Season 6 Episode 11: Al Bundy, Shoe Dick
November 24, 1991
The electricity bill cannot be paid, so Al takes a second job cleaning a private investigator’s office at night. When an attractive woman comes in looking for the detective, Al does not correct her: he takes the case, which gives the series its one and only private-eye episode and Ed O’Neill a chance to play the part he had made a career of before this show.
The casting joke runs deeper than it looks. O’Neill had played detectives through the 1980s in Cruising, Farrell for the People and Popeye Doyle, and went on playing them after the series ended. Putting him in a trench coat and letting Al Bundy do an impression of a competent investigator is the show cashing in a decade of its lead actor’s typecasting.
The episode is also a bookend. Season five’s “All Night Security Dude” had Al taking a second job at night, and that one turned out to be a dream, which makes two episodes in 1991 on the same premise, and the second one real. It is also the second episode of the year to have Al out in the city at night looking for a lavatory, after “A Man’s Castle.”
More significantly, the ending reveals that everything from the start of the sixth season, Peggy’s pregnancy, Marcy’s pregnancy, Kelly’s talk show, Grandmaster B, was Al’s dream. It is the series’ largest single retcon, and it exists because Katey Sagal’s real pregnancy ended in miscarriage; this episode marks her return after about a month away. Traci Lords appears as Vanessa Van Pelt, her second credited role on the show, and co-creator Ron Leavitt plays Jack Dallas.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: November 24, 1991
- Season 6, Episode 11, and the 116th episode of the series
- Written by Larry Jacobson
- Directed by Gerry Cohen
Guest Cast
- Traci Lords as Vanessa Van Pelt
- Ron Leavitt as Jack Dallas
- John Randolph as Colonel Van Pelt
- Anthony James as Adolph Van Pelt
- David Sederholm as Bruce Van Pelt
- Frank Lloyd as Leonard Van Pelt
- Nicole Chamberlain as Tanya Van Pelt
- David Wells as Sandy
The Episode That Was All a Dream
Peg pushes Al into a second job, so he signs on as the night janitor for a private investigator named Jack Dallas. Vanessa Van Pelt walks in looking for the detective, Al lets her think he is one, and he takes the case: a stolen diamond called the Pharaoh’s Eye. He gets framed for the murder of her uncle, goes on the run, and solves it by working out that Vanessa did both.
Then Peg wakes him up. The entire thing was a dream, and so, it turns out, was most of season 6 to that point: Peg’s pregnancy, Marcy’s pregnancy, Kelly’s talk show and Bud’s Grandmaster B phase all get erased. The device is lifted straight from the Dallas season finale that undid Bobby Ewing’s death, which is why the detective is called Jack Dallas.
Behind the scenes this is Katey Sagal’s return after about a month away following her miscarriage, and the dream is how the show unwound the pregnancy storyline. Traci Lords is back too, two seasons after playing T.C. in Tooth or Consequences.
Famous Quotes
- Al: “I’m wanted for murder, you dolts!” Al, explaining the stakes to his children.
- Kelly: “You could dig a hole to China. I saw Bugs Bunny do it once. Daffy never found him.” Kelly’s plan.
- Al: “It would be you, Pumpkin.” Al, accepting the plan.
- Bud: “Well then, can I have my allowance now?” Bud, reading the room.
Notes
- Series co-creator Ron Leavitt plays Jack Dallas, and also appears as the Homeless Detective on the office poster.
- Traci Lords had appeared on that same poster in the previous episode before turning up in person here.
- Frank Lloyd, normally Al’s friend Norris, plays Leonard Van Pelt.
- Ed O’Neill had played detectives in film before the series and did so again afterward, which makes the casting a longer joke than it looks.
- The Acme Rocket Company is across the hall from the detective’s office.
- Goof: Al pulls the soaked shoe out of the fish tank and neither his hand nor his jacket is wet.
- Goof: the museum curator walks into an active crime scene already knowing Al’s name and hands him a personalized check.
