Season 3 Episode 1: He Thought He Could

Al finds a library book that was due in 1957, which means returning it, which means going back to the library and facing the librarian he has been frightened of since childhood. That is the entire premise, and it is one of the best the series ever built, a man in his forties genuinely afraid of a woman behind a desk, over a copy of The Little Engine That Could that is thirty-one years overdue.

The episode works because it takes the fear seriously. Flashbacks show young Al, played by Edan Gross, who had been one of the neighbourhood children in season two’s Christmas episode, and the librarian is presented as a genuine monster rather than a comic one. The title does the rest of the work: the book Al could not finish as a child is about persistence, and the joke is that Al Bundy is the one engine that could not.

The half-hour also inventories Al’s trophies, which is as close as the series came to a résumé: MVP in Pop Warner football, All Star Little League short stop, All City football, a participation award for co-ed softball, and Rookie Shoe Salesman of the Year 1968. The last one is the only item on the list from his adult life.

This is the first episode to put footage of the cast behind their names in the opening titles rather than a black background, and the couch gag was revised with new clothes and visibly older children. Bud arrives with a deeper voice and the mullet he kept for the whole season, and Marcy’s hair is noticeably lighter. The closing credits carry a licensing note, “‘The Little Engine That Could’ Used by Permission of Grosset & Dunlap”, which is the only time the series had to clear a book.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: November 6, 1988
• Season 3, Episode 1, the season premiere, and the 36th episode of the series
• Written by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Lu Leonard as Miss DeGroot
• Edan Gross as young Al
• Brandon Bluhm as Lenny
• Joseph Dammann as the book boy

A Library Book Due in 1957

The flashback to 1957 is the first time the show put Al’s childhood on screen, with Edan Gross playing him as a boy, and it establishes something the series kept returning to: Al was already losing before any of this started. Miss DeGroot’s line about making a promise and keeping a promise is the only piece of advice anyone ever gave him that stuck, and only as a grudge.

Season 3 also brings the opening titles the show is remembered for. This is the first episode to run clips of the cast behind their names instead of plain black cards, including Al on the couch with the remote, Peg tossing a salad with a cigarette going, and Kelly sneaking in the front door at night and catching the camera looking.

Famous Quotes

• Miss DeGroot: “You’d like to check these out, would you? Well, I’m afraid you can’t!” Young Al: “’Cause I didn’t bring you French fries like the other boys do?” Al Bundy, aged about ten.
• Miss DeGroot: “Make a promise, keep a promise.” Young Al: “Yeah, yeah, bake a pie, eat a pie.” The origin of an attitude.
• Al: “You’re charging me two thousand dollars for an overdue library book?!” Miss DeGroot: “Perhaps if you didn’t ignore the overdue notices we sent you for the first ten years. SIT DOWN!” Al, put in a child’s chair.

Notes

• The title plays on The Little Engine That Could, which appears in the episode.
• Edan Gross, who plays young Al, had appeared the previous season as one of the neighborhood kids in You Better Watch Out.
• First episode with the clip-based opening credits that ran for the rest of the series.
• Goof: Al’s shirt and trousers in the security camera footage do not match what he was wearing.