Season 6 Episode 8: God’s Shoes
November 3, 1991
Al Bundy receives a religious calling in this one, and it concerns footwear. The episode begins with Peg having commissioned a painting of herself at a cost of twenty-five hundred dollars. Al walks into the bedroom, sees it, sees the price, and the show cues up the actual Bernard Herrmann score from the shower scene in Psycho while he reacts. He then falls out of the bedroom window. When he regains consciousness he informs his children that during the period he was out he was shown something: God’s shoes. Perfect shoes. Shoes with the toes stitched in and the socks already attached. He has been chosen to bring them to the unwashed masses, and he dictates the specifications to Bud and Kelly in biblical cadence from the foot of the stairs. Nobody in the family believes him except Kelly, who mounts a defense of the idea by listing other products people doubted, including the pet rock, the mood ring and NBC’s Sunday night lineup. Jefferson signs on as the business end of the operation and Marcy’s money gets involved, which is never a combination that ends well for Marcy. The venture proceeds as far as a television appearance on a program whose actual purpose Al has not thought carefully enough about, and by the end Al has moved on to his next concept, a combined shoe store and hamburger restaurant he intends to call Shoehorn-o-Plenty. The episode is one of the better showcases for the show’s willingness to let Al have a genuine, sincere delusion rather than a scheme, and the difference matters: he is not trying to con anyone here, he actually believes it, which makes the collapse funnier and slightly sadder than usual.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: November 3, 1991
- Season and episode: Season 6, Episode 8
- Overall episode number: 113
- Written by: Ellen L. Fogle
- Directed by: Gerry Cohen
- Taped: October 18, 1991
- Production note: Katey Sagal does not appear. Peggy’s absence is covered by a line about her having left for Mardi Gras after Al’s accident.
- Production note: The actual Psycho shower cue, “The Murder,” is used when Al sees the painting.
Guest Cast
- Tim Kazurinsky as Sidney Rimhollow
- Larry Jacobson as the TV host
- Brad Blumenthal as Bob (credited as Brad Parker)
- Megan O’Hara as Lola
- June Foray as the voice of Scary Mary
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