MovieChat Forums > Married with Children (1987) Discussion > al proves that arts are almost alway bet...

al proves that arts are almost alway better than his fatal flaw sports

posted 9 years ago by nishivijay
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this show is for the most part a show about slackers. not all of them but it's not that they don't care. they slack off most of the time and have a sense of entitlement but the way they look at it what they could do that day that no one would even know it could be more than all the fake stuff and that's why they have that entitlement.

but al bundy in particular had a fatal flaw. he was an athlete. his children proved themselves in artistic endevors but he made it sports. that made him extremely petty. all he cared about was winning. and even though he was incredibly blessed by god like a george foreman can do practically anything rather than be purposeful he wasted it performing feats of strength and extremism for his own amusement. and yeah he could be that hero that day but his pettiness made him extremely wasteful and it was a bad trade. but you got to understand most of the bad stuff peggy and others do to him it usually starts of he wants to try to beat some pointless test and then others sometimes make it just a little too hard so he doesn't win all the time. but he's trying to be a strongman and win nothing.

now kelly is an artist, particularly a model and an actress but other stuff too. she made her sport arts. so every time she has an engagement and tries to represent something or be winning she has to think about a cause or a case or may even for example create a scientific discovery just researching a role or something like that... and then when the engagmeent leaves a lesson sticks because what she was doing was about something. like she had to convey points in that ad or that picture or that role, understand issues, even learn how to do various things. but her unpurposeful over time would have to find purpose just to win and that's why over time she kept on getting better.

bud was an artist with rap too we just never see him do much for what he can do on the show, he's the guy that did stuff off air. could have made school his sports because honestly you don't know what someone is learning on his own so it could be petty and just about grades rather than learning or something... or learning the wrong thing to win... something that's not natural for you to do... but he saw dangers... didn't go to school to get a job, saw the dangers of debt, but he knows that he's good at school, comfortable and he can build himself up in ways but if he made school overly important then he would be al. and he had rap anyway or just trying to look pretty even that over sports but it's not rap but over sports... but school could be sports that pointless thing that's really not that purposeful over time but you can still get something from it if you tried to build up from it.

al for all his juice man of great juice the reason he's throwing it away is just sports. winning is just winning. that day he stops a robbery or an armed robber just standing there cuz he's got the juice and no one else does and that's why he feels OK slacking, because it's so pointless, he could get as much creating some pointless feat of strenght and creating a big mess at the shoe store, he made slacking a bad trade for what god gave him. but why? cuz sports are pointless compared to the next thing you would have been doing and that made him pointless but if he could do something and was there, he would help someimtes. but bad trade for his gifts. a lot of that juice was squandered and that's why he's so drained, cuz he's so excessively wasteful for wasting so much energy on unpurposeful activities.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

of course it's about married life in the west and not everyone is a slacker but i'm right too. you didn't make me wrong.

al gets into these situations because he's pointless. if you take away everyone else this guy HONESTLY truly i'm not looking for an actual example but he's the kind of guy that might pull out his spark plug to push his car.

his kids were artists.

kelly bundy by the end of the show was improved over the beginning, a more cultured person.

al kept on wasting his strength on pointless things because he was into sports. it wouldn't be out of place for him to stop a mugging on a particular episode just going on in the background and then reminisice about a feat of strenght like four touch downs in one game later.

he was in that situation because he was an athlete and he was petty but kelly kept on learning important things to excel and bud was an inbetweener who did great things off air but he saw the nature of his father's problem.

the way you're right doesn't make me wrong but really that can't summarize every idea beneath the show... that was Al's SPECIFIC problem that not everyone goes though and he's CLEARLY doing it repeatedly throughout the show and then once you step back and look at that it's a different show.

and there may be things in the show that are ASSUMPTIONS but won't pan out if you analyze the situation. but the same exact people al was an artist instead of an entertainer it's enough not to sink them. that's what sinks them - al wasting his power on pointless things cuz he's an athlete. everything else everyone else is doing against them stems from that and it's not as much as it looks because of Al's nature. that's clearly in the show.

