When Fox celebrated the 25th anniversary of the network's run last spring (though it actually started the previous fall of '86 when the late night show, "The Late Show starring Joan Rivers", went on the air), it started its line-up that night with the very first episode of the very first show shown on its prime-time schedule: "Married...with Children". It started with budding young teen Bud Bundy (David Faustino) play-threatening his older teen sis, Kelly (Christina Applegate), with, presumably, a play-knife before their mom, Peg (Katey Sagal), tells them to knock it off and they leave the house. The father, Al (Ed O'Neill), comes down downstairs with a bandaged hand. It seems he pricked it on a cactus that the alarm clock would usually be. We then find out Peg is a housewife while Al works at a women's shoe store. And that they meet the newlywed neighbors, Steve and Marcy Rhodes (David Garrison and Amanda Bearse) for the first time later on...Quite a bit of biting lines concerning marriage and the responsibility that entails abound but said with the understanding that their bark is worse than their bite. In other words, not to be taken seriously. Not much of the raunch that would mark the series later on, certainly not the kind that would cause a housewife named Terry Rakolta (who I just found out is the sister-in-law of current presidential candidate Mitt Romney) to later threaten a wide boycott of certain products advertising on the show with the resulting publicity of bigger ratings for it. Still, this marked the beginning of the edge Fox had over the other networks in providing something different than what the Big 3 had on at the time and that momentum carries it to this day. So on that note, Happy 25th, Fox!