Season 9 Episode 5: Business Sucks (1)

October 2, 1994

Published 10/02/94

A woman comes into Gary’s Shoes and begins nursing her baby, and Al and Griff throw her out, which is the inciting incident for a two-part story about public breastfeeding that the series handles exactly as you would expect. Marcy arrives the following day with the woman in tow to demand an explanation, delivering a speech about natural biological functions that Al answers with a comparison that is crude, fast, and the funniest line in the episode. From there it escalates into a protest outside the store, Marcy’s group singing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” and NO MA’AM mobilizing a counter-protest, all of it covered by a television news reporter named Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal, who makes her debut here and would go on to cover Al’s activities nine times across the show’s final seasons. Meanwhile Peg is trying to get home from Wanker County on a railway called Amtrain, whose motto is borrowed from The Little Engine That Could and whose service is interrupted by repeated derailments, which is how the show keeps Katey Sagal to a handful of brief scenes. Kelly has new work as the wink-wink girl in a commercial. It is one of the more pointed stories the series attempted in its later years, and like most of its topical episodes it is considerably less interested in the issue than in what the issue lets Al say about himself. Peg’s railway ordeal is a transparent device for keeping Katey Sagal off set, and the show commits to it so thoroughly that it becomes funny on its own.

Episode Facts

Original air date: October 2, 1994
Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 5
Overall episode number: 188
Written by: Richard Gurman
Directed by: Gerry Cohen
Taped: September 23, 1994
Production note: Part one of two. The debut of news reporter Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal, who returns in nine episodes across the last three seasons.
Production note: Katey Sagal appears only briefly. Peg’s absence is covered by a railway journey beset by derailments.
Title note: A double meaning on a business doing badly and on what a nursing baby does.