Married...With Children: The Complete Eighth Season DVD Credits:

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Married...With Children: The Complete Eighth Season DVD Release Date: 17th March 2008

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Married...With Children: The Complete Eighth Season DVD Review:

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, Malcolm in the Middle, and countless others might not exist if it weren’t for Married…With Children. After all, the premiere of the first episode in 1987 saw the premiere of the dysfunctional family on American television. Up to the point, every television network was deluged with pro-family sitcoms such as The Cosby Show and Full House. These were shows that emphasized family values and heart, where despite the family’s problems things always ended with a group hug. Then Married…With Children came out and turned the whole formula on its head. The characters were crass, their relationships were anything but admirable, and things were more likely to end with a punch rather than a hug. But perhaps most importantly of all, Married…With Children was more akin to real life.

Fans of the show will be happy to find that Married With Children: The Complete Eighth Season is a return to form for the irreverent series. The show had gone strong for six seasons, and then in Season 7 things started to slide downhill. In the first episode of Season 7, a new character by the name of Seven was introduced to the show, and he ran counter to everything Married…With Children represented. He became a character for Peg Bundy (the resident matriarch of the family) to dote upon and care for. By doing so, Seven gave the show heart. In any other situation a little more heart would be welcome, but not with Married…With Children. Ultimately, Seven seemed like an ill-conceived idea put forth by the studio to add some unneeded sentimentality to the show.

Happily, the creators realized their slip up and promptly got rid of Seven by Season 8, so fans can rejoice in noting that this DVD set is free of anything heartwarming or sentimental. Now I have to admit that I’m actually not the biggest fan of this show. The style of humor just doesn’t suit my tastes. However, that’s equivalent to someone saying that they like apples more than oranges. Oranges are still tasty fruits to many people, but even the tastiest one wouldn’t do it for that person. That being said, I can fully appreciate the show’s strengths and its place in sit-com history. I think The Simpsons summed the show up best in a parody scene they did between Al and Peg that goes as follows:

Peg: Al, let’s have sex.
Al: Eh, no Peg.

At which point Al promptly flushes a toilet sitting next to their couch and the studio audience laughs uproariously. That little snippet essentially wraps Married…With Children up in a nutshell. It’s lewd, it’s crude, and it’s undeniably funny. I hesitate to call it a classic, but it definitely holds its place in sit-com history.

The only extras on this 3-disc DVD set are “minisodes” for two episodes from two other shows. One is “A Family Affair” from Silver Spoons and one is “Low-Down Dirty Shame” from V.I.P. They’re very brief and have nothing to do with Married…With Children, so they’re inclusion can only be chalked up to marketing.

Oh, and we're going to play the song association game really quickly before we wrap up. "Love and marriage, love and marriage/go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell you brothers/You can't have one without the other." Quickly, what does that song make you think of? Some of you might say Frank Sinatra, but the vast majority of viewers probably associate it with Married...With Children as the theme song. Well guess what? It's nowhere to be found on this DVD set. That's right, the theme song of the show has been replaced with generic theme music, presumably due to a rights issue. It doesn't exactly ruin the show or anything, but it's definitely worth noting.

Married…With Children may not be to everyone’s tastes (including my own), but it is an important show for sit-com television. It brought America out of the squeaky clean family era and into the dysfunctional family era. One of the show’s actresses, Christina Applegate, admits that even she thought the show went too far initially, but upon watching it she quite enjoyed it. Even if Married…With Children seems like last week’s meal to a modern audience, it was influential in its day, and television wouldn’t be where it is now without it. For series fans who felt letdown by the good-heartedness of Season 7, fear not, because Married…With Children: The Complete Eighth Season is back to form, as irreverently entertaining as ever.

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Married...With Children: The Complete Eighth Season DVD review written by: Anthony Berk