Season 11 Episode 21: Damn Bundys

April 28, 1997

Published 04/28/97

Al sells his soul for a football career, and the series builds its only visual-effects showcase around it. Lucifer, played by Robert Englund in one of his rare straight comic turns, offers him a place with the Chicago Bears and a run to the Super Bowl in exchange for the usual consideration, and Al accepts without hesitation or negotiation. Curtis Conway, Erik Kramer and Raymont Harris appear as themselves, which means the fantasy is staged with the actual 1996 Bears, and James Brown turns up to interview Al on the field before kickoff.

That interview is the best scene in the episode. Asked how he achieved a miraculous Cinderella season, Al answers honestly: he sold his soul, and Brown, without missing a beat, translates it as dedication for the viewers at home and signs off with an exhortation about putting your soul into things. Al is killed during the game, having refused to quit once the deal’s terms were satisfied, and Lucifer takes delivery.

Hell turns out to be a problem for Lucifer rather than for Al. The itinerary of eternal torments is presented game-show style: a millennium of eating the most hideous food known to man, which is Weenie Tots, which Al loves; then the news that he will never see his family again, which reduces him to grateful tears and an embrace. His entire family is already down there, and after three hundred years the arrangement is indistinguishable from the one he left. The D’Arcys, by Al’s count, have visited 7,916,042 times.

Episode Facts

Original air date: Monday, April 28, 1997 on FOX
Season 11, Episode 21
Overall episode 259 of the series
Taped February 21, 1997; production code 11.20
Written by Ben Montanio and Vince Cheung
Directed by Richard Correll
The title plays on the 1955 musical Damn Yankees
The only episode of the series to use CGI, and the only one taped without a live audience