0220  -  "Just Married...with Children"


"And look, you can tell what colour my sweater is!" (Kelly)
"Yeah, you got those grass stains off your back." (Bud)

Just as with the much-later You Can't Miss, this is an episode which takes a
look at game shows. As a result, it's just as thin and superficial as those
shows it tries to parody. The trouble is this - how do you parody something
that is originally laughable? Such as it is, the plot concerns Al and Peg
masquerading as Steve and Marcy in order to get onto a game show for
newly-wed couples. Of course, they're not newly-wed, but nobody seems to
question why they behave so utterly differently from their competitors. To
begin from the beginning, however, is to look at the only part of the
episode which is even remotely entertaining; Marcy doing the washing for the
Bundys is a rare sight of 'early Marcy' - mousy, quiet, eager to please and
to do favours for friends. I wonder if the Bundys are the only friends that
the Rhoades have? If so, why? We may never know. Still, the scene with Al
and Peg cheerfully making use of their neighbours' mail is funny, while the
children get just one good line (the one quoted above) and that's it. Then
we move on to the game show...

"Right, Bink!" (The Lovely Zelda)

Non-British people may not know this, but there was once a series called
Terrahawks, made by the same man who created Thunderbirds. On Terrahawks,
anyway, the lead villainness was a horrible monster called Zelda.
Appropriate? While the host of the game show, Bink Winkleman, is utterly
unfunny - yes, it's a parody of all those other game show hosts that are so
endemic to television the world over, but again it's not a good parody - his
comments about Zelda are enjoyable, especially given her blank smiling
reaction. This is just about the only good point; predictably, we all know
that Al and Peg will go as far as it takes to get the prizes without paying
attention to each other's own welfare, just as we know the smiling newly-wed
couple will fail to do the same thing. So the script is not only boring,
it's predictable. And that about sums it up.

Rating 4.