The woman who protested against the show

[ThomasE]

For those of you who watched the story and maybye heard of this in the past. I would like to know your comments about the woman who tried to protest against the show airing an episode about Al and Peg spending a weekend in a motel and they find out that the business has been secretly taping other people having sex. The other ep was when Al and Steve were shopping and Al was trying to find a bra for Peg. There was a topless manican(excuse the mispelling)with little things to cover her. I personally give a thumbs up to the lady for being courageous to attempt to do what she did.

I like Married with Children too, but I felt some things went too far at times. I work with kids and get concerened with them being exposed to some things. Now the producer and cast did have a good point. "If you have a problem, turn it off"(TV)

[Will and Grace Fanatic]

I heard about this woman long ago. But they did show the e true hollywood story and the woman actually said that she wishes they would have thanked her for getting them so much exposure and helping the ratings increase. God what's up her butt.

[douglasjc]

The Lady from Michigan who protested the show looked to me as just another wealthy, country club woman with just to much time on her hands. I watched the E-Hollywood true story which had her appear on the show. Her house looks like something out of town and country and behavior demonstrated that same stuck up attitude.

[rial]

Her name was Terry Rakolta. It all began when she saw ep. 3-06 "Her Cups Runneth Over" (that was the one with Al and Steve shopping at Oconomowoc) and was shocked by it. Her fight was not very successful (she didn't get the show cancelled), although it did make the front page in NY Times, and caused FOX not to air the episode "I'll see you in court", (the one with the motel) which was scheduled for 2 weeks later.

BTW, that episode was not aired in the US until June 18 2002 - over 13 years later.

[TMC]

I'm bumping this since Peggy Charren (founder of ACT) has passed away. She was basically to Saturday morning cartoons/the animation industry/children's television what Terry Rakolta was to Married with Children.

http://pantagraph.newspapers.com/newspage/72566818/

She had one brief conversation with Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, who did not welcome her participation. "I do not agree with her goals," Charren says. "ACT doesn't believe that closing down options for viewers of any age is the way to proceed. We are pro-choice in programming."

[robyrob]

no disrespect intended to someone that has recently passed, but I fail to see how taking away Saturday morning cartoons has made the following generations of children any better for it - now they can just go watch porn and violence on the internet any time they want, without the foundational insulating good messages that could have been implanted in their brains in the form of cartoons.

[tlc38tlc38]

Originally Posted by robyrob

no disrespect intended to someone that has recently passed, but I fail to see how taking away Saturday morning cartoons has made the following generations of children any better for it - now they can just go watch porn and violence on the internet any time they want, without the foundational insulating good messages that could have been implanted in their brains in the form of cartoons.

Cartoons, for me, was a way of expressing creativity. I may be in the minority on this but that is just the way I feel about it. I always enjoyed watching "TMNT", "Garfield and Friends", "Gummi Bears", "Smurfs"...etc., when they aired when I was a child...and I still enjoy watching them.

[TMC]

In the bigger shape of things, Terry Rakolta was really wasting her time with her protests. I mean, if she found the show to be objectionable, then fine, she had every right to not like it. Nobody was forcing her to watch Married...with Children.

Basically, in Terry Rakolta's mind, she felt that since she personally didn't like it, nobody else should have the right to watch it either. In effect, she's the type of person who feels the world should conform to her standards and her standards alone. Apparently, Rakolta was asked on some talk show about why she couldn't just change the channel, and she retorted by saying "I shouldn't have to do that."

And if she didn't want her kids to watch it, then she shouldn't let them. Not to get too much on a soap box, but why do certain parents think that television networks should hold the responsibility of babysitting their children?

And of course, the irony is that MWC, which was more of a cult show at the time on the little bitty Fox network, exploded into the mainstream and became a bona fide hit once she began to publicize it.

[GentlemanJim]

Originally Posted by ThomasE

I like Married with Children too, but I felt some things went too far at times. I work with kids and get concerened with them being exposed to some things. Now the producer and cast did have a good point. "If you have a problem, turn it off"(TV)

I think that our society has some weird priorities.

