Season 7 Episode 11: Old College Try

Bud gets into Trumaine University on a twenty-five thousand dollar grant, which is the single biggest thing that has ever happened to a Bundy, and his parents spend it before he can tell them about it. The money arrives in the household account, Al and Peg find it, and they reach the only conclusion available to them, which is that the bank has made an error in their favour. Their response is to withdraw the whole amount immediately and convert it into goods at maximum speed, on the reasoning that money already spent cannot be reclaimed. A big screen television arrives. New appliances arrive. Kelly breaks the television. By the time Bud comes home to announce his grant and his acceptance, the twenty-five thousand dollars exists only as objects scattered around the living room in various states of damage, and Peg’s attempt to warn Al is cut off because Al wants to have a father-son talk first. That talk is the best thing in the episode. Al walks Bud through his entire history as a disappointment, in order, with a pause after each item for Bud to feel briefly good about himself before the next sentence arrives. The straight A report cards were, Al explains, the part he was truly ashamed of. He then explains what college is actually for, delivers his only real piece of fatherly advice on the subject, and Bud works out midway through his own laughter that he is the sort of person his father has just finished describing.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: December 13, 1992
• Season and episode: Season 7, Episode 11
• Overall episode number: 142
• Written by: Dianne Burroughs, Joey Gutierrez and P. Sharon
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Taped: November 20, 1992
• Production note: Bud enrolls at Trumaine University here and remains a student there until season 10’s “Bud Hits the Books.” During this season the school is spelled Tremaine.
• Production note: Bud starts growing the beard in this episode. It becomes obvious a few weeks later and he keeps it for the rest of the series.
• Title note: From the phrase “give it the old college try.”

Guest Cast

• Leslie Ryan as Julie
• Jennifer Pusheck as Toni
• Stan Chandler and Tim Maculan as the bank nerds
• Michael Mitz as the bank teller
• Richard Mayer as the old man
• Alex McLeod as Coed #1
• Sabryn Genet as Coed #2
• Chi Muoi Lo as Troy Chen (uncredited)

A Bank Error in Our Favor

The father-son talk on the couch is structured as a sequence of small cruelties, each one set up as a compliment. Bud was never an athlete, and Al notes how cold it must have been in his shadow. Al thought that might at least free up time for girls, and then Bud’s personality intervened. Bud brought home straight As, and Al heard about that from the men at the barber shop. The rhythm of Bud’s face lifting and falling through each beat is the joke, and David Faustino plays it perfectly.

Al’s account of what college is for is one of his more quotable monologues. He has no interest in business contacts or in the acned, sexually deprived A students who cannot tell a breast from a football, and the only thing he ever wanted from higher education was one good panty raid. His closing instruction to his son on the matter is both specific and grim.

Marcy and Bud’s exchange about his new beard is the sharpest two-line trade in the episode, and she loses it.

Alex McLeod, one of Bud’s dormmates here, came back in season 9 as Carrie Pease in “No Pot to Pease In.” Watch Jefferson as he and Marcy head into the bank vault: he pats a bystander’s rear on the way past, so quickly that most viewers miss it.

Famous Quotes

• Marcy, on Bud’s beard: “What’s that on your chin? Have some of the stronger boys been rubbing your face in the dirt again?” Bud: “It’s called a beard. Surely, you’ve seen one before in the mirror.”
• Al, establishing his credentials as a parent: “I’m not really like a dad, more like a… cool, older friend.”
• Al, working through the family history: “Then you brought home report cards with all ‘A’s. I didn’t say anything at the time, but then I was… truly ashamed.”
• Bud: “Make business contacts?” Al: “Nah, who wants to hang out with a bunch of smart little acned, sexual deprived ‘A’ students who wouldn’t know a breast from a football because they’ve never touched either. You know the type I’m talking about, son!”
• Al, with his advice: “Stay away from the big panties! You’ll see enough of those on the shower rod after you’re married. Go for the little ones, boy!”

Notes

• Al claims Bud was once featured on America’s Most Wanted.
• Marcy re-enacts the interrogation scene from Basic Instinct, which had come out earlier that year.
• A poster near Bud’s dorm advertises a sorority with a name the network presumably did not read aloud.
• The continuity does not hold: two months earlier in “Frat Chance” Bud was a sophomore at a community college planning to finish an associate’s degree there.
• Goofs: the mashed potato stain on Al’s vest relocates between shots, and the damage to the broken television changes every time it is on screen.