Video: Charlie Benante Reminisces About Anthrax’s Appearance on Married… with Children

Married… with Children hold an interesting spot in pop culture history. At the time it was on the air, its riff on All in the Family seemed like a giant gob of spit in the face of the usual touchy-feely suburban family sitcoms of the era — Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House, etc. And it introduced the world to Ed O’Neil, Katey Sagal, and Christina Applegate, which is great (my apologies to David Faustino, whose subsequent career has not been so illustrious). But it hasn’t aged very well. For thing, its then-subversive tone has been done quite a bit more in the decades since, and its portrayals of women and minorities is often, er, problematic. Which is to say nothing of the fact that the writing just generally doesn’t seem all that funny now. It’s not just that it’s sophomoric; it’s that it’s very obvious and predictable and, frankly, dumb.

Having said all that… it was a BIG deal on the season six episode “My Dinner with Anthrax,” which aired in 1992. In the almost thirty years since, metal has made real headway with regards to infiltrating pop culture. It was much less common in the early ’90s. For a thrash band to be on a hit show like Married was a landmark moment.

Now, in a new video meant to promote the upcoming Persistence of Time super-duper-deluxe 30th anniversary reissue, ‘Thrax drummer Charlie Benante revisits said landmark moment. In the clip (below), Benante recalls how the band originally tried to get on The Simpsons, what it was like to be at the first table read for Married episode, meeting Tony Danza, getting in trouble for taking Faustino to see Metallica, and more. Watch:

Meanwhile, if you’ve never seen the episode, you can check that out below. You can get more details on the Persistence of Time reissue and/or place a pre-order here.