Season 5 Episode 19: Kids! Wadaya Gonna Do?

April 7, 1991

Published 04/07/91

“Kids! Wadaya Gonna Do?” splits the household in three and gets a full episode out of each piece. Al and Peg have been invited across the street to watch a rented movie at the Darcys’ place, an arrangement that lasts about as long as it takes them to walk through the door. Within minutes they have colonized the living room, criticized the selection of films, started drinking the beer, and begun singing over the soundtrack. Marcy spends the evening watching her own house be taken from her by two people who were not even supposed to be comfortable. Meanwhile both Bundy children have decided to earn money, with very different results. Bud needs cash to impress a girl named Crystal and get her to a concert, and the deal he strikes with her turns out to be the best night of his young life. Kelly takes a babysitting job and walks into a house containing seven children named after the months of the year, who proceed to dismantle her over the course of an evening. She reads to them. She negotiates with them. She tries telling a fairy tale and cannot remember the ending, so she improvises one out of Stooges and dwarves. None of it helps. The episode originally went out as a one hour special paired with the backdoor pilot for “Top of the Heap,” which made it something of an event, and it is also the installment fans still argue about, because depending on how you read Bud’s evening with Crystal, this may be where he finally stopped being a virgin.

Episode Facts

Original air date: April 7, 1991
Season and episode: Season 5, Episode 19
Overall episode number: 99
Written by: Ellen L. Fogle
Directed by: Linda Day
Taped: March 22, 1991
Production note: Originally broadcast as a one hour special alongside the backdoor pilot episode “Top of the Heap.”
Title note: The title mashes the old sigh of “kids, what are you going to do?” together with Hulk Hogan’s wrestling catchphrase.