if the west is where the west is today because of married with children it would be an improvement. people follow the dumbest rules to overtake the government from within because some random guy told him to. the bundy's were better than they appeared but al liked sports. early simpsons bart simpson may have grown up to be a rapist. but would you mind your sister dating bud THAT MUCH?

there's a way you're right and then there was a way I was floored by the nature of the comment until i picked up on the handle. just using that point to wash away this. of course it's about married people but with that attitude it can't diverge into other areas ever... it's about other stuff and they're not as bad as they appear, as you would expect for anybody on a TV sitcom.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

this guy is kelly's dad with her super advanced skills to do complicated stuff that no one can do firing on all cylinders.

he goes to work and slacks by his demeanor and attitude.

he could have done more than kelly.

but now he maybe setting up some ridiculous work stunt to nuke the office working his ass off AND THAT IS WHY THE FAMILY IS DAMNED (the wife is playing off that) but when he's not working so hard on that pointless stuff he actually is slacking too...

but a slacker has a dual nature. they now have it in them to do something no one else can but they may have a sense of entitlement to a degree because what they did was unexpected and without title.

that's Al too. but kelly was learning all this tons of tons of stuff and she would have to be at least a LITTLE better person by the end of it and Al was still pointless. he might launch a national cause but that cause may be relatively petty. not secretly evil like early 10 year old bart make everyone not care so he can get 'a way" but just usually a lot of the great stuff he does is petty and sometimes he does great stuff that matters but compared to other guys like that the trade for his amazing godly blessings (kelly with all cylinders but just not building up from learning material things like her either) that allow him to do so so much more than the average slacker when in that slacker mode it's just wasted.

AND THAT'S why they're broke. Not Peggy. cuz if that is the starting point she reminds them that there is a way they could break out for a day or in a day... but then it keeps on reseting because of Al and that makes Peggy's bad less the cause. Al is not a slave to the banking system because of Peggy. Peggy would know how to manipulate the system to emancipate them actually but she can't do that because they'd lose it all for Al anyway (but Peggy off al is trying to make that loss relatively neutral if you choose to make it that way. Just cuz he's living in poverty doesn't mean she has to. but the banking system clearly wouldn't be the issue off Al just that one time he loses the farm it's over with what peggy does afterwards unless he never did it himself LOL.)

Kelly on the other hand was Al Junior and in a way she was a dunce compared to al when all cylinders were not firing so in a way she could appear to be a disappoint BUT because she chose to take relatively more cause (or being artistic than a jock it would have to be that way compared to al 4 touch downs in one game bundy) than Al. that crushes the other thing by a wide margin.

bart simpson was not just petty. he was evil trying to get 'a way' to do as his whimsy at any time. if he pulled off a national hoax it would be a hoax. al would for the most part just try to start movements and stuff for relatively petty reasons MOST OF THE TIME. but i remember for example he was a hoax trying to form a religion against matrimony and then it was revealed that he secretly loved his wife and the church disolved. if he was going to fail that way it would be the other way compared to an early bart simpson. now that guy was different for tv. simpsons was not enough for sitcoms let alone cartoons. i'm not saying the bundy's were slackers like that even if they were cartoons. even king of the hill what they didn't have they made up with morals so cartoons were still more that way. the simpsons didn't do enough for tv let alone cartoons. now it's bad. this show COULD BE bad.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

i looked up the world and that basically means he married a bad wife... I know what you are saying and i cannot deny that completely... but i've been watching some of them married with childrens on TBS recently and peggy is evil in a lot of ways... no way can i make her the perfect woman... but a lot of times when she talks i'm thinking 'right on' and i don't know why. and then sometimes i do know why. sometimes she is right and reasonably good but she says things in the worst way too...

but you can take the woman away and the way he is performing feats of strength (like daddy's little girl, Kelly, but they are more mental feats usually since she is an artist not an athlete) he would be broke anyway... and that is peggy's dilemma from the start too... she's not the most giving woman but compared to what she looks she is a lot better... imagine if al married marge simpson just egging him on every time he did something wrong not standing up to him... he would be in the same position or worse (probably worse) because she might be a faithful caring woman but she is dumb too... i don't know... marge looks great but a lot of guys would be the same or better off with peggy at that point... cuz she's got her flaws but at least a portion of it is a hoax, just saying things mean but actually saying it out of a deep down concern sometimes too...

