Bud’s Episode Vault
Season 2 Episode 15: Build a Better Mousetrap
A mouse gets into the house, which means confronting Peggy’s childhood fear of mice and watching Al dismantle his own home trying to catch it. The mouse is never in danger. Bud’s goldfish, it later emerges, was not so lucky.
Season 2 Episode 14: Guys and Dolls
Al and Steve sell Marcy’s twenty-year-old boxed Barbie to fund a baseball card collection, and then have to get it back after the shop is robbed. The search takes them through downtown Chicago — and across the exterior set of another show filming on the same lot.
Season 2 Episode 13: You Better Watch Out
The series’ first Christmas episode opens with a content warning. A parachuting mall Santa lands fatally in the Bundys’ back yard on Christmas Eve, and the neighborhood children start arriving with questions. David Faustino has called it one of his favorites.
Season 2 Episode 12: Earth Angel
Bud brings home an aspiring artist on her way to art school, and the whole household takes to her. Marcy does not, because the attention she gets is attention Marcy is used to having. It is also where Al establishes that Thursday is his bowling night.
Season 2 Episode 11: How Do You Spell Revenge?
Al, Peggy and Bud play for a mall softball team that keeps losing, so Al tells his wife to improve or get off the roster. Kelly, meanwhile, is trying to get a tattoo. The N on Al’s jersey is sewn on backwards, and nobody ever fixed it.
Season 2 Episode 10: The Razor’s Edge
Steve returns from a rafting trip with a beard and refuses to shave it, which ends with him moving in next door. Al is delighted to have a houseguest who cooks. It is also the first episode directed by Gerry Cohen, who went on to direct more of the series than anyone.
Season 2 Episode 9: Alley of the Dolls
Peggy’s high school rival challenges the family to a bowling match, and Steve agrees to bowl as a Bundy, which should settle it. Then it emerges that Bud spent his lesson money. It is the first outing for the “Whoa, Bundy!” cheer.
Season 2 Episode 8: Born to Walk
Al fails the written driving test on the day Kelly passes hers, which leaves him stranded at home and unable to reach the racetrack. He gets one day off a week, so losing it costs more than the bet does.
Season 2 Episode 7: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Al will not pay for a call to Canada, so the phone company cuts off the house. Meanwhile a new neighborhood crime light shines directly into his face at night. Kelly’s whistle down the phone line ended up in the show’s syndicated opening credits.
Season 2 Episode 5: Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Part 1
Peggy takes Marcy out with the girls to a strip club, and Marcy enjoys it rather more than she will admit. Al and Steve are occupied by the repairwoman fixing the Bundy refrigerator. It was not written as a two-parter — the first draft was one episode.