Season 2 Episode 3: If I Were a Rich Man

Steve’s bank comes up a million dollars short the morning after he and Al spent an evening in its vault, and everyone draws the obvious conclusion: Al took it. Steve believes it. So does Peggy, and so do the children, and the Bundy response to the news that the head of the household is a felon is immediate, uncomplicated delight: they are rich. The episode spends its length on how a family behaves when it believes money has arrived, and the answer is that nobody asks a single question about where it came from.

What makes it work is that Al’s innocence is never really the subject. The suspicion is reasonable, his family’s eagerness to believe it is entirely in character, and the comedy comes from how little any of them care whether it is true. For a series three episodes into its second season, that is a confident piece of writing: it assumes the audience already knows these people well enough to find their reaction funny rather than shocking.

The episode is also the first to show Steve’s workplace, which the series had kept offstage through the whole first season, and it ties off a piece of business left hanging from the first-season finale. In “Johnny Be Gone,” Marcy’s dinner party for the Takahashi brothers was a bid for a managerial post at Kyoto National Bank, which would free up her old job for Steve. This episode confirms both halves happened: Marcy got the promotion, and Steve has her former position at The Leading Bank of Chicago.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: October 4, 1987
• Season 2, Episode 3, and the 16th episode of the series
• Written by Sandy Sprung and Marcy Vosburgh
• Directed by Linda Day
• No credited guest cast

A Million Dollars Nobody Actually Has

The episode is built on the gap between what the family believes and what is true, and it is funnier for never letting Al enjoy it. His account of the best day of his life, which is three green lights and three good songs on the oldies station, tells you exactly how high the ceiling is in this house.

It is the first time Steve’s workplace appears on screen, and it tidies up the bank arrangement: Steve has taken Marcy’s old job at The Leading Bank of Chicago, while Marcy has moved up to Kyoto National, which is the job she was angling for in the season 1 finale Johnny Be Gone.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “Got the whole house to myself. It’s like I died and went to…” Peggy: “Hi, Al.” Al: “…Hell.” The timing of a door opening.
• Al: “Today will go down in history as the day nothing went wrong!” Al, before listing three green lights.
• Steve: “Al?” Al: “I’m in the vault.” The two lines the plot hangs on.

Notes

• The title comes from the song in Fiddler on the Roof.
• First time Steve’s bank is seen on screen.
• Al mentions he is a Cubs fan, which the show returned to for eleven seasons.
• The production code shows this was produced fourth for the season but aired third.