No matter how talented the actors are, they need inspiration, so they may portray their roles with excellence and as realistically as possible. If you want to create a character and make it your own, the easiest place to search for a good background story is within your family.
This is what Ed O’Neill did to practice and research for his role as Al Bundy. His best inspiration was his very own family. His role model was his Uncle Joe, who had very similar characteristics to Al Bundy. This close family connection helped him interpret the role of Al as naturally and effortlessly as he did.
An Episode Was Banned
One episode of season three in 1989, entitled “I’ll See You in Court,” was refused to be broadcast by Fox because it had racy content. Even by Married With Children standards! At the time, Terry Rakolta (Mitt Romney’s sister), who was a Michigan housewife, was attacking the show. She even paid for advertisements telling people not to support the show. The first damage she did was a letter writing campaign that disabled the show’s funding and postponed the banned episode forever.
The producers of the sitcom definitely fought back. Some parts of the episode were changed and, in 2002, the episode was finally released on FX, and the wait was finally over. In case you were wondering, the episode featured a model whom Al Bundy was eyeing.
The Fake Dodge
Much like Visa being displayed as Vista, some of the lesser known facts of the show are just unbelievable. The sitcom had a number of uncanny objects and artifacts which just did not match up to reality. One example of this is that the Bundys' ‘mighty Dodge’ was not actually a Dodge.
If you look carefully, it’s actually a vinyl top, 1972 Plymouth Duster. On the show, it was always referred to as a Dodge, even though it was a Plymouth. The two cars belong to the same company and, to be fair, they do look pretty much the same, but it still made for a bit of confusion among car-loving fans of the show. Again, we wonder whether it was done on purpose or just an honest mistake.
Budrick Was Bud's Real Name
Now, this is not a surprise for us anymore, because we know how bad the writers of the show are when it comes to choosing the names of the characters—case in point, Peggy’s horrendous maiden name! Although we have to cut them some slack, because Peggy’s maiden name was not intended to offend anybody. They had no way of knowing it was an offensive word at the time.
Bud is the young brother of the Bundy family and his full name was actually Budrick Franklin Bundy. However, it was never really mentioned in its entirety. Today, the name Budrick has become a nickname for boys who have terrible luck with girls. By the way, can you remember Bud’s special nickname?
No Ma'am!
Considering the ma’am related memes that are popular nowadays, this next Married With Children fact is unbelievable. In the show, Al and his friends had a group called “No Ma’am,” which stands for National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood. As the name suggests, it is an anti-feminist organization. Al and the group formed this organization to put a halt to feminist domination.
Though unique and hilarious at the time, this anti-feminist group of Al’s would have surely attracted many enemies and controversies if the show had been running today. More and more people today are fighting for gender equality, and being more sensitive to real-life groups and movements like "No Ma’am".