Love and Marriage

Love and Marriage is the opening theme song for Married...With Children. It also serves as the show's closing theme as an instrumental version.

It was written by Sammy Cahn (lyrics) and Jimmy Van Heusen (music), arranged by Nelson Riddle and performed by Frank Sinatra.

History[]

Originally written in 1955 for a televised production of Our Town, a play written by Thorton Wilder, that was starring Sinatra, it would later be recorded twice, for two different record labels with minor differences:

Capitol Records version - The first version recorded and used for Married...With Children. Recorded on August 15, 1955 and used on the "This is Sinatra!" album, its features include

Opening lyrics: "Love and marriage. Love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage."
A crescedoing instrumental bridge (which was later played over the closing credits of Married... with Children.)
The ending of the Capitol version is an instrumental version of "Shave and a Haircut" with a bassoon playing the final two notes solo – a C flat and a B flat. (Traditionally, when played in B♭ major, the last two notes of "Shave and a Haircut" are an A natural and a B flat.)

Reprise Records version - The second version, recorded on October 11, 1965 for the album, "A Man and His Music". Some of the features:

Opening lyrics: "Love and marriage. Love and marriage. They go together like a horse and carriage."
The instrumental bridge is omitted
Sinatra ends the song by saying (not singing) "No, sir."

Removal from the DVD boxset[]

The North American Married...With Children DVD box sets from Season 3 onward do not feature the original "Love and Marriage" theme song in the opening sequence and ending. Instead, it was replaced with a generic instrumental piece.

Despite this, the end credits on the DVDs for season 3 still include a credit for "Love and Marriage".

This was done because Sony Pictures was unable to obtain the rights to the theme song, due to the high cost of licensing the music.

Effect on Season Four Episodes[]

Due to the music being replaced, several episodes on the season 4 DVDs were the "Edited for U.S. syndication" version instead of the originally aired episode. These syndication edits cut out portions of dialogue. According to Bundyology.com, the episodes that were edited include:

"Dead Men Don't Do Aerobics"
"Buck Saves The Day"
"At The Zoo"
"It's a Bundyful Life (Part 2)"
"Rock n' Roll Girl"
"You Gotta Know When to Fold Them, Part 1"
"Peggy Made a Little Lamb"

Effect on the Ending Credits[]

Starting from Season 4, the ending credits are re-edited to remove any reference to "Love and Marriage" or Frank Sinatra. These edits also include:

Using a brightened and sharpened image of Al and Peggy on the couch
The text font is noticeably larger and brighter
The scrolling text moves slower than in the original version
Removal of the lines " 'Love and Marriage' - Music and Lyrics Written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen" in the majority of the episodes
Removal of the lines "Performed by Frank Sinatra - Courtesy of Reprise Records" that typically followed the previous lines.
- These line removals leave a big gap between the "Casting" and "Music Supervisor" section

In addition, the removal of the song and music credits also affected several episodes that originally had extra dialog or different music during the ending credits. Instead, they are simply replaced with a still frame of the original scene and either have "Love and Marriage" play or use the original audio over the still frame. These episodes include:

"Look Who's Barking"
"Oldies but Young' Uns"
"Route 666 (Part 2)"
"Rites of Passage"
"Movie Show"
"Old Insurance Dodge"
"Un-Alful Entry"
"Take My Wife, Please"
"How Green Was My Apple"
"Get Outta Dodge"
"The D'Arcy Files"
"The Legend of Ironhead Hayes"
"Shoeway To Heaven"
"Assault and Batteries"
"Calendar Girl"
"The Joke's on Al"

It is worth noting that the ending credits for a few episodes (besides all of the season 3 episodes) on the Mill Creek DVD release are completely intact with the original credits and/or extra scene and dialog fully intact. They include:

"Dead Men Don't Do Aerobics"
"Buck Saves The Day"
"Who'll Stop The Rain"
"Rain Girl"
"All Night Security Dude"
"Honey I Blew Myself Up"
"Enemies"
"Torch Song Duet"
"Twisted"

In "Kiss of the Coffee Woman", the original dialogue of Al and Marcy forcing themselves to talk in bed after the commercial shoot is cancelled remains intact, but the credits were altered and omit the "Love and Marriage" credits.

Restoration to the re-issued DVD sets[]

In 2013, Mill Creek Entertainment obtained the rights from Sony Pictures to re-release the DVD sets and restored "Love and Marriage" to the opening and ending, as well as using all of the originally aired episodes for season 4 that were affected by the original removal.

As of 2015. all 11 seasons have been re-issued on DVD with "Love and Marriage" intact.

Despite having the original theme and the original season 4 episodes restored, the major issues with the Mill Creek re-issue are:

The opening credits for season 4 onward are slightly out of sync (as the "clank" sound comes noticeably later than in the previous seasons)
The majority of the ending credits are the re-edited version, with only season 3 and a handful of random episodes between season 4 and 10 having the original credits and/or extra dialog from the original version.

Lyrics[]

Love and marriage,
love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell ya, brother,
you can't have one without the other.

Love and marriage,
love and marriage,
It's an institute you can't disparage.
Ask the local gentry
and they will say it's elementary.

Try, try, try to separate them,
it's an illusion.
Try, try, try and you only come...
to this conclusion:

Love and marriage...