Terry Rakolta's Fight
against Married... with Children
Last update September 4, 2002
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On January 15, 1989, Terry Rakolta and her children watched the Married... with Children
episode "Her Cups Runneth over" (306). She was shocked by several things she
saw when Al and Steve were shopping at a lingerie store in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. There was a homosexual,
a man in stockings and a woman who took off her bra (see the picture of topless Playboy Miss June 1985
Devin Velasquez playing "Vicki" at the bottom). Therefore she wrote letters
to all Married... with Children sponsors, protesting against their support for such a scandalous show,
and several sponsors decided to cancel their commercials. This encouraged Terry Rakolta to leave her
home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to visit some talkshows. On March 2, 1989, this story made
it to the front page of The New York Times. Other newspapers and TV shows also reported about
her campaign against the show. Finally Rakolta even founded the group "Americans for Responsible Television"
to fight for traditional values on US TV. However, this publicity made the people curious about the
show and its ratings increased tremendously. The producers have sent a fruit basket to Rakolta every
Christmas since then, and she was even mentioned twice on the show: we can hear a TV announcer refer to Bloomfield
Hills, Michigan, in episode 414 (talking about sluts!), and Marcy mentions Rakolta as "woman from Michigan" in
episode 909. Hustler magazine made her "Asshole of the Month".
However, a 1989 show called "I'll See You in Court" (308) wasn't sold to Fox as it was too crass for them
during Rakolta's crusade. It is now known as "The Lost Show". Outside the US
it was broadcasted many times as there is actually no notable difference to other episodes. The US premiere
on FX, a Fox rerun channel, didn't take place before June 18, 2002 - 13 years, 5 months and 12 days after the
taping of this episode. However, FX cut out four lines, so this episode still hasn't aired unedited in The US.
Its world premiere is unknown. Finally, Married... with Children was moved from 8:30 pm to a 9 pm time slot
for the season after the crusade.
In other countries, there are even completely nude people in sitcoms. These societies are not more
degenerated than the American one. In addition, Rakolta seems to have misunderstood Al und Steve's
discussion about being gay. They make clear not being gay. Al is even disgusted by a "queen" and an old
ladies' stockings fetishist in the store. The show has no problems with gay people, though. Many other gay
characters appear in several episodes (e.g. in 304, 306, 310, 312, 321, 421, 505, 522, 716, 1008, 1108,
1113 and 1122, plus the Village People in 807).
In the name of the whole Bundy fan community, I'd like to thank Mrs Terry Rakolta for her successful
public relations campaign for the show. :-)
You can read several articles about Rakolta's fight at Bundyolgoy:
The New York Times
The Economist
National Catholic Reporter
Thanks a lot to Carolyn Crapo, StuartM and "Grail".
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© Andreas Carl 2002