Season 9 Episode 7: Dial “B” for Virgin

Bud needs community service credit for college, and the assignment he draws is counselling young women who are trying to remain chaste. He is given a telephone, a handbook and a hotline, and the job requires him to talk callers out of exactly the thing he has spent nine seasons failing to achieve. Kelly works out what he is doing almost immediately and spends the episode calling the line in character, which gives Christina Applegate two of her better prank performances, including one conducted entirely as the family dog. The real test comes when Bud has to make a house call. A caller named Esther is at immediate risk and asks him to come over and stay until her mother gets home, and the scene that follows is the best-constructed thing in the episode: Esther explains at length how difficult chastity is and how preoccupied with sex every woman she knows is, and Bud’s response is to open his official handbook and ask for their names and telephone numbers. The whole sequence is built on Bud being professionally obliged to prevent the only opportunity he has ever been handed. Meanwhile Al and Peg are at a video store trying to agree on one film, which goes about as well as the movie negotiation in season 7 did.

The structure is the joke: the show takes the character least equipped for a job and hands him that exact job, then makes him do it on the phone where he cannot be seen reacting. Kelly’s prank calls supply the running gag, and the house call to Esther supplies the test, putting Bud alone on a couch with someone who keeps telling him how hard chastity is to maintain. Al and Peg’s trip to the video store runs underneath it, a separate errand that gets its own string of invented titles.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: October 16, 1994
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 7
• Overall episode number: 190
• Written by: Wayne Kline
• Directed by: Amanda Bearse
• Taped: October 7, 1994
• Title note: A play on Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder.

Guest Cast

• Monica Lacy as Esther (credited as Monica Creel)
• Beverly Archer as Miss Hardaway
• Rhonda Aldrich as Judy
• Bodhi Elfman as the clerk (credited as Bodhi Pine Elfman)
• Phil Lodwick as the security guard

The Virgin Hotline

Kelly’s prank calls are the funniest material in the episode, largely because she commits to each character completely. The first identifies herself by a name that explains her situation, describes her boyfriend’s behaviour since she came out of the box, and asks for guidance on whether to stay firm. The second is Buck. Bud’s attempts to shut her down are the only part of the job he is any good at.

Bud’s house call is the episode’s best piece of writing because of the trap it builds. Esther is sincere. The information she volunteers is exactly the information Bud has been looking for since 1987. His reaction, reaching for the official handbook to take down names, is the character in a single gesture, and his recovery is worse than the original request.

Beverly Archer, who plays Miss Hardaway, was a familiar sitcom presence from Mama’s Family and Major Dad. Bodhi Elfman, the video store clerk, is the son of composer Richard Elfman’s family line and later married Jenna Elfman.

Al and Peg’s video store trip is a lighter rerun of the cinema episode from season 7, and the running gag is the shelf of titles Al keeps finding, each one a pornographic variant of a current release. His endorsement of one of them, citing a rating from a magazine, is the better joke.

The episode drops a piece of backstory that does not survive scrutiny: Al and Peg claim to have watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at a drive-in while dating in high school, but that film came out in September 1969, after they would both have graduated.

Famous Quotes

• Bud, answering the line: “Hello, you’re on the Virgin Hotline. This is your counselor, eh… Eugene.”
• Kelly, in character: “My boyfriend, Bud, hasn’t been able to keep his hands off me ever since I came out of the box. Now, should I try to stay firm or just explode and go to pieces?”
• Kelly, on her second attempt: “Hi, this is Buck. I’m wearing nothing but my fur. I miss you, Bud. I miss our special times together.”
• Esther, to Bud: “Every single girl I know is just preoccupied with sex. They’ll have it with anyone, anywhere, anytime.” Bud, opening his handbook: “Well, if you just give me their names, their photos, and their phone numbers, I’ll get to the bottom of them… I mean ‘of it’, the bottom of it.”
• Esther: “Please don’t leave before my mother gets home. If I take my eyes off you, I know I’ll get all horny again.” Bud: “I’m glad to be of service.”

Notes

• The hotline number is given as 1-800-ZIPP-UP, which is one digit short of a real telephone number.
• “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” plays when Kelly comes downstairs and cannot find her parents.
• A goof: the textbook Bud sets on the coffee table rotates between two positions every time the camera cuts back to the wide shot.