MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: "THE CAMPING SHOW" (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

MARRIED WITH CHILDREN launched its third season with this fine take on the "war between men and women." True, this season, like the previous two, hasn't yet reached the acidulous depths of the series at its best. The episode includes an opening in which Al actually expresses a desire to have sex with Peg, and she, very atypically, puts him off to assign him chores. Later in the episode, Peg even pays Bud a rare compliment-- stating "He's so cute" when Bud fools Steve with a fake high-five-- while in later seasons, Peg shows almost total indifference to her son's existence.

Steve Darcy starts the comedy ball rolling by suggesting that he and Al go on a fishing trip to a cabin in some nearby woods. But Steve, half a traitor to masculinity, intentionally brings Marcy along, and in no time, Peg, Bud, and Kelly are part of the expedition, messing up what Al hoped to be a masculine retreat from domesticity. In fact, Kelly brings along the ultimate feminine contagion-- and in next to no time, the three women are all "cycling" at the same time, making them both irritable and, in Peg's case, sexually aggressive. This strikes fear in the heart of Al, as he compares her to the black widow spider, wanting to mate before she murders. And Kelly doesn't even need sex to warm up to homicide. After the six of them pass a tense night in the cabin, the two adult males sneak away for some fishing. The three women wake up, and their ire at being left alone, with Bud the only masculine representative, leads Kelly to suggest, "Let's pretend Bud's a man and kill him." And by the way the three ladies surround the sleeping youth, they do seem like Dionysian Maenads, ready to rend him into ribbons.

Now, since scientists have validated synchronized menstruation, that part of the story, even if far-fetched, remains within the domain of the naturalistic. Not so the other factor tormenting Al Bundy: the fact that all the beasts of the forest converge on the cabin. Steve throws in some psuedoscience to justify the phenomenon, but in truth, the script is trying to play the effects of menses as if they made the human women seem to be "in heat," attracting the forest-dwellers with the pure animalism of femininity (including not only a bear and a moose, but even mosquitos). Finally, Al's unable to take being pent up with so much negative female energy-- particularly from the black widow in their midst-- and he makes a desperate attempt to gain access to their car.

Of course, Al gets duly mauled by a bear and barely escapes with his life. But that little sacrifice to Dionysus seems to dispel the female bane, for all three ladies are then cheery again. Steve gets his car savaged by wildlife, and Bud gets punched once by Kelly, but Al's sufferings, as will be the case for most of the series, are what MARRIED WITH CHILDREN most requires. By the end of the show's eleven seasons, Al will have endured more pain and humiliation than did Dagwood Bumstead in his first forty years.