Season 3 Episode 4: The Camping Show (aka A Period Piece)

December 11, 1988

Published 12/11/88

A men-only fishing trip, Al, Bud and Steve, falls apart before it starts when Steve invites Marcy, who invites Peggy and Kelly, and the party arrives at the cabin six strong. Then all three women turn out to be menstruating simultaneously, and the episode spends its length in a confined space with the consequences. It is the most notorious half-hour of the third season and one of the boldest things any American sitcom attempted in 1988.

Michael G. Moye said the idea came from a newspaper article about menstrual synchrony among women who spend a lot of time together. FOX’s censors were concerned enough that the episode, originally scheduled as the season premiere, had its air date pushed back: TV Guide covered the delay at the time. By production code it was the first episode of the season filmed and the fourth to air.

What makes it hold up is that the script is not squeamish and not leering. The symptoms are real and specific, cramps, irritability, headaches, mood swings, bloating, and the women are not the butt of it. The men are, particularly Steve, who contributes the claim that wild animals can sense menstruation, a genuine myth that circulated after a 1967 bear attack in Glacier National Park and the alarming official brochure that followed it. Moye took the plot point from an episode of Silver Spoons.

Small details: Marcy complains that Steve will never ask for directions, answering his own complaint from season two’s “Build a Better Mousetrap” that she always wants to. And the cabin set turned up again on 227, the sitcom Moye co-created under a pseudonym.