By Geno McGahee
I am a huge fan of the show “MARRIED WITH CHILDREN.” I consider it to be one of the best sitcoms of all time and it has aged well with time. Since I’m on this Christmas movie review spree, and since I’m in the Xmas spirit, I opted to watch and review the season 4 two-part episode “IT’S A BUNDYFUL LIFE”, which aired in December of 1989. It’s very funny, but there are some interesting notes as well.
Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) comes home after a hard day at work to discuss his fist fight with a mall Santa. He notes that he socked him in the belly and he fell down and his beard came off, which caused all the kids to cry. “And I’m the bad guy,” Al notes, as he sits down and tells the family that he has a Christmas fund at the bank and that the family will actually get presents this year.
Next door neighbors, Steve (David Garrison) and Marcy (Amanda Bearse), stop over to wish happy holidays but to also announce that Steve will be spending the holiday with his “mommy.” The Bundys, as always, take the opportunity to mock Steve before he runs out to his taxi. Marcy must now attend the bank Xmas party alone and gets some good advice from Peggy (Katey Sagal), telling her to get drunk, act single, and do some very provocative things to the men that she meets.
Al goes to work, but is eager to get out and get his money for gifts. He gets there five minutes early, but the bank is already closed and Marcy is far too drunk to help him out. He goes back to work and is jumped by a mob of mall Santas. He then comes up with an idea to watch the children of the shoppers, opening a daycare. When the parents discover that he has them all tied up and is just counting the money and awaiting their return, they beat him with their purses and take back the cash. Al’s holiday is not going well.
When he gets home, Al is blitzed by his children, Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino), screaming “give me” as they look for their gifts. They are followed by Peggy who does the same thing. After a story about bears and Indians, he admits that he missed his opportunity to withdraw his cash. The family reacts by leaving him home and heading to Denny’s.
After getting electrocuted, Al meets up with an angel, played by the late comedian, Sam Kinison. Kinison was one of the first choices to be in MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, but it didn’t work out and Ed O’Neill got the spot. They were able to bring him in for this special role and, as always, he is hilarious. He tells Al that he’s an angel but reflects on his past life where his wife “gained 100 pounds for every year” they were married, and that he needs to earn his wings by saving Al.
He brings Al to an alternate future, showing him what life would be if he had never existed. The Bundys are now the “Jablonskys”, and they are a much different family. Peggy is the ideal housewife, Kelly is an intelligent college student, and Bud is a gentleman. Their father, Norman, is played by Ted McGinley, who would later go on to replace David Garrison as Marcy’s husband “Jefferson” when Steve left town. Here he is the wealthy father with a loving family and it makes Al sick. He makes the decision that he wants to return to his life because he doesn’t want his family to be happy after all the stuff they put him through. The angel rejoices and then notes that he is going to put a thing of cupcakes just out of reach of his “thousand pound” ex-wife and then when she finally gets them, he’s going to turn them into his 20 year old rotting corpse. They don’t make TV like this anymore.
After all these years, this show is still hilarious. The secret to the success was an unapologetic, non-PC approach to the comedy with a cast that could deliver week after week. The Bundy family of O’Neill, Sagal, Applegate and Faustino were great together and you could tell that they genuinely liked each other. The addition of Bearse and her two husbands over the course of the show made it that much better. This is one of those shows that just captured magic.
IT’S A BUNDYFUL LIFE is a great Xmas episode of the show. It has some great lines in it, primarily from O’Neill and Kinison. I highly recommend this and although it’s not what most would consider a Christmas classic, it is a raunchy and funny episode that includes a lot of funny moments. What a show this was.
Rating: 9/10