Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot

On the Bundy BreakdownZoom Recording – Bundy Breakdown #1: Season 1 Episode 1 (Pilot) with Special Guest Richard Gurman, Co-Executive Producer and Writer of Married… with Children

The episode that launched a network. When the pilot went out on April 5, 1987, it opened FOX’s first night of prime-time programming: the network had technically launched six months earlier with a late-night talk show, but this was the beginning of FOX as a place people watched television in the evening. What viewers got was a shoe salesman in a bad mood, a wife who would not get off the couch, two children who regarded their parents as an obstacle, and a dog who ate better than any of them.

The plot is almost nothing, deliberately. Al has to choose between a basketball game and an evening meeting the new neighbours, Steve and Marcy Rhoades, who have moved in next door and are relentlessly, visibly happy. That is the whole engine, and the pilot spends its time instead establishing a tone no American network sitcom had attempted: a family that does not like each other very much and is not going to resolve that by the end of the half-hour. Al is on minimum wage, which in Illinois at the time was $2.30 an hour, about $92 a week before tax, as he is at pains to point out.

Almost everything the series would run on for eleven years is already here in some form. Nancy, the first of the shoe store’s oversized customers, walks in and starts the running feud that produced Al’s standing opening line about a fat woman coming into the store. Food intended for Al goes to Buck instead. Peggy lies on the couch smoking in front of the television, in a shot the show liked enough to lift into its own main titles. And Kelly speaks the first line of the series, the same character who would get the last line of the last episode, ten years later.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: April 5, 1987
• Season 1, Episode 1, and the first episode of the series
• Aired as part of the very first night of FOX prime time programming
• Written by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye
• Directed by Linda Day

Guest Cast

• Ritch Shydner as Luke Ventura
• Victor DiMattia as Arnold
• Linda Dona as Tawny
• Diana Bellamy as a shoe store customer
• Sue Ann Gilfillan as a shoe store customer

The Night FOX Went Prime Time

On April 5, 1987, FOX did not really have a prime time schedule. This was the night it started building one, and the pilot carries an entire network launch on one small domestic decision: a Bulls game against an evening with the new neighbors. Everything the series would run on for eleven seasons is already here in how Al handles it.

Steve and Marcy Rhoades arrive as the control group. They are young, pleased with themselves, and full of language about marriage as a partnership of equals. By the time they leave, Steve has quietly agreed with Al about sports, which is the shape of almost every Rhoades visit to come.

Diana Bellamy, credited here as a shoe store customer, turns up again four seasons later as Kathleen in Top of the Heap.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “If they were nice they’d be dead and I’d be at the game.” His complete position on the Rhoades, delivered before he has met them.
• Al: “That’s the former owner’s. He was killed tragically when a size 9 exploded in his face.” The shoe store’s working conditions, established in one line.
• Al: “No woman tells Al Bundy what to do.” Immediately followed by a customer telling Al Bundy what to do.
• Bud: “Die, commie bimbo!” Bud’s first real line of the series, shouted at a video game.

Notes

• An earlier version of the pilot was taped on December 12, 1986 with different child actors. Tina Caspary and Hunter Carson played Kelly and Bud, and were replaced by Christina Applegate and David Faustino before this version was made.
• FOX re-aired the episode on April 22, 2012 for the show’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
• The format was later remade in Germany, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Russia, Chile, Bulgaria and Israel, which makes this the template for every one of those pilots.
• The Bundy front door reads as white in the season 1 opening sequence but is red on the set.

Pilot

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