The family hates her so much they generally stop their infighting whenever she comes around in order to focus on getting her to leave. Every Christmas, she buys the presents for the family that they all wanted just so she can not send them, making Francis consider her to be insane. She is obsessed with 'the old country', which seems to be some lawless part of Eastern Europe, and once tries to make Reese marry a foreign girl after going through trials, one of which was beating up Malcolm, whom she has a low opinion of because she is anti-intellectual. Lois' mother Ida is a racist, small-minded, controlling lunatic who constantly belittles her daughters and holds lifelong grudges for petty offenses against nearly everyone in the family.When left alone with the kids, Hal's constant attempts to make Lois' night a peaceful one get him in a state of paranoia in which he wavers all the way between being a good dad and a horrible troll.It should be no surprise that his first words to her were 'You shut up!' Of her bad relationship with Francis, she claims 'he started it', because of a time he ignored her when he was a newborn. When Dewey was scared of letting go of the rope swing into the lake while the family was on vacation, Lois just threw rocks at him in order to get him to come down to dinner - and that's not even getting into some of the stories Francis tells. Lois's only methods of parenting involve punishment and belittlement, with a side of Financial Abuse.Various Krelboynes end up joining other cliques, such as the goths, skaters, jocks, and so on, until the whole student body is divided against itself because it no longer has the unifying factor of their jealousy/hatred towards the Krelboynes to unite them. Absurdly Divided School: In 'Cliques', the Krelboynes end up being split among the general student population after an unauthorized science experiment causes the Krelboyne facilities to be temporarily condemned for decontamination.

Malcolm would also frequently break the fourth wall by giving an Aside Comment to the audience to explain various plot points or his thoughts on whatever was happening, though this became less frequent as time went on. His parents include emotionally-immature father Hal and overbearing and perpetually-stressed mother Lois, against whom most stories involve the kids doing battle. Their behavior has rubbed off on Malcolm himself, and a newborn, Jamie, was born later in the show's run ( with hints he may become the most conniving of all the kids). The show follows his attempts to keep his head down and get through life despite the social stigma of being 'smart' and the rest of his family: his sociopathic brothers, consisting of oldest brother Francis (who was shipped off to military school and often has his own B-plot in an episode), next oldest brother Reese (dense and violent school bully) and younger brother Dewey (self-sufficient and almost unflappable amidst all the chaos, and possibly even smarter than Malcolm). The titular Malcolm is the frustrated and eternally-perplexed 'middle' child of a middle-class home ( hence the title of the show), who is discovered to have a genius-level IQ. It originally ran from 2000 to 2006, with a total of 151 episodes in seven seasons. with Children and Roseanne, as live-action suburban dysfunctional sitcoms note the animated ones like The Simpsons and Family Guy are still popular, even in the face of Adult Swim's shows and South Park started to wane in popularity, with the likes of Seinfeld and Friends (which focus on wacky characters living in the big city) gaining popularity over them. Malcolm in the Middle is Fox's first live-action Dom Com of the 21st century, which seemingly set out to outdo all existing 'dysfunctional family' sitcoms-and did a pretty good job of it, something that hadn't been done since the days of Married.

Malcolm and eddie