The ‘Married… with Children’ Episode That Was Too Risqué for TV

The Big Picture

• Married… with Children pushed boundaries and was known for its raunchy and controversial content, making it a hit with viewers.
• The show portrayed the dysfunctional Bundy family with crude humor and twisted storylines, going against the norms of traditional family sitcoms.
• A mom from Michigan named Terry Rakolta tried to get the show cancelled, but her efforts only made it more popular and solidified its success.

Back in the late 1980s, and throughout the 90s, no sitcom was more controversial than FOX’s Married… with Children. Sure, other controversial sitcoms came and went, from The Simpsons to Roseanne, but it’s the Bundy family who took the cake for the raunchiest, most dysfunctional TV family. Married… with Children might be tame compared to today’s standards, in a world where Curb Your Enthusiasm and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia exist, but thirty years ago, it was this one that was a constant target for those who thought the series went too far.

Married… with Children did indeed test the boundaries. It’s how different it was from any other sitcom that made it so popular. On the surface, it was your typical family sitcom, but this one was twisted, a place of crude humor where lessons were rarely learned. It might have been about a family, but it wasn’t for the family. If you were letting your kids watch Married… with Children back then, that was on you, but still, it didn’t stop the show from having one of its most controversial episodes pulled before it ever aired.

‘Married… with Children’ Had Many Controversial Moments

Married… with Children has the distinction of being FOX’s first-ever primetime series. Debuting on October 7, 1987, the show was a hit with viewers, as it fled the safety of traditional sitcoms and gave fans something raunchier. Though it would last eleven seasons, Married… with Children had many controversial moments, especially in the beginning, before even the staunchest of critics figured out that the series wasn’t going anywhere.

The Bundys are awful people, but despite their dysfunction, they are still a family. Al (Ed O’Neill) never cheats on his wife Peggy (Katey Sagal), or beats his kids, Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino), but my God, are these people a mess. It was hilarious to watch just how dumb and depraved they could be, but Married… with Children wasn’t afraid to push their content to the limits of what network TV would tolerate.

Al constantly made fun of his wife and kids, ogled at women (even taking his son to a strip club), and made fun of obese women, most notably in the episode “Crimes Against Obesity.” He couldn’t stand feminists, either. Women to him were objects. The show itself treated women that way, with Kelly reduced to a dumb, sexy blonde. In a 2018 interview with News Corp Australia, Amanda Bearse, who played Al’s female nemesis, Mary D’Arcy, said, “It was a mean-spirited and misogynist show. It was just so completely inappropriate. Today I don’t think the show would be produced because it’s so globally offensive.”

One Woman Tried to Get ‘Married… with Children’ Cancelled

In 1989, a mom from Michigan named Terry Rakolta went after Married… with Children. A 1990 Entertainment Weekly article details Rakolta’s efforts to take down the series, going so far as to write 42 advertisers for the show because she was so offended by episodes that talked about vibrators, porn, and having characters walk around with erections.

Rakolta wouldn’t make an impact now, but then, advertisers were afraid. A dozen had second thoughts about airing commercials on Married… with Children again, while Rakota appeared on Nightline and even had The New York Times write a page-one article about her. In the short term, her crusade worked, but concerned sponsors ended up staying with the series, and all the publicity only served to make Married… with Children even more popular. Tell someone they shouldn’t watch something, and it’s only going to make them more curious.

In an interview on the WTF With Marc Maron Podcast in 2021, Katey Sagal talked about Rakolta’s failed protests, saying, “We sent her flowers every year. She tried to get us off the air and all it did was get us on the front of The New York Times. And it doubled our audience.” And just why did Married… with Children succeed despite the controversy? It wasn’t simply because people were rebelling against what they were told not to do, but because they could relate. Sagal said, “We would get fan mail that said, ‘My family is just like that,’ or ‘I live next door to those people.’” While Married… with Chidren did win the war against censorship, they did once lose a battle, as a scared FOX pulled an episode before it ever aired, leaving it unseen by fans for decades.

FOX Pulled an Episode of ‘Married… with Children’ Before it Aired

In 1990, as Rakolta’s campaign was progressing and gaining national attention, Married… with Children was set to air a Season 3 episode titled “I’ll See You in Court.” We would not see it on TV though, as a frightened FOX pulled the episode. So what was so controversial about it? The episode is about Al and Peggy going to a motel, only to find a sex tape of neighbors Steve (David Garrison) and Marcy made at the same motel. It turns out that a video was made by the motel owners of Al and Peggy too, so Steve and Peggy take the motel owners to court, where they win a $10,000 settlement. That actually seems pretty tame compared to other Married …with Children episodes, though, doesn’t it?

In an interview on Archive of American Television, Married… with Children creator Michael Moye spoke about what happened with “I’ll See You in Court.” He said it was silly, with every single word of a script being examined during the Rakolta protests. This was coming off the heels of another temporarily pulled episode called “The Camping Show,” which was deemed offensive because it talked too much about women’s periods. “I’ll See You in Court” had the gag of Al and Peggy’s sex tape being played in court, but because of their tryst being so short, the jury had to watch it over and over again and play it in slow motion. “They had a problem with that too,” he said of the network producers. He spoke about how the episode didn’t air for years, and when it did, it was aired overseas. It finally aired on FX in 2002 and was included as part of the DVDs of the series. Moye said viewers were shocked at how innocent the episode was, adding, “That’s as funny to me as the episode itself.”

Married… with Children would air for eight more seasons after this and become one of the longest-running and most beloved sitcoms ever. It’s safe to say that Terry Rakolta’s attempted takedown was the best gift they could have ever received.

Married… with Children is available to stream on Hulu.

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