery closed, then stumbles into Aunt Maddie’s funeral, where the sole remaining pie is about to be buried with her.  He eventually snatches it, doing some football-like maneuvers to escape with his prize.  However when the spirit of Aunt Maddie intervenes he indulges in a rare moment of selflessness and shares the pie with his family and neighbors. 

Al takes the pie and runs

It’s all  very goofy and not particularly funny, especially the turkey scenes (Kelly ends up killing it by letting it “fly” out the window).  The funeral scenes drag on and guest star some random Fox (corporate synergy!) football commentators I don’t give a fig about.  Just when things seems hopeless, however, the surprisingly sweet ending redeems the episode and characters quite a bit. 

The Menu: Turkey & Sweet Potato Pie

Thanksgiving Quotient: 3

See It, Skip It, Own It?

You can skip this one unless you’re a fan of the show; otherwise there are much better Thanksgiving episodes out there to devote your time to.