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An American Family is an American television documentary filmed from May 30 through December 31, 1971 and first aired in the United States on PBS in early 1973. The show was 12 episodes long, edited down from about 300 hours of footage, and chronicled the experiences of a nuclear family, the Louds of Santa Barbara, California, during a period of time when parents Bill and Pat Loud separated and Pat filed for divorce. They had married in 1950. The Louds complained at the time, after the documentary had been finally edited into a product, that it emphasized the negative aspects of the family and its relationships.