Unhappily Ever After

At first glance, this show would appear to be nothing more than a cheap "Married with Children" rip-off, and to be honest, that's not entirely untrue. Yes, the characters and situations are basically the same as "Married": The pathetic working-class Dad; the hormone-enraged loser son; the not-too-bright sexpot daughter; the horrid living conditions...but there are enough differences in this show to make it enjoyable in it's own right. First off, there's Floppy, the stuffed bunny who's the father's imaginary friend (conjured up in the first show to help him overcome a nervous breakdown, I think), played by Bobcat Goldthwait. Since Floppy is only in the father's imagination, of course nobody is aware of his existence but the dad, and the conversations they have about what's going on are some of the funniest in the show. Then there are what could be called, "surface" changes, little things that differentiate it from "Married": There being two sons instead of only one; the daughter being smarter than the boys, them having two sexy female teen leads (the daughter and her rival) instead of just one, and of course, Floppy. This show is obviously derived from Married with Children (and they've acknowledged it at least once with an on-camera Ed O'Neill reference), but it's different enough from the original that it's actually quite funny on it's own --to me, VERY funny. When "Married" was still on the air I watched both of these shows; after "Married" got canceled I looked forward to "Unhappily" even more. Watching this show and comparing it to "Married" can be kind of like when you want a Coke but the machine only has Pepsi, you'll go with the Pepsi because they're essentially the same...and in fact, some days you *want* a different cola drink. If you haven't given this show a chance because it looks like a cheapo knock-off of "Married", you should reconsider. I was saddened when this show got canned, it was one of the few WB programs I actually watched. This show had a lot of the same things that made "Married" such a great show, plus a few surprises. Try to catch the reruns on WB before they pull them off completely.

I loved this show. It was kind of a takeoff of Married with Children, but it struck me as a smarter version of said show. As Al Bundy's life was complicated in a simple way, Jack Malloy's was complicated in a complicated way. Bundy was just a man's idiot living a very cynical life, but Jack was a raging alcoholic suffering from Schizophrenia embodied in a child's toy. The intelligence of the children was reversed (the hot girl was smart and the boy was the stupid one). While the episodes about the kids were semi-funny, Jack was indeed the key character, and when the story revolved around him, the show tended to be hilarious. Sure, Tiffany's competition with her schoolmate came off as funny, especially because she took her world a little too seriously, but finding out that Jack was the founding member of the band that eventually became Aerosmith was hilarious.

This show NEEDS to come out on DVD. It would be the first set I'd buy. Someone petition the WB for episodes!

Frankly Unhappily Ever After can be considered a guilty pleasure. The show esstentially played out on a trashy level (i.e. in terms of its seemingly inane storytelling) and perhaps the acting had a tendecy of being relatively amateurish. Unhappily Ever After tried to coast as far as it could in terms of references to popular culture and to a certain degree the show benefited from it. Perhaps that was the only thing the show had to fall back on but the references managed to come out on a frequent basis and were fairly interesting never the less. Perhaps Unhappily Ever After can considerably be labled as "low-rent satire." You're viewing something that's can be juvenile on a frequent basis but at the same time will make a fun out of numerous things in popular culture.

Unhappily Ever After is in syndication where I live, and watching it these days, it's clear that while it based itself on Married...With Children, it was also trying to be innovative in how it told its story, how its actors interrelated, and how it treated the show itself.

Obstensibly, the show was about a family of five: a divorced couple, a sexpot daughter, one idiot kid, and one not-so-much an idiot kid. The show however also tended to treat the fourth wall as their urinal, frequently breaking out of character to be themselves, talking to the audience, bringing in studio executives, etc.

This was one of the good points of the show: in one episode, Nikki Cox and Kevin Connolly are faced with having to get rid of the actor who plays Ryan, because he wasn't written into the script and refuses to go away.

The cheesecake factor here is high -- but the cheesecake remembers to laugh at itself quite frequently. The acting for the most part is wooden on Nikki's part, but the actor who plays Jack manages to get the Al Bundy down without all those annoying characteristics Ed O'Neill slowly added to the role.

It's a stupid show, but it's supposed to be stupid, and there are some genuinely funny, and occasionally vicious moments in the show.

It's true that the show is an obvious Married With Children ripoff. In fact, in one episode I specifically remember Ed O'Neill's (Al Bundy from Married With Children) name being mentioned. Nevertheless, the show is hilarious. Especially Mr Floppy.