It's okay to show someone's guts splattered all across the screen, or show a group of toothless swamp people harassing wildlife......but let one nipple show and it's time for another inquisition?
Seems a little odd.

I've often felt that much of the priority given censorship stems mostly from feelings of personal inadequacy on the parts of the people claiming to be "offended".

[GentlemanJim]

[sarcasm] Of course I guess if you allow the beach bunnies to bare all, it's only a matter of time until the 50 year old 350 pounders start demanding "equal time" [/sarcasm] **shudders**

[TMC]

Now that I think about it, and again not to get too political, but Terry Rakolta really strikes me as a "Karen" before that sort of thing was even pejorative. What's funny is that Marcy around the time that she married Jefferson and her relationship with Al became more antagonistic, could've been looked at as a "Karen".

[TMC]

Terry Rakolta was prompted to write to the sponsors of Married… with Children after her children watched the episode Her Cups Runneth Over on January 15.

3 members of No Ma'am got together to bring you the Married with Children Podcast! Every Friday, is a new episode live from the nudie bar! Your hosts Al, Jerry.

Al must go to a far-off lingerie outlet store to buy a discontinued brassiere for Peggy.

February 1990: MWC PM Magazine feature on FOX's first show to win its timeslot.

Short news clip from the Ten O'Clock News in early 1989, about Terry Rakolta's crusade on "sex on television" and Married with Children in particular.

FOX: "Ratings are up!"

Last few minutes (the rest was taped over by an episode of Star Trek) of an April 6, 1989 edition of Donahue in which the primary guest was Terry Rakolta, a Bloomfield Hills resident who garnered attention earlier in the year when she wrote sponsors complaining about early FOX sitcom "Married...with Children" (specifically the episode "Her Cups Runneth Over") and disputing why they were sponsoring what she considered to be very family-unfriendly entertainment (the plot involving Al Bundy and friend Steve Rhoades go to a lingerie store looking for a particular, recently discontinued bra that was a favorite of Peggy Bundy). The campaign garnered national attention; with several sponsors dropping their sponsorship, FOX moving the show from 8:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and not airing an episode titled "I'll See You in Court" (that episode would never air during MWC's original run in the U.S., not airing until June 2002 as part of FX's broadcasts of MWC reruns, and even that airing had a handful of lines cut); though in the long run Married...with Children wasn't hurt much, as ratings sharply increased during the remainder of the 1988-89 season as viewers wondered what the fuss was about (sometimes called the "Streisand effect"; in the interview Rakolta would concede that point, jokingly saying she wished the producers would send her a fruit basket) and would run until the 1996-97 season (its 11th). Joining Rakolta is Richard Hirsch, the U.S. Catholic Conference's director of the Office of Film and Broadcasting.

Notably; it seems that most of the audience interviewed in the short snippet and who called in seemed to be, if not in full agreement, at least sympathetic to Rakolta's views, as does surprisingly the normally more liberal Phil Donahue himself (noticed that with the other Donahue clip from December 1994 that I uploaded in 2017 that it seemed like he was siding with those {both on the left and right as evidenced by the guests that day being Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan} skeptical if not opposed to the GATT treaty then being debated in the Senate) when - shortly before the final commercial break - he challenged a caller's claim that Rakolta's protest amounted to blackballing (though one female caller's comment praising the Cosby Show as a family-friendly series aged very badly in light of Bill Cosby's off-screen actions being exposed over the last several years).

As an aside; Rakolta has a lot of political connections in her family (her husband John was Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates during the second half of the Trump administration; her sister Ronna ran unsuccessfully as the Republican nominee for the Senate in 1996 {losing to incumbent Democrat Carl Levin} and was married for a time to Scott Romney {son of former Michigan Governor and former American Motors CEO George; brother of former Massachusetts Governor, Bain Capital co-founder, 2012 Republican nominee for President and current Senator from Utah Mitt}. That marriage also makes Terry Rakolta the aunt of current Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel).

[TMC]

Before Terry Rakolta tried to squash the show, Married...with Children ranked in 111th place in the Nielsen ratings. But shortly after she saw the "Her Cups Runneth Over" episode and she launched her boycott campaign, MWC rose to 63rd place.