Season 6 Episode 22: The Goodbye Girl

Al Bundy takes his annual vacation in this episode, and the vacation consists of sitting on his own couch with a rented videotape, a prop hat and an appropriate beverage, pretending to be somewhere else. He visits New York by way of Escape from New York. He visits Washington by way of The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington. He spends a stretch in Casablanca in a Rick Blaine hat, delivering the line. Bud, who has watched eighteen years of these world cruises, finally says something about it, and Al’s explanation of why he does it is the best writing in the episode and not funny in the way the setup suggests: he knows he is sitting on the couch, and the reason he needs to believe otherwise for one week a year is the other fifty-one. Meanwhile Kelly has a job at TV World, a museum and theme park devoted to the history of television, where she is promoted into an on-site character called The Verminator, whose job is killing bugs in front of an audience. Kelly takes to it immediately and comes home with shoe-store-grade rants of her own about the customers, which Peg notes with alarm, saying that her daughter reminds her of someone she cannot quite place. Jefferson’s contribution is to be repeatedly accosted by children who are certain they have seen him on The Love Boat and Happy Days. The two halves of the episode rhyme nicely: Al escapes into television while his daughter goes to work inside a monument to it, and both of them end up having the same kind of day, which is the closest this family gets to a shared experience.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: April 19, 1992
• Season and episode: Season 6, Episode 22
• Overall episode number: 127
• Written by: Stacie Lipp
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Taped: March 13, 1992
• Production note: The making of this episode was the subject of an MTV special called Backstage with the Bundys, which followed the cast and crew through table reads, rehearsals and taping.
• Title note: From the 1977 film of the same name.

Guest Cast

• Louis Mustillo as Mr. Nielsen
• Hal Landon Jr. as the janitor
• Edd Hall as the tour guide
• Dana Lee as the voice of Master Po
• Mitchell Dean as Guy
• Dean Mitchell as 2nd Guy
• Sean Fox as Kid #1
• Lindsey France as Kid #2

The Verminator at TV World

The in-joke buried in Kelly’s workplace is sharper than it first appears. Her boss, Mr. Nielsen, warns her that two viewer complaints are normally enough to get something cancelled, which is a direct reference to Terry Rakolta, the Michigan viewer whose 1989 letter-writing campaign against this show cost it advertisers and very nearly cost it the series. Naming the character Nielsen on top of that is not subtle, and it does not need to be.

Kelly’s rant on arriving home is constructed as a deliberate mirror of Al’s shoe store monologues, and Peg’s inability to place who her daughter reminds her of is the joke landing. The content involves a tub of butter borrowed from a Delta Burke exhibit, a hotwired Enterprise and the Facts of Life fan club pavilion, which is as good a summary of what TV World contains as the episode provides.

Al’s defense of his fake vacations is the moment that keeps the episode from being disposable. He grabs Bud by the collar and explains that he spends the rest of the year selling shoes to people who sweat, and that if he ever stopped believing he was enjoying himself on that couch for one week, something would give. Bud’s response, that they will discuss it when his father gets back, is exactly right.

Edd Hall plays the TV World tour guide. He had been doing uncredited voice work on this series for a while, and the year this aired he became the announcer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, a job he held until 2004. Hal Landon Jr., the janitor, is Ted’s father from the Bill and Ted films.

Famous Quotes

• Bud, on the family tradition: “After 18 years of your world cruises, I can’t help but feel maybe it’s time to stand on a freeway off-ramp with a sign that says ‘Mindless – Will Embarrass My Family For Food’.”
• Al, explaining himself: “You know that I’m just sitting here on the couch and I know I’m just sitting here on the couch. But, you see son, the rest of the weeks out of the year, I’m selling shoes… ladies shoes… fat ladies… very, very FAT ladies!”
• Al, finishing: “So, after selling fat SWEAT all year, one needs a little vacation!”
• Kelly, coming through the door after a shift at TV World: “Why doesn’t the world explode into a fiery pus filled death?!”

Notes

• Al, whose dislike of the French is a long-running feature of the series, spends part of this episode in a beret with a baguette, cheese and a glass of wine.
• Bud reveals that the modeling school Kelly had been attending since season 5’s “Kelly Bounces Back” has closed, because the models could not find the new location one floor up.
• Kelly mentions having spent six months wondering why Garfield can talk but Odie cannot.
• A copy of The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington features in Al’s itinerary. That film includes a cameo by Larry Storch, who turns up on this series in season 9’s “Something Larry This Way Comes.”
• A goof: Mr. Nielsen refers to the park as TV Land despite the large TV World sign directly behind him, and a stagehand is visible moving through the backyard set during one of Bud’s kitchen scenes.