Season 5 Episode 17: Oldies But Young ‘Uns
March 17, 1991
Every so often Married with Children built an episode around something small and universal, and “Oldies But Young ‘Uns” is the best example of it. Al hears a song on the radio. He knows it. He can hum it. He cannot name it, cannot name the artist, and cannot get anyone in his life to help him, and it slowly consumes him. Peg is no use, the Darcys are no use, and a trip to a record store called Final Vinyl produces a clerk who can identify every other customer’s half-remembered humming on the first try and then draws a complete blank on Al’s. By the second act Al is on his knees in a record shop bargaining with the ceiling over a forty-five. Running alongside it is the more consequential half of the episode. Kelly has a new boyfriend, Vinnie Verducci, the son of Al’s equally disreputable friend Charlie Verducci, and the Verduccis come over to the house. Al’s position on the matter is that Vinnie may look but absolutely may not touch, a rule Vinnie finds difficult to live by with Kelly in the room. Charlie, meanwhile, spends the visit casing the place. This is the episode that introduced the Verduccis to the series, and the pairing of Joseph Bologna and a very young Matt LeBlanc went over well enough that the characters came back three more times across seasons 5 and 6 and then got a show of their own. The series creators, Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, wrote this one themselves.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: March 17, 1991
- Season and episode: Season 5, Episode 17
- Overall episode number: 97
- Written by: Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye
- Directed by: Gerry Cohen
- Production note: Produced eighteenth in the season but aired seventeenth. From this episode onward, season 5 stopped airing in production order.
- Production note: This episode set up the backdoor pilot “Top of the Heap,” which became the hundredth episode of the series and spun the Verduccis off into their own show.
- Title note: A play on “oldies but goodies” crossed with the regional slang “young ‘uns.”
Guest Cast
- Joseph Bologna as Charlie Verducci
- Matt LeBlanc as Vinnie Verducci
- Suli McCullough as Dave, the record store clerk
- Gene “Bean” Baxter as DJ Rick Cool (credited as Bean Baxter)
- Michael Stanton as Customer #1
- Ron Litman as Customer #2
Members get the full episode breakdown, famous quotes, behind the scenes notes and the episode discussion.
