Season 6 Episode 16: Rites of Passage

February 9, 1992

Published 02/09/92

Bud turns eighteen, and nobody in the house appears to have noticed that this means anything. The party being arranged for him involves a pony and a clown. The clown, named Sticky, is a former children’s television personality who is now available for private bookings and who carries a knife and has an unsettling relationship with a stuffed animal, and the episode gets a surprising amount of mileage out of leaving exactly what Sticky has done in his past unstated. Bud, reasonably, would like to be treated as an adult, and Al agrees, because there is a Bundy tradition for this and Al intends to honor it. Every male Bundy, on his eighteenth birthday, is taken to a strip club. So the two of them go, and the house rules posted on the wall of the establishment tell you most of what you need to know about the clientele: shoes required, no head bands, no phones, no belt knives, no cameras, no fighting, and no dwarf tossing. The no fighting rule does not survive the evening. What Bud actually gets for his eighteenth birthday is his first bar fight, and he gets it comprehensively, against a man named Gorgo who generously allows Bud a free shot at his face. Father and son come home after dark, visibly wrecked and extremely pleased with themselves, and Al’s advice on how to handle Peg in the morning is the best line in the episode.It is one of the warmest episodes of the season in its own battered way. The series rarely let Al and Bud simply enjoy each other’s company, and the closing scene, two beaten-up men congratulating each other in a dark living room, counts as genuine affection by the standards of this household.

Episode Facts

Original air date: February 9, 1992
Season and episode: Season 6, Episode 16
Overall episode number: 121
Written by: Ilunga Adell
Directed by: Gerry Cohen
Taped: January 17, 1992
Production note: David Faustino turned eighteen himself three weeks after this episode first aired.
Production note: The bar fight required eleven credited stunt performers, including Kevin Curran taking his usual turn as the voice of Buck.
Title note: A rite of passage being the ceremony that marks the move from adolescence into adulthood, which in this family means the Nudie Bar.

Guest Cast

Roger Hewlett as Sticky the Clown
Gina Puzo as Roxanne
Frank Lloyd as Gorgo
Carl Ciarfalio as the man
Kevin Curran as the voice of Buck
Dick Warlock, “Judo” Gene LeBell, Greg Elam, David Graves, Denny Pierce, Dane Farwell, Dan Barringer, George Fisher, Randy Fife and Tracy Murray as stunt performers