but at least with peggy the kids are smarter and more considerate... someone got the brain...

now i know that kelly is dumb but when focused as dumber she is compared to bud is how much smarter she is when you need a haymaker, someone that can really bring it for a short period maybe even a few days or weeks but will crash and burn... she might be the homer of the show but no one on the simpsons is as smart as she is either... and part of it has to do with the mom too; marge can't raise that brain.

she's done a lot of stuff like this but obvious but by the last season first episode if you watch the show carefully to understand the physics joke at the end was she figured out how to map coordinates in some 2d flat earth model that allowed her to to find pockets in time and time travel... and bud conducted an experiment that day that proved time travelling too but in a small way. kelly did it and you don't even know where she is at the end of it... i have to really think to understand the joke, something about existing in three states at once or some ish... but after that season all the characters are time travelling in the background.

that is an example of a kelly bundy brain... there was an episode where her friends were calling her the smartest person they know and then when she left she's the most dumb and that sounds mean but they really believed it... she is the ultra dumbest uber genius... or sometimes she sees herself as saintly and there is a way she actually is a superhero like jefferson if you throw out the other side of it... but when she's that girl and you respect her like that now could you be the guy for her? probably not and that's her problem. but she is hella hella hella smart when she is that way and no simpsons character will ever be that much... maybe professer fink but that's what you would need to even have the potential to catch the homer in mwc... and part of it is that the wife has the brains...

that episode is too complicated to understand for long but when you get it that little period that the joke is understood the whole way it's quite a brilliant statement, that one episode... but as a family show, it's where the two kids start reaching parity... kelly is becoming as smart as bud but honestly she is that mental haymaker, the one bud trains to do impossible mental feats than no one can do, and in that special almost impossible way bud is catching up too... and then that becomes why she REALLY can't find a suitable mate, cuz the way she's smart is too much for people to relate but if she was just dumb then there would have been somebody... but they're just convincing you people doing that stuff is bad cuz it's TV but if you step back and look at the facts they are quite extraordinary people and they have flaws but quite frankly try to save the world enough too.... but again, that's the trick. we're getting trained to think this is what bad is. and some of it is...

another thing. if al becomes kelly and peg becomes bud (he didn't take some chick's virginity when he was working virgin hotline, he was reasonable but who would be the real 'one' for a guy like that?) they did something right. the parents had their points and they were definetely better poeple than they needed to show but the kids were better...

[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

you know what. i'm watching mwc on tv right now and here's an example of morals. so kelly is in some slutty outfit with some massive cross as is common and it stands out because the rest of the family is not wearing crosses... but then she's auditioning for a music video and only one other chick is wearing a cross... and all the others get duped to leave before kelly has to dupe this woman herself. but bud got all but three others to leave by asking 'do you have good morals?' and 95% said yes so that was what bud cut. the other two get duped and now it's only the two people with crosses on left.... and we don't know much about the other girl but why was she wearing the cross? now i'm not saying she's the most pristine woman and we don't know who she is but maybe the MAIN difference is how she rated herself not what she would do within that group so the initial thing that makes her look bad it's hard to say relatively speaking if it's actually her virtue, humility.

but we don't know her... when you notice stuff like that it just gets you to question how you think...

not saying this show has the best morals but they did enough to be on TV.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

i don't see it all the time but i caught it that day and kb is actually wearing an oversized cross on lots of episodes for better or worse.

the other woman cannot be discredited for having certain qualities within the group... but she could be discredited for *seeing herself as immoral* but that was a statement about her humility....

it's not that she was a tramp but that is the nature of married with children. it's like men in black when will smith is shooting alien targets and you have to think twice about who you should really shoot. mwc has a moral compass like that; you have to think twice.

stuff i wouldn't notice as a kid but i would now.

