Description: The story that unfolded of the Louds, who at the outset of the series seemed to epitomize the American dream, showed a married couple on the verge of divorce and children, ranging from 14 to 20 years old, in high and low moments. The "toothpaste-bright affluence, California-style" family, as described in 1973 in The New York Times, turned out to be "comfortably ordinary, sadly familiar, the kind of family most white middle-class Americans can identify with."