Season 10 Episode 11: Bearly Men

Peg’s mother is still living upstairs, and Al wants her gone, which means getting Ephraim Wanker to take her back. Ephraim’s position is that he is not man enough to go through with it, so Al proposes a demonstration of manhood: a bear hunt. He and Bud drive out to the woods to prove they are as formidable as a seventy-year-old hillbilly, which is not a comparison either of them should be eager to invite, and they spend a night by a campfire with Al’s socks hung from a branch as a deterrent.

They come back with a bear. They believe it is dead. It is hibernating, and the drive into Chicago with a sleeping bear in the back is the setup for the second half, in which the animal wakes up inside the Bundy house and then gets loose in the city. The chase that follows is scored to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” and involves a hot dog vendor ending up upside down in his own cart, and the episode’s biggest laugh goes to Marcy and Jefferson, who were parked in the Mercedes at the wrong moment and have very different accounts of the experience.

The campfire scene is the half-hour’s other register entirely. Bud, genuinely frightened, tries to tell his father he loves him, and Al hears the sentiment coming and heads it off with one line about his beer. It is a small exchange and it is doing real work: ten seasons in, the show had established that this family cannot say anything sincere to each other out loud, and it gets more comedy out of Al’s deflection than any amount of bear chasing.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: Sunday, December 3, 1995 on FOX
• Season 10, Episode 11
• Overall episode 223 of the series
• Taped November 3, 1995; production code 10.12
• Written by Gerry Cohen
• Directed by Russell Marcus, a straight swap of the usual roles, with the series’ regular director writing and a regular writer directing
• The title plays on “barely men”

Guest Cast

• Tim Conway as Ephraim Wanker
• Kathleen Freeman as the voice of Peg’s Mom
• Vicki E. Milbourne as Mamie
• Frank Lloyd as the Vendor
• Angelo Vacco as the Gang Member

Hunting with Ephraim

The episode is structured as a dare that nobody wants to take back. Al needs Ephraim to reclaim his wife, Ephraim doubts himself, and Al’s solution, prove you are a man by killing a bear, commits all three of them to an expedition none of them is equipped for. The joke underneath it is that the standard of manhood being tested against is Ephraim, a frail elderly man with a flask, and Al still cannot clear the bar.

The bear itself is handled the way the series handled all its large set pieces: mostly offscreen, with the consequences brought back into the living room. The city chase is scored to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” the family discovers the thing is missing, and then the neighbours arrive to explain where it went. Marcy’s account of what the bear did to her Mercedes, and the fact that she comes away impressed rather than traumatised, is the best writing in the episode; Jefferson’s condition when he staggers in afterward is the punchline.

Gerry Cohen wrote this one, which is worth noting because Cohen directed more episodes of this series than anyone else. Russell Marcus, who had written the season premiere, took the chair instead. The swap does not announce itself on screen, but the campfire material, two actors, a fire, and a conversation that keeps failing to become sincere, plays like something written by someone who had spent years watching how these two performers work together.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “Hey, Peg, you know what I was dreaming about at work today?” / Peg: “Me, Al?” / Al: “Yes, Peg… In fact, I tied you up.” / Peg: “What were you doing?” / Al: “Cindy Crawford.”
• Bud: “In case that bear does come back… I just want you to know… I love you, man.” / Al: “You’re not getting my beer, Bud.” By the campfire.
• Al: “Hey Marcy, did you see some guy dragging off my dead bear?” / Marcy: “He’s not dead, you chucklehead. He just violated my Mercedes!” / Kelly: “How do you know?” / Jefferson: “Because we were in it.”
• Marcy: “Oh, I’m all right. A little in shock and jealous.” / Peg: “Jealous?” / Marcy: “Well, you should have seen him go and go and go. My God, if a car could smile.”
• Jefferson: “I don’t know, Marcy. I might need some counselling. And I think you may have to do all the work for a while.” Delivered from a corner, still shaking.

Notes

• “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” scores the chase through the streets of Chicago; “Dueling Banjos” plays as Al and Bud try to sleep; and the two of them sing “Daniel Boone” twice, driving into the city and again wheeling the bear inside.
• Frank Lloyd, the show’s stunt coordinator and the actor who played Al’s friend Norris, appears as the vendor who ends up upside down in his hot dog cart.
• When Al promises Bud they will turn Ephraim into roadkill in the morning, a voice in the studio audience can be heard shouting “Go Al!”
• Goof: in the opening scene with Kelly and Bud setting the table for Peg’s mother, a stand-in is visibly playing Bud, noticeably taller and thinner than David Faustino.
• Kevin Curran provides the voice of Lucky.