Season 7 Episode 23: ‘Tis Time to Smell the Roses

Al has worked out that he can take early retirement, and for roughly one act of this episode he actually does it, singing his way out of the shoe store and into a life of leisure. Then Peg goes shopping. By the time she gets home, three thousand dollars of the retirement fund is gone, converted into collectible Elvis plates and whatever else caught her attention, and the arithmetic no longer works. Al’s salary is revealed here for the first time as twelve thousand dollars a year, which makes the loss unrecoverable. So he goes back to work, taking a job at a rival store called Homeplate Athletic Shoes, where the staff are all issued coveralls bearing the same name the series had been joking about since “The Gas Station Show.” His plan from there is to buy the store outright, and when Peg puts an end to that, he commits what is left of the money, six thousand dollars, to lottery tickets. He loses. The episode ends with Al back behind the counter at Gary’s, exactly where he started, which is the only ending the series was ever going to give this story. Charlene Tilton of Dallas spends the episode in the Bundy living room demonstrating an abdominal exercise device, having come over in person because Peg telephoned with questions. It is the closest the series ever let Al get to escaping the shoe store, and the escape lasts less than a single episode, which is the point.The lottery tickets at the end are the detail that makes it land, because Al knows the odds and buys them anyway.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: May 2, 1993
• Season and episode: Season 7, Episode 23
• Overall episode number: 154
• Written by: Kevin Curran
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Taped: April 9, 1993
• Production note: Ed O’Neill genuinely had a cold during filming and his voice is noticeably hoarse. The line about Al having had a cold for three days and sleeping in the garage was written in at the last minute to explain it.
• Production note: Al’s salary is given here as $12,000 a year.
• Title note: From the saying about stopping to smell the roses.

Guest Cast

• Charlene Tilton as herself
• Susan Peretz as Ms. Blaub
• Peter Jason as the manager
• Shanga Parker as Habib #1 (credited as S. Kyle Parker)
• Ted Davis as Habib #2
• Abdul Goznobi as Habib #3 (uncredited)

Twelve Thousand a Year

Putting a number on Al’s income changes the show slightly. For seven seasons his poverty had been a joke with no figures attached, and twelve thousand dollars a year in 1993 is specific enough to be genuinely grim. Everything the family does in this episode, including Peg’s shopping, reads differently once you have it.

The Habib coveralls are a callback the series had been building since season 6’s “The Gas Station Show,” where Al was first handed a uniform with somebody else’s name on it. Here the joke is extended into an entire staff of them, with Shanga Parker, who had played Bud’s fraternity brother Ahmed earlier in the season, as Habib #1.

Charlene Tilton is used well. The premise, that she turned up in person because a customer had questions about the product, is exactly the right level of absurd, and Bud’s attempt to flirt with her goes the way all of Bud’s attempts go. She also joins in the family vote on whether Al should be allowed to keep his own money, which is the episode’s best gag.

Jefferson supplies the strangest material in the episode, a short account of how both his parents died, and both stories are considerably more elaborate than the question required.

Famous Quotes

• Peg, pre-empting her husband’s announcement: “I bet he has a new plan to change his future.” Al: “I should have killed you years ago!”
• Bud, introducing himself to Charlene Tilton: “I like to call myself… ‘Abdomenizer B’. But, uh, I don’t need no stinkin’ exerciser, I get plenty of exercise up in my room.” Charlene: “Yes, but with the Abdomenizer, for the first time you could have some company.”
• Al, calling for a show of hands: “We’ll have a vote. Who doesn’t want me to have my money?” Then, after everyone in the room including the guest star raises theirs: “Now that hurts, Charlene!”
• Peg, misreading her husband’s intentions as he removes his shirt: “Oh, Al, you’re so cute. You’re gonna try to earn it by having sex with me.”

Notes

• Peg’s purchases include collectible Elvis plates from the Franklin Mint. One of her shopping bags is from Muldin’s, the department store where she briefly worked in season 1’s “Peggy Sue Got Work.”
• Al sings a reworked “Day-O” on his first day of retirement.
• Jefferson reveals that his father was a gigolo who worked into his seventies and died in a tanning booth, and that his mother was a dancer who was swallowed by her own pet snake while on a break.
• Abdul Goznobi, here as Habib #3, later appeared in Old School and My Name is Earl.
• Peter Jason, the store manager, was a long-standing John Carpenter regular and later a fixture on Deadwood.