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Love And Marriage aired from September until October 1998 on FOX.
April ( Patricia Healy) worked nights as a waitress at the trendy New York restaurant Grill on the Park, and her husband Jack ( Anthony Denison) ran Drake's Parking Garage during the day in this failed comedy that only aired twice before it was canceled. High School sweethearts who still loved each other after 17 years of marriage, they struggled to support their family and find time to see each other, clinking champagne glasses on the fire escape outside their apartment when they had a few minutes together.
The 3 Nardini kids were Christopher ( Adam Zolotin), the would-be tough guy with a penchant for cutting classes; Gemmy ( Alicia Bergman), the rebellious teen into outlandish fashions, dyed hair, and body piercing; and Michael ( Erik Palladino), working 5 part-time jobs, while in his first year in junior college in the hope of getting enough money together to move out. Their new neighbors, the Beggs, provided quite a contrast. Trudy ( Meagan Fay) didn't work, was obsessive about housework and was smotheringly over-protective of her son, Max ( Adam Wylie). Her husband Louis ( Michael Mantell) rounded out the cast.
A Review from Variety
Love and Marriage
By TONY SCOTT
Cast: Patricia Healy, Tony Denison, Adam Zolotin, Alicia Bergman, Erik Palladino, Meagen Fay, Adam Wylie, Michael Mantell.
Taped at Culver Studios by Dorothy Parker Drank Here Prods. and TriStar TV. Exec producer-creator-writer, Amy Sherman; supervising producer, Elaine Arata; producers, Patricia Fass Palmer, Mike Martineau; director, Gail Mancuso; Good vibes, good writing and good people with smart things to say brighten up Fox's corner as Patricia Healy and Tony Denison limn April and Jack Nardini, loving, married New York working couple with three kids they accept as normal. Sharply written by creator Amy Sherman, directed expertly by Gail Mancuso, the Nardinis are people worth visiting.
April works night as a waitress in a posh Manhattan eatery, and Jack runs a parking garage during the day. Instead of groaning about the tough schedules, they make the most of their 15-minute beer break out on the fire escape; it's nice to see aware people in love. And to see the fire escape back in good esteem.
They deal with their kids like they're real. For the first episode, hard-working Michael (Erik Palladino), 17, appears only in flashes; Gemmy (Alicia Bergman), 16, who dyes her hair various greens and lives a pierce-and-be-pierced existence, is their loved daughter; Christopher (Adam Zolotin), 11, is into ditching school.
He may be foiled, since the Beggs, new neighbors from New Rochelle, have innocent son Max (Adam Wylie), 11. His proper, overwhelming, homemaking mom, Trudy (Meagan Fay), offers to walk the two boys to school. Her restrained hubby, Louis (Michael Mantell), hopelessly overcome by his exuberant wife, settles into chamber music.
Healy and Denison hit the target every time. They're a struggling, happily married couple and show it. The kids are a kick, and Fay's Trudy helps the new comedy swim along as it exudes joy, not cynicism, charm, not snideness. As April decides after the first act, "Oh, yeah, this is fun!"
A Review From The Washington Post
'Love and Marriage'
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 28, 1996
The new season is littered with working couples struggling to bring home the bacon and put bread on the table, and the nattering Nardinis of Fox's "Love and Marriage" are among the least amusing.
Patricia Healy and Tony Denison star as April and Jack, a waitress and parking garage manager who've been married 17 years, have three kids and are trying to raise them in a cramped New York apartment. In the premiere, at 9:30 tonight on Channel 5, one can see there's lots of love in the family, but not much intelligence.
It's endearing that she brings home leftovers in the traditional swan-shaped aluminum foil wrappers, and kind of cute when wife and hubby drink beer out of champagne glasses. But the series seems as crowded as the apartment; it's a moving target that never settles down and finds a personality.
Obviously this is from the "creative" team that whipped up "Married . . . With Children." It even features a Frank Sinatra song -- not "Love and Marriage," already used on "Married," but rather "Come Fly With Me," which was the series's original title.
Of the kids, 11-year-old Christopher has been skipping school again, 16-year-old Gemmy keeps changing hair colors and having body parts pierced, and 17-year-old Michael works at several part-time jobs. According to Fox, he does this "in hopes of achieving his goal: to make enough money to move out." Healy and Denison try hard, but getting out seems like a good goal for a viewer, too.
In a lovey-dovey mood, Jack refers to April as "the only proof I've found on this Earth that there is a God." Whoa! What's the matter with this guy? Hasn't he ever seen a tree, a flower, a penguin or Jenny McCarthy?
© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
A Review From Entertainment Weekly
Fox may have found the perfect companion piece for Married... With Children in LOVE AND MARRIAGE (Fox, Oct. 12, 9:30-10 p.m.). It's only about nine years too late. Since 1987, the network has searched for a sitcom with the touch of crass to hold on to Married's audience. Contenders came and went -- among them, Herman's Head, Daddy Dearest, Wild Oats, and Misery Loves Company. Now Fox has stumbled onto a compatible show -- it's also about a bickering working-class couple (Crime Story vet Tony Denison and Patricia Healy) with a trampy daughter (Alicia Bergman). And like Married, Love seems to think the words penis and vagina are inherently hilarious. Love even stole Married's theme song as its title (Love was originally named after another Sinatra tune, ''Come Fly With Me''). Unfortunately for Love, however, Married will probably only be alive for one more season, now that Fox has buried it in the Saturday-night graveyard.
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