i'm not saying every woman on the show has so much but sometimes you catch something but i wouldn't have when i was a kid... now that i'm 35 in reruns i can catch it...

kb though they gave her so much cuz she's the next al. she did ridiculously extraordinary things on the show all the time, performing incredible feats like her father... she was not a normal person but like her dad had extreme capabilities but without such an astonishing pettiness compared to her dad... i think kb CLEARLY actually was a genius **too**. cuz she did too much in too many episodes to be the dumb girl.

but even if she wasn't she had to be more concerned about issues just to get work as a model or actress cuz it's going to hard to get a job in the entertainment industry if you cannot represent the values they want you to convey properly.

last season they literally became time travellers off the first episode of that season (continued throughout the season, they start going into closets and stuff) because they all expected kelly bundy to prove some great science experiment she was waiting forever to prove, and they all tried it too... but that's too complicated for me to understand for a long time. sometimes i can get it and am blown away but not now and not well enough to convince you. i would have to watch the episode and then like meditate for an hour and the i might be able to explain it again...

bud did an experiment that day too to support kelly but it was understood that stuff like this comes from kelly... she's explaining it to the rest of the family and by the end they are all time travelling but it is mainly her experiment and they are being supportive... but when you blow it out like that, then kelly is the most brain around... it reverses.

they're impressed but not astounded. that's why i know she's smart, how they all take it. this is no fluke. but the way they're treating her puts her in perspective the whole time. like when the question is can kelly learn it's can she learn to be a jeapordy contestent in a week. and then like bud but more and less but now she's employed as an actress and model by trade so she is obviously going to win more in this situation anyways...

only competition for urkel at the time he was on with a teenager/young adult... cuz what she did from her studies of coordinates and then she figured out also how to manipulate and create the time warps too, she did with no equipment and could explain to the rest of the bundy's and the jeffersions in a way that they get it cuz it passes her simple test (that's how she knows stuff is solid and really works to build off) so there's a way she can still hold up like a mcgyver to urkel. she can't do as much but she can do it with nothing and also pass it out freely, explain it well to others and now they can too... bring us all up so she can hold up but the other sitcom characters at the time just weren't on their level... no other kids on sitcom were really that smart on tv back then... you'd have to go to cartoons to even start thinking...

but even bleem, kelly's hair growth formula randomly created is not believable to be random when she does so many incredible things on the show... believable or not this is the sitcom character. a fleeting genius who can't concentrate that long but she tells the dumb girl what to do after she simplifies the though and then if the dumb girl can survive off all that complexity simple she found gold. that is the character. and not once did she have a serious partner like amber, anyone reasonable. because she was too smart; that absent minded professer side keeps her alone.

i don't think it was the promiscious attractive side. she would be fighting men off with a stick if that's all it was... i think it was the absent minded professer side that emerges from trying to get work as an artist, it was when she was able to represent the vision more properly... if you were dating her, once you catch it over months and months, a lot of guys would say she's too dumb but it's actually that brilliant part of her you can appreciate it but once you see it it alienates her. she was too smart for long term dating. in a way it kept her alone even though she had friends and family...

mwc has morals in RETROSPECT. not when you're a kid but when we're older (i'm 35) and catch the reruns, i get it now... not then though. it's men in black morals though, that part where will smith is going to shoot a bunch of aliens and it's not quite obvious which one he should shoot... not just with the attractive women; jefferson is technically an under cover secret agent superhero for example.

you know what? I got the time i guess so if you see the first episode of the last season and think there's something there then i will watch it and give an explanation. but it's not worth getting into if you don't see it all or have the means to view it. either way.

i just don't want to bother getting into it when odds are you're probably not even going to watch the episode. but if you get a chance, it's hard to deny after it's openly stated that kelly is conducting some ridiculous science experiment (that bud is conducting too in a less grandious manner but in support of kelly off of her thoughts and theories...)

