Married... with Children/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Al's telling off the librarian, Al beating up his high-school rival while Peg cheats to win the position of Reunion Queen at their high school reunion, Al's speeches opposing a proposed beer tax and the cancellation of his favorite TV show, etc.
  • The audience's reaction to David Garrison's surprise entrance in Get the Dodge Out of Hell lasted over 20 seconds, a record.
    • It got to the point where Garrison checked his watch.
  • ANY time that Bad To The Bone started to play whenever Al was preparing something, the result was this.

Jim Jupiter: "I'm Jim Jupiter, the Healthiest Man in Chicago."
Al: "Then you should heal quick when I pull your spine through your mouth."

  • In the "Married ... with Prom Queen" two-parter, Al and Peg run into their old rivals at a reunion. It gets to the point where Al and Jack go outside and duke it out with everyone else watching. Later, Jack walks back in smiling. He then falls over just before Al walks back in triumphant.
    • Peg also gets a Crowning Moment of her own when she uses the distraction provided by Al to fix the vote for Reunion Queen in her favor, beating out her own hated rival, who just happens to be Jack's wife.
  • Things almost never go right for Al, but when they do, the results can be awesome. After slaving to build a doghouse for Lucky and being forced to jump through a bunch of increasingly ridiculous hoops by an Obstructive Bureaucrat building inspector that Marcy bribed to cause trouble for him, Al gets the last laugh. He got Kelly's rich boyfriend Carlos to help him build it and pay for all the expenses, during which time Al skimmed off $6,000 into his own pocket. He even gets one back on Marcy when he figures out what to do with all the leftover wet cement he had to get for the foundation of Lucky's doghouse...namely, dumping it all over Marcy's cherished Mercedes.
  • The episode in which Jerry Mathers (As Himself) is the special celebrity guest at a supermarket shopping spree. Bud and Kelly are giving him grief the entire episode, and finally he has this to say:

"Let's get this over with once and for all. I may have to earn a pathetic living by donning the cap of The Beaver and appearing at supermarkets... but at least my father doesn't sell women's shoes."

So you think I'm a loser? Just because I have a stinking job that I hate, a family that doesn't respect me, and a whole city that curses the day I was born? Well, that may mean loser to you, but let me tell you something. Every morning when I wake up, I know it's not going to get any better until I go back to sleep again. So I get up, have my watered-down Tang and my still-frozen Pop Tart. I get in my car with no upholstery, no gas, and six more payments. To fight traffic just for the privilege of putting cheap shoes onto the cloven hooves of people like you. I'll never play football like I thought I would. I'll never know the touch of a beautiful woman. And I'll never again know the joy of driving without a bag on my head. But I'm not a loser. Because, despite it all, me and every other guy who'll never be what he wanted to be, are still out there being what we don't want to be, forty hours a week, for life. And the fact that I haven't put a gun in my mouth, you pudding of a woman, makes me a winner!

  • The three-parter where the family goes to London also had its share of Crowning moments, such as one scene in part 2 where they go to Poole & Co. Tailors and try on all of the outfits to the tune of Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" (and stealing what suits them best), and the epilogue's jousting tournament between Al and Igor.
  • In one seventh-season episode, Al's performance in the bedroom has hit an all-time low and Peggy starts complaining to her friends about it. Word spreads around town, and Al's lack of prowess becomes famous. Teenage punks start threatening each other with the words "I'm going to waste you quicker than Al Bundy", and the supermarket has renamed its "10 Items Or Less" line as the "Al Bundy Line." Al is predictably humiliated--and Peggy is for once genuinely sorry for this--but after he sees Kelly study hard to impress her friends with her knowledge of American politics, he's inspired to begin training to build up his stamina. One Training Montage later, he takes Peggy upstairs, and proceeds to do her for two days straight. The episode ends with Al and Peggy in bed. Peggy's hair is standing on end from the experience, while a satisfied Al is smoking a cigar. He grins at the audience and sends them off with the immortal words:

Al: And to all a good night!

  • Al telling off the older woman he thinks the then-underage Bud is having an affair with and bringing in the cops to arrest her. Unfortunately, it's the wrong woman, but it's still refreshing to see Al's Papa Wolf moment and an aversion of the Double Standard Rape (Female on Male) trope--even the woman being hot and Bud's "consent" didn't make Al see her behavior as any less wrong.
  • Peg is so often a Karma Houdini that the rare moments when she gets punished for her actions are all the sweeter. After being tricked by Peg into having sex with her for nine months in order to conceive another child and get a $500,000 inheritance, Al learns that she's been taking birth control pills to keep from getting pregnant. With a Tranquil Fury that is both awesome and terrifying, he fakes Peg's home pregnancy test to make it look like she's really got a bun in the oven. Peg is completely horrified, and when she tries to console herself with the $500,000 Al points out to her that another relative beat them to it. This makes Peg suffer a complete Villainous Breakdown, as Al tortures her with the thought of the coming morning sickness, weight gain and diaper changes. The episode ends with Peg running upstairs screaming, as Al contentedly plans to continue the torture and realizes that he can't buy that kind of satisfaction for half a million dollars.
  • Never, ever get into a battle of wits with master snarker Al Bundy unless you're part of the regular World of Snark like Marcy is. Just look at what happened to Al's old high school rival:

Jack: You know Bundy, I can't think of a single thing you did better than me in high school.
Al: Why don't you ask your wife about that, Jack?

  • On her birthday, Kelly breaks off a date with her boyfriend (played by David Boreanaz of all people) so that she can go to the movies with her family (and she was reluctant to go). She finds her boyfriend with another girl, so she takes it well...and then she goes back to Al and says "Daddy, beat him up." Al, in Papa Wolf mode, says OK and beats the snot out of him.
  • The epic battle between Al and Spare Tire Dixon.
  • Al converts his garage into his own person man-cave, using tools that belonged to his father (including a hammer that Al had special attachment to). He then drops the news on his family, and is willing to defend the place to his death.

Peggy: You're not really thinking of moving in here, are you?
Al: Thinking about it? Peg, I'm doing it! Be gone, jackals!
Peggy: But Al~!

(An enraged Al raises his father's hammer, which glows with a white, radiant aura.) [Exit Peggy, Bud and Kelly]

    • Though it doesn't last long and Peg, Marcy and co. quickly start using it for their "woman stuff" including feminist meetings, Al finally has enough of it and must destroy what he created. With his bare hands and his father's spirit telling him it's the right thing to do.
  • The episode where Kelly actually turns down a guy and he responds "put out or get out" resulting in her walking home. After a series of events Kelly manages to steal the guy's car, as he's walking home, he happens across Bud, and complains about what happened to him. Bud gives him a consoling "bros-before-hos" type hug, before he reveals he's coming home from a date where he just caught chicken pox, says he's Kelly's brother, and coughs on the guy.
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