Season 3 Episode 1: He Thought He Could

November 6, 1988

Published 11/06/88

Al finds a library book that was due in 1957, which means returning it, which means going back to the library and facing the librarian he has been frightened of since childhood. That is the entire premise, and it is one of the best the series ever built, a man in his forties genuinely afraid of a woman behind a desk, over a copy of The Little Engine That Could that is thirty-one years overdue.

The episode works because it takes the fear seriously. Flashbacks show young Al, played by Edan Gross, who had been one of the neighbourhood children in season two’s Christmas episode, and the librarian is presented as a genuine monster rather than a comic one. The title does the rest of the work: the book Al could not finish as a child is about persistence, and the joke is that Al Bundy is the one engine that could not.

The half-hour also inventories Al’s trophies, which is as close as the series came to a résumé: MVP in Pop Warner football, All Star Little League short stop, All City football, a participation award for co-ed softball, and Rookie Shoe Salesman of the Year 1968. The last one is the only item on the list from his adult life.

This is the first episode to put footage of the cast behind their names in the opening titles rather than a black background, and the couch gag was revised with new clothes and visibly older children. Bud arrives with a deeper voice and the mullet he kept for the whole season, and Marcy’s hair is noticeably lighter. The closing credits carry a licensing note, “‘The Little Engine That Could’ Used by Permission of Grosset & Dunlap”, which is the only time the series had to clear a book.