[–] nishivijay 9 years ago

i got to say this though... if it wasn't figuring out how to time travel in that one episode i wouldn't be saying she is an uber genius... but that's going on and if you see the ep and see my point a little, then i'll do my best to rewatch and reunderstand it but throw that out and all those other feats aren't that impressive... but when she does all that and figures out how to time travel in a way that they all could do it and if she can explain it so well when all cylinders are firing that people were convinced she's got it locked before she already did it, AND you take every other mental feat she performed on the show, then she's an extreme genius. or that must have been the sentiment they were trying to express if they ended up pushing it that far by the end...

if it wasn't for that one episode, i would take the sentiment more towards 'every dog has his day' or maybe she's smart too but after season 11 ep 1 she became an uber genius, someone who would be who she would have to be to do the smart stuff she was doing... as a sentiment of the show.

but that other chick was just humble...

btw i'm watching mwc now and kelly is actually not religious but just believes in god like the rest of the family. however she is a student of theology so she wears protective necklaces from various faiths.

once you understand how they display things, certain values are all over the show if you take it there... but you don't have to get it to understand that intuitively but that is the appeal.

but i'm just really suprised 20 years later altered cuz it's not so teid into the first impression like the first wave of reruns once you get into a certain mindset it is a different show. but not absolutely. the can be immoral because if they were never immoral then you're not really in will smith shooting range men in black mode being savvy, but just think along the same lines counter culturally.

cosby show had great morals for some, i'm not talking bad stuff cuz it was a great show but not my tastes. cuz i grew up on fifties stuff. cosby show was the same stuff but so rich (and now they're black cuz not allowed to have people that uppity on tv unless they are black or have a black main partner with just as much as the main white guy, or else no white people allowed cuz we wouldn't want to watch that stuff but would make concession cuz we need more black people represented so we put up with more but that is a separate issue too) ideologically same stuff as fifties programming that i watched all the time but rich but now the status quo makes a guy think one way. so it's real synergistic. 50s style guy wearing a suit could be a con too. the black guy is usually the good guy but cuz there's so few of them and it's just like 3 cameos out of like 100 episodes. so it's unfair. there's a way that mwc is out of it and a way cosby show is in it but they both deserve representation because there's a lot of good in both... but if you had a complaint it's not the only thing you are watching so they both save each other as a unit. that's probably why cosby badmouths so many things but mwc is too great... the synergistic moral and or ethical effect is just too much not to support...

not the cosby's is about thinking twice. kelly is an uber genius, one of the smartest people in the world but part of how she does it is shutting off her brain to pass a simplicity test. jefferson is a part time james bond even when he went to jail. al still saves the world sometimes just because of his immense god given capabilities but you can't stop the guy from being evil kinevel and that's why when he gets blown up so much. and that's stuff i always got. not the cosby's makes it a gimmick but there's a way thinking that way makes it a new show.

[–] nishivijay 8 years ago

just thought of this one. how many stupid experiments were actually needed to gain this time travel understanding. like her where's waldo tracking experiment for example. eventually she didn't just time travel but she could also travel interdementionally but the statement is that the tracking skills she developed that time were one of the things she needed to get here... the tracking skills were part of the package to what's needed to time travel. but some experiments were dumb too. but even when it was dumb she was still doing something ridiculous; trackers think in a way that would challenge *beep* science, the kind of people that make themselves smarty pants by making it impossible to even consider the science.. then when it's that dumb they are the smarties...

but that's niether here nor there. i'm getting carried away. the way a tracker would have to think and understand things would challenge the limitations of most.

at her level she's thinking to even get to the point where i could enter the picture and pull out waldo, i would have to track down a lookalike... cuz she wasn't even at that level until the last season anyway and by the end she could explain it to all the main characters so they could do it.

that actor who played seven had a hard role to play. he represented an aimless wander - the kind of guy that might just take off, but would survive. because he is lucky. they reported his absence cuz he was on a milk carton but they knew him because he had faith but he was destined to fail. cuz the character is lucky so something kelly bundy being a genius is something if played proper and serious he couldn't see cuz that's the luck - you see the bad stuff - to play him like a real actor would make him look like an ass and dumb. either way he's screwed. what was lucky became unlucky.

seven as a character to win, you got to change focus to get al to win. cuz seven represents 'luck comes my way'. why are lucky people fortunate? it doesn't just happen. he won't see kelly because she could save him unexpectedly and being this way can cover her advantage (for example help another get hoodwinked) and the bundies would have to be reasonable people at least at first for him to be around but the real win is getting al to accept winning and seven didn't believe in that which is why he was unlucky but not really cuz he didn't stick around.

