One Night Only, FOX Brings Back 'Married...With Children'

Through the years, FOX has gained a deserved reputation for sometimes backing the wrong pony. Though some execs should forever be haunted by some bad decisions, there's at least a sense of appreciation for the ones that worked out.

That's why, with FOX now celebrating its 25th year on the air for better and for worse, the network is honoring its legacy with a one-night-only return of the Bundy family. Right beside the 500th first-run episode of "The Simpsons" on April 22, the network will air in prime time at 7 PM ET/PT for the first time in nearly two decades the 1987 pilot of "Married...with Children", the dysfunctional family sitcom that made stars of Katey Sagal, Christina Applegate and maybe most importantly, Ed O'Neill.

In an odd bite of entertainment irony, though O'Neill made long-suffering Bundy family patriarch Al a prime time icon over 11 seasons between 1987 and 1998, FOX actually passed on developing another series years later that would've also starred the curmudgeonly actor: "Modern Family".

It's a fitting tribute. The caustic, dysfunctional, often raunchy Bundys were the kind of American family in the mold of the Bunkers of "All in the Family" or the Conner's of "Roseanne" that, though very much a mirror, other prime time lineups just didn't often touch. Then again, so were the Simpsons. Yet for years, there the two sat at FOX's Sunday-night table.

No Bundys? No Simpsons? No "Family Guy". No "Raising Hope". No "Futurama". And let's even go ahead and admit it: very possibly, no "Modern Family".