Season 9 Episode 1: Shoeway to Heaven

Season 9 opens with Al and Jefferson spotting an opportunity in 1970s nostalgia. Platform shoes are coming back, so they clear out Gary’s and restock it with period footwear, and the operation briefly works: a reporter from a tabloid news programme turns up to cover it, Al dresses the part in full seventies costume and a long-haired wig, and for a few minutes he is a businessman with press attention. The reporter’s reaction to his four-touchdowns story is the driest put-down the character receives all season. A fashion show is arranged, fronted by a model named Dominique, and it goes wrong in the way these things go wrong in this house: a heel gives way, she comes off the stage, and the shoemaker who supplied the stock is produced to explain himself. By the end Al’s response to the collapse of the venture is to brick himself into the wall of his own house, which the closing credits confirm he does not come back out of. Katey Sagal had just given birth, so Peg is written out for the early part of the season as being away in Wanker County nursing her mother, and in this episode she exists only as a voice on the telephone. It is a serviceable premiere that spends most of its energy on housekeeping, and the Verminator cold open is funnier than anything in the main plot. It is also a useful marker for anyone tracking the series’ production history, since this is where the show changed studios, changed its credits and changed Kelly’s hair all at once.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: September 4, 1994
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 1
• Overall episode number: 184
• Teleplay by: Nancy Steen, story by: Carl Studebaker
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Production note: The first episode taped at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City. Seasons 3 through 8 had been shot at Sunset Gower in Hollywood.
• Production note: Katey Sagal had given birth to her daughter in August 1994 and appears only sparingly in the first four episodes. Peggy is written as being away in Wanker County caring for her mother; here she is a voice on the phone.
• Production note: The episode closes with an on-screen dedication to James Maura, a costumer on the series who had died of cancer in June 1994.
• Title note: A play on “Stairway to Heaven.”

Guest Cast

• Tawny Kitaen as Dominique
• Terry Murphy as herself
• Richard Stahl as Hyrum the shoemaker
• John Bloom as Billy Ray Wetnap
• Barbara Sammeth, Jodi Taffel and Rosie Taravella as the women
• John O’Connell as the TV announcer

Platform Shoes and Press Coverage

Terry Murphy’s appearance as herself is well judged. She was a host on Hard Copy at the time and had been a real news reporter at KCBS and KABC in the eighties, and the flat, professional disinterest she brings to Al’s four-touchdowns anecdote is more damaging than any insult the writers could have given her.

The cold open is the best thing in the episode and has nothing to do with the plot. It is a Pest Boys commercial in which Kelly, as the Verminator, is required to put one arm into a tank of beetles in order to collect her paycheck, and cannot work out which arm is her left. Her co-star’s confirmation of the instruction is the joke, and the rest of the scene is Christina Applegate running around a soundstage with a terrarium attached to her.

The brick-wall ending is a genuinely strange image for a season premiere, and the original credits do not release him from it: the final shot is the wall completed with Al still behind it.

Season 9 brings a round of cosmetic changes. New opening credit clips for everyone except Katey Sagal, all lifted from season 8 episodes. Ted McGinley is promoted to an “And Ted McGinley as Jefferson D’Arcy” credit. Kelly’s hair is noticeably shorter, and gets shorter again midseason.

Famous Quotes

• Kelly, in the Pest Boys commercial: “But if there’s one thing that fries my frankfurter, it’s sharing my buns with a bunch of pesky insects.”
• Billy Ray Wetnap, explaining the demonstration: “We sprayed the Verminator’s left arm with it, and if she wants her paycheck, she’ll have to stick that left arm into this cage of ravenous Samoan dragon beetles and take it.”
• Kelly: “Left?” Billy Ray: “Right!” Kelly: “Gotcha!”
• Terry Murphy, interviewing Al: “Four touchdowns in one game, you say? My, isn’t that something?”

Notes

• A soundalike of the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” plays when the reporter introduces Al, and again at the end as he seals himself into the wall.
• The house is a mess of clothing in the opening scene and the episode never explains why.
• Jefferson has a shorter, darker haircut for the first half of the season.
• A goof: Dominique’s heel snaps during the fashion show and the shoemaker is blamed, but she had been given a different pair earlier in the episode by Jefferson in exchange for promoting the store.