Season 7 Episode 6: Frat Chance

Bud is starting his sophomore year at a community college, and he has worked out that the obstacle between him and a social life is institutional. What he needs is a fraternity. So he founds one, recruiting the only three men available to him, and sets up operations in the Bundy garage on the theory that a charter and a name will do what his personality has not. The results are predictably thin until Kelly offers him a piece of strategic advice, at which point the garage fills with women and Bud has to explain to his sister exactly what he told them to get there. Meanwhile Jefferson wants to attend a reunion with his old fraternity brothers, an outing whose itinerary he describes in enough detail that Marcy forbids it. That dispute lands in the Bundy living room, and since nobody can agree on what to do instead, the four adults attempt to choose a film. The negotiation collapses into four people stating their single requirement over and over at increasing volume, and Al wins on volume. He is still going when Kelly comes down the stairs, which leads her to a realization about an incident from her own adolescence involving an old man in a Dodge. Al’s attempt to blame that on Bud does not succeed, and the scene has been cut from some cable prints. It is one of the stronger ensemble episodes of the season, mostly because all six regulars get something to do and none of the threads needs the others to work.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: October 26, 1992
• Season and episode: Season 7, Episode 6
• Overall episode number: 137
• Written by: Larry Jacobson
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Taped: October 2, 1992
• Production note: Marcy establishes that Bud is now in his sophomore year at a community college.
• Title note: A play on “fat chance” crossed with the fraternity Bud is trying to start.

Guest Cast

• Shanga Parker as Ahmed (credited as Kyle Parker)
• Andy Milder as Francis
• Elek Hartman as Gus
• Jamie Luner as Gerri
• Kathleen McClellan as the girl

Four People, One Movie

The movie-choosing scene is the episode’s centerpiece and one of the most efficient character summaries the series ever staged. Each of the four states what they want from a film in a single phrase, repeats it, and keeps repeating it. Peg wants to see a particular actor’s rear end. Marcy wants sensitivity. Jefferson wants killings, which he illustrates with a mimed tommy gun. Al wants one thing and says it eleven times. The others stop when Kelly appears. Al does not.

What follows is the sharpest turn in the episode, because Kelly’s memory of hearing that word chanted at her and her friends by a man in a Dodge connects to her father in real time and the show lets her reach the conclusion on camera. ViacomCBS prints on channels like Logo and Pluto cut the whole exchange.

Casting Ted McGinley in a fraternity storyline is a joke the episode never acknowledges out loud. McGinley had played Stan Gable, the Alpha Beta quarterback, in Revenge of the Nerds and its sequels, which makes Jefferson’s nostalgia for frat life considerably funnier if you know it.

Peg’s demolition of Al over the college question is one of her better extended runs, built around the imaginary societies that never call him to lecture, and Al’s reply is genuinely dark: without college he never would have met her, and he would instead have lived an empty, meaningless existence ordering hookers and pizza until he dropped dead. He is smiling by the end of the sentence.

Famous Quotes

• Peg, on Al’s academic credentials: “So many of Al’s college clubs and professional societies call him up to lecture… or just inspire the young. Oh, that’s right! Al didn’t go to college!”
• Al, on the alternative: “I would probably just have lived an empty, meaningless existence, ordering hookers and pizza till I dropped dead, with a slice in my mouth and a greasy hooter in my hand!”
• The four of them, choosing a film: Peg wants “a movie with Mel Gibson’s butt,” Marcy wants “sensitivity,” Jefferson wants “killings,” and Al wants “boobies.”
• Kelly, arriving mid-chant and then putting it together: “I haven’t heard anybody chant that word since me and my girlfriends were standing around when this old guy in this Dodge drove by and… Ew, Daddy!”
• Kelly, surveying the full garage: “How did you get these girls to come here?” Bud: “I took your advice, Kel… I told them we were gay!”

Notes

• Kelly eats Lucky Charms and delivers the slogan, which she had also used to ward off a curse in season 6’s “Psychic Avengers.”
• Peg implies she slept with a fraternity member shortly before marrying Al. Marcy implies something similar about a man named Jim, and is still annoyed he never returned her calls.
• Shanga Parker, here as Ahmed, returns later in the season in “‘Tis Time to Smell the Roses” as Habib #1.
• Jamie Luner, who plays Gerri, went on to Melrose Place and Savannah.
• Goofs: the breakfast plate on the kitchen table relocates between almost every shot, the frat’s snack table moves around Al’s Dodge, and Al drives off with a bowl of popcorn that Bud later calls chips.