Season 3 Episode 19: The Dateless Amigo

May 7, 1989

Published 05/07/89

Al has invented Shoe Lights and needs someone to test them, which is how Kelly becomes a guinea pig. Bud’s problem is separate and more acute: he has told his friends he can produce a girl, and cannot, so he borrows a department store mannequin and presents it as his date. Kelly supplied the idea, on the reasoning that mannequins are accustomed to being undressed by boys who will not get anywhere.

The mannequin is one of the series’ better running humiliations and it did not stop here, season seven’s “What I Did for Love” returns to the same territory with Bud and an inflatable companion, and the inflatable doll turns up again in season ten. The joke works because Bud commits so completely; the mannequin gets a name, a seat and an evening.

Al’s side of the episode produces one of the bleakest statistics in the series. He has introduced the highest-earning shoe salesman at the annual ceremony for seven consecutive years, a duty that falls to him because he is the lowest earner, which means the show has quietly established that Al Bundy has been the worst salesman in his profession’s regional league for seven years running.

Steve contributes a characteristic invention of his own: a ninety-nine-cent coin, conceived to solve the problem of prices ending in .99, which Al points out does not account for sales tax. Marcy implies the Treasury Department’s response to Steve’s insistence that his own face appear on it has been five consecutive audits. Steve had previously tried to abolish the penny in season one. This is the final appearance of Bud’s friend Teddy, the only one for Boz, and the last reference to their group, The Three Amigos.