Married… With Children Character Review: Bud Bundy

*The schedule for the Character Review posts will be changing to Friday (or Saturday at the latest from now on).

*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the characters from the television show Married… With Children. Read at your own risk if you have not watched the show. There is something to be said about a well-written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front of us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.

In the world of family sitcoms, the son of the family is sometimes a skirt-chasing fool for whom getting an education is secondary. In Married…With Children, Bud Bundy (David Faustino) is just that. Like many young men, the organ he is thinking with is not on the top of his head. The younger child and only son of Al and Peg Bundy, he loves teasing his older sister, Kelly.

Academically speaking, Bud is the smartest member of the family. Graduating from both high school and college, he excels professionally in a way that his father never did. But that does not mean that he gets everything he wants. He still struggles in the romance department and wasn’t very popular during his school years. Like his father, he has a certain perspective on women and at the end of the day, he is still a Bundy.

To sum it up: Some people are who they are. Though Bud in one way stands out from his family, he is still one of them. As much as we may want to get away from the people who raised us and our childhood experiences, this is part of who we are. The thing about Bud is that he does not try to hide where he came from, but he does his best to rise above his circumstances.

Which is why he is a memorable character.

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Married… With Children Character Review: Kelly Bundy

*The schedule for the Character Review posts will be changing to Friday (or Saturday at the latest from now on).

*I apologize for not posting last weekend. The family came first.

*Warning: This post contains spoilers about the characters from the television show Married… With Children. Read at your own risk if you have not watched the show. There is something to be said about a well-written, human character. They leap off the page and speak to us as if they were right in front of us, as flesh and blood human beings, instead of fictional creations.

If we can say nothing else about Kelly Bundy (Christina Applegate), we can say that she is a chip off the old block. Like her mother, Peg (Katey Sagal), Kelly is not above using her sexuality to get her way. Like her father, Al (Ed O’Neill), she isn’t the brightest bulb in the box. Combine that with the blonde hair, and you’ve got the typical dumb blonde teenage girl.

Though she has a long series of boyfriends, none of them last. Al takes particular pleasure in sending them packing. She also loves to mock her little brother, Bud, who turns around and mocks her right back. When she is in school, Kelly would prefer to be elsewhere. Which accounts for grades that are nothing to brag about. In the eyes of her classmates, she is the mean girl.

But when push comes to shove, she is a Bundy. Bundys stick together, no matter what.

To sum it up: Obviously, Kelly is a dumb blonde who relies on her physical features to get by. But that is what makes her a brilliant character. She is a satire of a character who in another program might be wholesome, studious, and, well smart. In being who she is, Kelly ridicules the trope that often appears in family sitcoms. Applegate is clearly a smart performer. It takes a certain kind of intelligence to play a girl like Kelly.

Which is why she is a memorable character.