Season 3 Episode 7: The Bald and the Beautiful

Marcy leaves Steve a newspaper clipping about a baldness cure, which Steve takes as a diagnosis rather than a suggestion. Convinced he is going bald, he joins a club for bald and balding men and brings Al along, and the episode is built on two men confronting their hairlines in a room full of people further along than they are.

It is the first time the series addressed hair loss for either of them, and it dates the show precisely. Ed O’Neill’s hairline would recede visibly across the following seasons and the series eventually made it part of the furniture, but this early version is still treating it as a crisis rather than a fact. Al’s position throughout is that there is nothing wrong with him, delivered with increasing anxiety.

The half-hour is unusually generous with household detail. Al and Peggy’s sex night is established as Tuesday, and Peggy mentions that one of their standing rules is that the lights stay off. Al, flirting with two women in the shoe store, claims he would still be playing football if not for a bad knee, which the series later confirmed as the actual reason his career ended, meaning the boast is true for once. And he mentions missing playing pool, which pays off in season four’s “It’s a Bundyful Life,” where Peggy recalls him spending the previous Christmas at a pool table.

It is also one of the few episodes directed by someone other than the show’s regular rotation, with John Sgueglia taking the chair.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: January 29, 1989
• Season 3, Episode 7, and the 42nd episode of the series
• Written by Jules Dennis and Richard Mueller
• Directed by John Sgueglia

Guest Cast

• Graham Jarvis as Lance
• Henry G. Sanders as Murray
• Jim Maniaci as Jim
• Therese Kablan as Crystal
• Kay Wolf as Amber

Dr. Fur and the Bald Men’s Club

The best scene is the kids walking in on it. Bud’s amusement lasts exactly until Steve explains that hair loss is hereditary, at which point Kelly works out the timeline out loud and is delighted.

This is the first time the show addressed Al and Steve’s hairlines, something it kept coming back to as Ed O’Neill’s own settled into its recognizable shape.

Famous Quotes

• Bud: “Hey, guys… whatcha doing?” Al: “We’re growing hair, Bud.” Said while vigorously rubbing his own head.
• Kelly: “Why? They’re old. Who looks at ’em anyway?” Kelly, on the project.
• Bud: “If hair got you all this, let it go.” Bud, gesturing at the house.
• Kelly: “So you mean by the time his skin clears up, his hair will be falling out?” Kelly, enjoying the news considerably.

Notes

• The title references the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful, which had premiered less than two years earlier.
• The episode establishes Tuesday as Al and Peg’s sex night, and that the lights stay off.
• Al tells two customers he would still be playing football if not for a bad knee, a story that changes in later episodes.
• Goof: Steve says Dr. Fur was recalled, and later Peg says she is going to the store to buy some.
• Goof: the “Directed by” credit appears twice at the end.