Season 9 Episode 2: Driving Mr. Boondy

September 11, 1994

Published 09/11/94

Bud wants money for a road trip and Al refuses to provide it, delivering a lecture on the value of hard work instead. Al then discovers that his own affairs are not in order, because Peg has been handling the paperwork while she has been away, and among the things she has not handled is his driving licence, which has been suspended. To get it back he has to sit the test again. The examiner assigned to him is Bud, who has taken a job at the licensing office and has been waiting for precisely this opportunity. The test itself is the episode, and the scene in the car park afterwards is the best thing in it: Al, having performed badly and knowing it, explains to his son in detail what life will be like if the licence is not restored, since without a licence he cannot drive, without driving he cannot work, and without work he will be at home permanently, in his underwear, clipping his toenails, when Bud brings dates round. Bud’s identification of the specific underwear in question is the punchline. Elsewhere Kelly loses the Verminator job after asking to be treated better, and takes work standing in a bank window in a bikini holding a sign about interest rates. It is one of the better Al and Bud episodes of the late run, because for once Bud holds all the power and Al has to negotiate rather than bully. Kelly’s half of the episode, meanwhile, moves her from one humiliating job to another without anyone in the family noticing either.

Episode Facts

Original air date: September 11, 1994
Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 2
Overall episode number: 185
Written by: Donald Beck
Directed by: Gerry Cohen
Production note: Katey Sagal’s first on-camera appearance of the season after the birth of her daughter, though Peg is still away and is only seen from the chest up beside a telephone.
Production note: Kelly states that she is twenty-three.
Title note: A play on Driving Miss Daisy, crossed with the licensing clerk’s pronunciation of Al’s surname.