Fox’s ‘Married’ Thumbs Nose at Pressure Groups

Here is one area where intense pressure to sanitize television is having no visible effect.

Bitterly attacked in some circles for its sexual content and mockery of traditional family values, Fox Broadcasting’s outrageous comedy “Married . . . With Children” returns for a third season at 9 p.m. Sunday on Channels 11 and 6 with much more of the same kind of material that enraged its critics.

Raunch.

“Married . . . With Children” is about Al and Peg Bundy (Ed O’Neill and Katey Sagal) and their teen-ager daughter, Kelly (Christina Applegate), and son, Bud (David Faustino). It’s also about insults and sex, in this case Peg getting her feelings hurt because she has been ignored by a peeping Tom spying on other women in the neighborhood.

At its best, the series is a very funny, cleverly written put-down of mindlessly cliched sitcoms about family togetherness. At its worst, it approximates spending a half hour with someone picking his nose. But so be it.

In “Married . . . With Children,” Fox is clearly and correctly thumbing its nose at overreacting anti-TV-smut-and-violence crusaders. They range from Terry Rakolta, the Detroit-area woman who translated her opposition to “Married . . . With Children” into a highly publicized lobbying campaign, to sponsor-boycotting Christian Leaders for Responsible Television (CLeaR-TV).

Fox is also resisting the prevailing winds in Congress, where that arbiter of taste, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), has designated “Married . . . With Children” as “trash.” Meanwhile, both houses of Congress have passed ill-advised legislation to encourage the curtailing of depictions of sex and violence on TV. The measures, which still must go to a conference committee for final resolution, would provide the TV industry with a three-year anti-trust exemption to voluntarily set its own standards.

But how voluntarily? The implied message from the Capitol, a chilling one in a society that thrives on freedom of expression: Either you set the limits, or we will.

Or private citizens who seek to impose their views on everyone else will. That’s equally chilling.

The initial success of Rakolta--who gained national fame when getting sponsors to heed her objections to a particular episode of “Married . . . With Children”--led her to establish Americans for Responsible Television. Her one-woman campaign also seemed to give confidence to the Rev. Donald Wildmon and the other leaders of CLeaR-TV, which has called for a year’s boycott of the Mennen Co. and the Clorox Co. for being “among the leading sponsors of sex, violence and profanity” during the ratings sweeps last May.

CLeaR-TV has cited countless shows and series for not meeting its standards but is not specific about the alleged sins of Mennen and Clorox, both of which deny sponsoring offensive programs.

CLeaR-TV creator Wildmon has been a highly critical TV monitor and boycott advocate for years, continually accusing much of TV of undermining family values and Christianity.

In some instances--some subtle, others blatant--he surely has a point. For example, a recent rerun of the old CBS series “The Jeffersons,” now in syndication, was so unfair to fundamentalist Christians that, regardless of your own beliefs, you felt like screaming at the set in protest. The story not only ridiculed a fundamentalist character but also depicted him as routinely corrupt when it came to religion and moral values.

But to take the big jump from criticizing such intermittent excesses to broadly charging (as Wildmon does in a four-page boycott mailer) that network TV is continuing “its attack on our traditional family values and our Judeo-Christian principles” is dangerous and irresponsible.

“Dear fellow Christians and concerned citizens,” Wildmon’s mailer begins. Buried deep in the text, however, is a sentence that perhaps hints at his true agenda: “This is a battle for the hearts and minds of our children.” Indeed it is.

The right of protest and boycott is a given. When you don’t like something, complain or take action. America’s black civil rights movement employed boycotts as a crucially effective strategy, and so have others.

But there is a fundamental difference here. Whereas blacks boycotted buses and merchants in the South to gain or increase access, CLeaR-TV is boycotting to restrict access. Blacks wanted to be seated at lunch counters along with whites, not to replace the menu and limit choices, as CLeaR-TV wants to do with television.

The sponsor boycott is a shrewd, if suspicious move, for advertisers are traditionally the weakest, most timid link in the TV chain. And if Mennen and Clorox are hurt by the boycott, the effects will ripple ominously throughout television. So even though the “Married . . . With Children” sponsors aren’t directly targeted this time, they deserve applause for supporting a controversial series that, whatever its merits, has a substantial audience and deserves access to the airwaves.

“Married . . . With Children” is another example of Fox carving a distinctive niche for itself in TV’s forest of lookalikes. While the big three networks play it safe, even as their competition continues to nibble away at their audiences, Fox is playing it smart by providing programs that are an alternative.

And by doing things differently--such as beginning to dribble out its fall season in advance of ABC, CBS and NBC.

Sunday’s premiere of “Married . . . With Children”--a new episode held from last season--ranges from hilarious to horrific.

Peg is hurt because a neighborhood window-peeper hasn’t “peeped” her. The funniest writing, however, centers on the mentally dense Kelly’s quest to become a high school senior. Peg encourages her to cheat. Bud gives her special tutoring, but her brain is so small that it can accommodate new information only if old information is pushed out.

Meanwhile, everyone ridicules everyone else, and Peg, as always, tries to coax the ever-reluctant Al into bed. “Didn’t we do it last month?” he asks. “Yes,” she replies, “and let’s finish it.”

Boy, do they ever finish it--twice in the house and twice in the back yard (but out of sight)--in next week’s weaker second episode, which has glints of humor, but is mostly just revolting: Al is overcome with passion while watching Peg clean a picnic table in her usual skin-tight pants.

The comedy is broad and the dialogue right out of a Laundromat, which is what makes this series different and why some viewers really like it, which is the point and what this entire discussion is all about.

Freedom of choice and Television . . . With Diversity.

It’s hard to imagine many viewers chosing Fox’s “Open House,” which is last season’s “Duet” with a drastically different look and emphasis. Not drastic enough, however. It premieres at 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

Former supporting character Linda Phillips (Alison LaPlaca) is now the protagonist, still sort of a snot, but now a real estate agent trying to get the edge over her even snottier colleague, Ted Nichols (Philip Charles MacKenzie). LaPlaca is appealing, and MacKenzie, who excelled in Showtime’s “Brothers,” is a faintly amusing comic foil as Ted, who attempts a nasty scam to earn a promotion that Linda is also seeking. However, the story is predictable and hardly funny.

Chris Lemmon returns as Linda’s husband, Richard. Reduced to a bare blip in the plot, though, is former lead character Laura Kelly (Mary Page Keller). And former co-protagonist Ben Coleman (Matthew Laurance), like the low cost of houses, is now only a memory.