Al Bundy sells women`s shoes and hates the work. He once told a customer her feet resembled ”rib roasts with nails.” He and his spendthrift wife, Peggy, are always barking at each other. She`s a miserable housewife; he`s a pathetic provider. Their two teenagers are the sort you worry more about keeping out of prison than getting into college.
”Married . . . With Children,” a half-hour comedy about the Bundys that airs at 7:30 p.m. Sunday nights on the Fox television network, focuses on the warts of blue-collar family life. Instead of hugs and smooches, there are hassles and sneers.
Last year the show finished its first season ranking 142d out of 163 shows. John O`Connor, the television critic of the New York Times, said it had set ”almost weekly milestones in vulgarity.”
Roseanne and Dan (they don`t give any last names) are a blue-collar Illinois couple. He works in construction. She`s employed in a plastics factory. They have a lot of spats over things such as unclogging a drain and toast crumbs on the butter left by their children. Their three youngsters often seem on the verge of killing one another.
”Roseanne” (7:30 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC), which also illuminates the imperfections of a working-class family, made its debut a month ago.
After its first four shows, it was the second most popular show on television, according to the A.C. Nielsen Co.
So how do the creators of ”Married . . . With Children” feel about the sharply different receptions of their show and ”Roseanne”?
”Phenomenally bitter, I think,” said Ron Leavitt, a cocreator.
”Yeah, we`re not real good sports about it,” said Michael Moye, the other cocreator.
They were kidding, mostly. But the fates thus far of ”Married . . . With Children” and ”Roseanne” suggest a lot about the long odds facing the Fox Broadcasting Co., which has been struggling to create a fourth commercial television network in prime time since it began in 1986.
Last year, in its first full season of programming, Fox lost about $94 million.
Last month, in a significant blow to its ambitions, Fox scrapped its dismally received week-night ”Late Show” (initially hosted by comedian Joan Rivers) and cut its weekly prime-time programming nearly in half: to 5 1/2 hours on Saturday and Sunday evenings from 10 1/2. (Fox does no original programming on other days.)
Though advertising executives continue to root for Fox, because it offers an alternative to the three major networks, many worry about its chances.
Paul Schulman, who buys television air time for advertisers, said, ”The people at home on Saturday night are not young. It`s a night when people watch NBC or rent a cassette. I`m not sure they wouldn`t have done better scheduling Sunday and, say, Wednesday night.”
On Saturday nights Fox`s two original shows are ”Reporters” and
”Beyond Tomorrow.”
Depending on how the new season goes, Fox`s plans are to return to late-night television next spring and to introduce two hours of Monday night programming by early summer.
By looking at the experience of ”Married . . . With Children,” the gulf between Fox and the three big networks becomes starkly evident.
Leavitt and Moye conceived the idea for the comedy out of a conviction that the construction workers, plumbers and delicatessen butchers of the world had nothing pertinent to watch on television.
Oddly enough, when Leavitt and Moye pitched the show to Fox executives, they mentioned Roseanne Barr (now the star of ”Roseanne”) as a prototype for the role of the wife and played a videotape of Barr`s stand-up comedy act.
Leavitt, though, thought her voice might grate on people. Moye thought they needed more glamorous actors playing the main roles. ”Married . . . With Children” finished last season with a 4.6 rating and a 7 share, according to figures provided by the Nielsen company. After four programs,
”Roseanne” enjoyed an average rating of 22.3 and a 33 share. (Each rating point represents about 904,000 television households and the share signifies the percentage of televisions in use.)
The early weeks of the new season have had some sunshine for ”Married . . . With Children.” The opening segment drew a 9.4 rating and a 13 share, and on Sunday the show got a 10.5 rating and a 15 share, the best rating of a regular prime-time Fox show. But it was still just 48th in the list of shows.