See he is lucky so he doesn't htink what can I do for these people? if he started thinking like that rather what can they do for more me (not much - they're not building a fortune) what can I do for them he would think what have I done for them and understood the fundamental non random things and then he'd walk. and that's why he's lucky seven cuz stuff like that tilt the luck.

but again he ran away cuz he couldn't stop al from self harm. and peggy was hoping could turn al but he couldn't. cuz he was a brat to al cuz he was frustrated in the futility of his attempts.

[–] nishivijay 8 years ago

by the way you have great insight that i agree that sometimes peggy bundy was an unfaithful spouse (but if she did it she can't leave cuz they are clearly his children but he could leave in a way if he wasn't killing himself anyway making football his life's great folly of an achievement) but she is gangter ganster gangster shotgun wedding and all would have so much money laundered in assets like gold for example, things you can sell without a trace yadda yadda, that you can't blame her for the money thing. it really is Al on that one because he takes petty risks. then kelly the apple of his eyes made it about artistic issues so she had to represent ideals to be able to land consistent work... her pettiness became more than that.

that is what the show is about but that one episode is so outrageous and it so expected of kelly to time travel successfuly with no qualms that for real the point of the show and some of her mind experiment are to figure out time and interdimentional travel, do 'the prestige' type things, says shakespeare told her something, she pondering the difference between imagining him and actually meeting him but she is thinking face to face either way... for example there's an episode where she gets a job for a waitress. they call her the smartest person in the world and her mom say she's like a pimp before all these women come in and she gives them all this advice. before that she was moving her lips and experimenting with the difference between thinking and speaking but when she was mute she was saying it loud in her mind and testing out the difference. that is the thing that makes the show not the cosbys. when you accept that kelly bundy is one of the smartest people in the world but it comes from testing stupid too so that's part of it.

seven gets physical assets but peggy behind the scenes is reminding him that the way al is putting himself in danger, do you really have this if you have to deal with that? he can't change al and eventually leaves. can't win al over cuz then it would be the daughter. so he can't help and he leaves... cuz what he's got he doesn't and that's what he learned.

Kelly bundy that first episode in the last season did something so outrageous but so expected of her that once you except it then the show is reborn in syndication as 'not the cosbys' to the savvy. but it doesn't have to be 1998 like it wasn't that much for me then... i probably didn't know the working title was 'not the cosbys'. i just put that together recently to have my mind on it but that is key. bud about to get laid by a quantam physicist (watching it in the morning) same deal. because he's the only one smart enough to teach kelly and he's a tutor, that's something he prides in doing well more than sexual relations. (maybe but not in a way that ruins his name as a tutor.)

but again the whole thing is based on flipping kelly bundy. then you're mind is looking fervently that it would have to become 'not the cosby's' to not be a cartoon. to make it more believable at least relatively.

if al diversied such as learning an art to get better at sports (even i watch movies so i'm a film critic but not have your mind on it that way, it's not the same anyway) such as bud (he may even be a bodybuilder as in the sport of body building flexing contest as in mandatory poser, may even enter these weights p4p and contests which is unknown, and that might be why he keeps his weights down.... cuz he has done it on the show front double biceps but maybe not with a mind.)

if you think of her as an american gangster peggy is a american gangster certain style you bank on her that way. cuz she would have so much pocket wealth the way she was operating if you try to make it realistic.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] dpcole7 8 years ago

I don't recall the show blaming Jews for everything, nor was it made in 1938.

But along with his family, his boss was leeching off of him as well. A number of episodes, especially in the final two or three seasons show Al being used by everyone. :(

[–] dpcole7 8 years ago

Agreed, TroliusMaximus. The show is a caricatured satire.

[–] braincasecw 8 years ago

Film student?

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