With Children,” which ran for an impressive 258 episodes in 11 seasons, from 1987 to 1997, hasn’t yet been brought back in the reboot mania. A 1989 article in the Chicago Tribune claimed Peg was “such a hopeless homemaker she makes Roseanne Barr look like Betty Crocker” - although in these twisted times we’re living in, Peg just might start looking like the comparative domestic goddess. “The Simpsons,” of course, is still trundling along and breaking records, and “Roseanne” was recently revived, although its star was fired after her much-publicized racism on Twitter. With Children,” along with its channel sibling “The Simpsons” and ABC’s “Roseanne,” became part of a new wave of shows tackling the working-class nuclear family and its discontents with caustic humor in the late 1980s through the 1990s.
A signature program of the then-fledgling Fox network, “Married. Few characters defined the sitcom archetype of the bad mother quite like Peg Bundy.
