For more than a few of us, the holidays leave us swearing off family get-togethers altogether. Petty fights, backhanded compliments, drunk uncles –- sadly these negative aspects are all too common. However, chances are your family isn’t nearly as messed up as some of the fictional families that have graced the TV screen over the years. Below are ten TV families that are (hopefully) more dysfunctional than your own.
10 The Simpsons
When the head of the household is Homer Simpson, you just know you’ve got one screwed up family on your hands. His less-than-ideal parenting skills involve punishment via choking, skipping the school recital to get drunk and switching jobs pretty much every five minutes. Of course, then there’s Bart –- the little underachiever –- and Lisa -– the neurotic vegetarian. Marge tries to keep it all together, but shows deep-seeded signs of depression. And then there’s Maggie, a little girl who’s been sucking on a pacifier for the past 20 years.
9 The Pritchetts – Modern Family
The Pritchetts are a modern conglomerate of dysfunction. Skim through the family tree and you’ll find a pair of gay lovers, an adopted Asian baby, a Colombian trophy wife decades younger than her husband, an anal-retentive mother, a criminally unhip father and a clutch of kids with their own sets of problems. However, like most dysfunctional families on this list, all that in-fighting and anger is surrounded by a warm outer shell of actual love and affection.
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8 The Addams Family
The morbid affectations of the Addams Family make them one of the most unique families ever to be placed on TV. Scattered around the Addams household, you’ll find flesh-eating plants, a pet octopus and a disembodied hand that is considered part of the family. Gomez and Morticia run the family with more than a few quirks (Morticia lights candles with her fingertips). Wednesday and Pugsley are transfixed on deadly hobbies such as raising black widows. Rounding out the family are extended members such as Uncle Fester and Cousin Itt.
7 The Connors – Roseanne
The Connors are about as close to a real dysfunctional family as TV gets. Frequent shouting matches intertwined with close-knit family interactions to create a wholly realistic family that many of us could relate to. Still, it’s hard to deny that Dan’s affair, Jackie’s clingy nature and the live-in situation of Darlene’s boyfriend didn’t smack of dysfunction. Of course, at the center of it all was the big beast herself –- Roseanne –- screaming at the top of her lungs to keep them all in line.
6 The Fishers – Six Feet Under
Just because your dad’s dead doesn’t mean you can’t have a heart-to-heart conversation with him. At least, such is the case for the Fisher family –- a widow and her three kids who live in a funeral home. Despite having ‘passed on’ the father makes frequent occurrences throughout the show (though likely as an inner hallucination). Young David is a gay-hating homosexual, Nate can’t keep a relationship together and Claire gets caught is a girl who tries to find herself through drugs. Put it all together and you’ve got a family several generations removed from that of the lovey-dovey Brady Bunch.
5 The Griffins – Family Guy
Let’s see –- there’s Peter the imbecile, Lois the recovering meth addict, Chris the idiot son, and Meg the punching bag. Then, there’s Stewie, the megalomaniac baby who also displays homosexual tendencies. Finally, there Brian, a talking dog who secretly wants to hump his best friend’s human wife. Extended family members such as the uber-religious Francis Griffin and racist Carter Pewterschmidt only serve to multiply the dysfunction.
4 The Cartmans – South Park
Though the Cartman family consists of only two members, it’s safe to say they’re more effed up than any family you’ve ever met. With a rap sheet that includes injecting his friend Kenny with AIDs, holding an anti-ginger rally and feeding Scott Tenorman’s parents to him, there’s no doubt that Eric Cartman is one awful little fat kid. Of course, much of his terribleness derives from the poor parenting skills of his mother Liane. From signing him up for the Special Olympics to stuffing his face full of Cheesy Poofs, she’s spoiled that kid rotten.
3 The Bluths – Arrested Development
When you’re part of the Bluth family, a typical day might include finding a dead dove in your refrigerator, walking in on your uncle while he is trying to “blue himself,” watching your married mother hit on another man and wondering whether or not your two cousins are going to make out or not. From GOB the failing magician and Buster the middle-aged mama’s boy to muscle-bound George Michael and escaped convict George Sr., there’s enough dysfunction in this family to fill an entire complex of poorly built model homes.
2 The Botwins – Weeds
There is nothing all that dysfunctional about running a family business. That is, unless that family business is selling drugs. Nancy Botwin is a widowed mother who has slept with everyone from a married police officer to a Mexican drug lord. The older son Silas takes pride in inventing new strains of marijuana and has sex with MILFs. The younger son loses his virginity in a threesome and is a cold-blooded killer. Uncle Andy rounds out the crew as a burnout chef who gives his nephews jerk off advice. Whether living in Agrestic or on the run in a mobile home, there’s certainly nothing normal about this family of felonious Californians.
1 The Bundys – Married…With Children
The Bundy curse states, “They will fail at everything they try.” Take a brief look at the Bundy family, and it’s easy to say this curse is pretty accurate. Al is a life-loathing shoe salesman who does anything to get out of sleeping with his wife. Peggy is a stay-on-couch mom who refuses to work or parent her kids. Kelly is a slutty blonde who can’t even correctly pronounce the word “dog.” Bud is a sex-deprived skeeze-ball who perpetually fails in the goal of getting laid. As the first prime-time sitcom to be produced by FOX, the Bundys paved the way for a whole lot of FOX dysfunction down to the line.