“There’s No Hell Like Home — ‘Married… with Children’ Reenvisioned as Prestige Period Drama” is now on Counter Arts

Could the Bundys be the new Sopranos? “Like Rodney Dangerfield, Married… with Children never got any respect. The ‘vulgar’ American (anti-)domestic sitcom ran 11 seasons from 1987 to 1997, and is the longest-running live-action sitcom ever aired on the Fox network. Despite its popularity, the show never won an Emmy. North Carolina Republican senator Jesse […]Read Post ›

Pleasantville, Revisited

I remember Pleasantville.

Well, not exactly. But when I was a child in the 1980s, Greenfield, Massachusetts seemed close to the faux 1950s sitcom suburban utopia. It’s my father’s hometown–my grandparents had a ranch-style house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Greenfield was a classic small New England town–a mostly “white ethnic” (Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.) hamlet with a local department store, a small movie theater, and a smattering of stores. My grandmother could feel safe giving me and my sister a dollar to get penny candy at the candy shop.

Things are never as innocent as you remembered as a child, but talking to my relatives who were adults at the time, I don’t think my memories are far off.