Season 1 Episode 10: Al Loses His Cherry

Al walks out after a fight with Peggy and stays at the apartment of his shoe store colleague Luke Ventura, who lives the life Al is assumed to envy. Two sisters turn up. Luke takes one of them to bed. The other spends the rest of the episode working on Al, and the episode’s whole weight rests on what he does about it, which is nothing. He does not go into the other room.

That refusal is the point, and it is a surprisingly firm piece of character-building for episode ten of a series whose protagonist spent the next decade claiming to want exactly this. The show would go on to build hundreds of jokes on Al’s frustration, his magazines, his trips to the nudie bar and his loathing of his marriage, and it established here, early and without comment, that when the opportunity is actually in front of him he declines it. The series never retracted that, and it is the reason the character stayed likeable through eleven years of appalling behaviour.

This is Luke Ventura’s last appearance, though the series checked in on him years later: season nine’s “Pump Fiction” reveals he has become Salesman of the Month at a major Chicago shoe department, which is about as pointed a comparison with Al as the show ever drew. The episode also contains the first of only a handful of times anyone says the show’s own title out loud, with Al describing himself as married with children. A small piece of casting trivia: Jerry Hall, who plays Terry Cherry, has a real-life twin sister named Terry.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: June 7, 1987
• Season 1, Episode 10, and the 10th episode of the series
• Written by Marcy Vosburgh and Sandy Sprung
• Directed by Arlando Smith

Guest Cast

• Jerry Hall as Terry Cherry
• Pamela Bowman as Sherry Cherry
• Estelle Harris as Delilah
• Ritch Shydner as Luke Ventura

Al Gets the Chance and Does Not Take It

That is the point. Ten episodes in, the show establishes a rule it never broke: Al talks about other women constantly and never actually cheats. Every later temptation episode runs on the certainty set up here.

This is also the last appearance of Luke Ventura, Al’s original shoe store co-worker. Al went without a regular work friend until Griff arrived in season 9.

Famous Quotes

• Luke: “Hey, the day Luke Ventura can’t help a friend, that’s a day he’s got something better to do.” Luke’s entire character.
• Marcy: “The first little wink and his shoes will be under her bed.” Peggy: “Well that should end it right there.” Peg, unworried.

Notes

• The title plays on the phrase for losing one’s virginity. What Al actually loses is Sherry Cherry.
• Al says he is “married with children” here, the first time a character says the title out loud.
• Last appearance of Luke Ventura. Luke lives in apartment 12E and calls Al “the King.”
• The episode establishes that Al works Saturdays and is off Sundays, which later episodes contradict.
• Jerry Hall, who plays Terry Cherry, has a real-life twin sister named Terry.
• The production code shows this was produced seventh for the season but aired tenth.