Season 10 Episode 4: Reverend Al

The beer tax goes up, and NO MA’AM discovers it can no longer afford beer worth drinking. That is the entire inciting incident, and it is a perfect one for this show: a group of men whose organizing principle is grievance finally encounters a grievance with a dollar figure attached. Treasurer Bob Rooney turns up at the meeting with two six-packs of something called “Yeast ‘N Stuff,” the members take one sip each, and the resulting stampede out of the garage establishes the stakes. Nobody in this room is willing to go back to their wives for more beer money, so the money has to come from somewhere else.

The solution arrives courtesy of Ike, who mentions that the nudist who officiated his marriage to Frannie is now one of the wealthiest televangelists in the country and pays no taxes on any of it. If a man can call himself a church, Jefferson reasons, so can a garage full of men in a suburban driveway. Al is installed as reverend, the Church of NO MA’AM is chartered in secret, and the half-hour becomes a sustained parody of televangelism filtered through a group whose doctrine is a collection of complaints about women.

It works far better than it should. Word spreads, men across the country start mailing in ten dollars each, and the organization suddenly has an income stream. Al stages a function to collect more, delivers a sermon, and then loses the whole operation when Marcy breaks the story on Channel 83 Action News. Running alongside all this is a smaller, nastier plot in which Peggy buys her own birthday presents and has the children hand them over, which Marcy also exposes, a structural joke the episode makes twice, since both Bundy parents are running a con and both get caught by the same neighbor.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: Sunday, October 8, 1995 on FOX
• Season 10, Episode 4
• Overall episode 215 of the series
• Taped September 8, 1995; production code 10.04
• Written by Kim Weiskopf
• Directed by Gerry Cohen
• The title refers to Al’s elevation to reverend of the Church of NO MA’AM
• The opening credits are overhauled starting with this episode, with new introductory footage for all six main cast members pulled from season nine

Guest Cast

• Benjamin Lum as Sticky
• Andrew Craig as Splib
• Dot-Marie Jones as Dot
• Lisa Marie Scott as Halla
• Jeanine Michelle as Luyah
• Prince Hughes as Archimedes
• Harvey Blanks as a congregation member
• Rob Skyler as the mail carrier

The Church of NO MA’AM

NO MA’AM had been a recurring institution since season seven, but it had never had a business model. This episode gives it one, and in doing so turns the group from a gag into something closer to a satirical target. The joke is not that these men are hypocrites for forming a church: they are entirely sincere about their beliefs, which is the problem. The parody lands because the show lets Al preach in earnest. His sermon treats the grievances as scripture, Jefferson and Sticky back him with an instrumental “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” and the whole production is staged with the full visual grammar of a televangelist broadcast.

The ten-dollar donations are the detail that makes it sting. The episode’s premise only works if there are enough men out there who would mail cash to a stranger in a suburban garage for articulating their complaints, and the script treats that as a given rather than a stretch. Al does not have to persuade anyone. He simply has to be audible, and the money follows, which is a sharper piece of commentary than the show usually bothered with by season ten.

Marcy’s exposé is the structural release valve, and it is worth noting that Channel 83 Action News had already been established as the show’s go-to local broadcaster, having turned up in season four and again in season seven. Giving the takedown to Marcy rather than to an outside authority keeps the conflict domestic: the church does not collapse because of the IRS, it collapses because the neighbor across the fence was paying attention.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “Now, last meeting, we argued about which Big ‘Uns centerfold was sexier, July or August. We couldn’t decide, so we ripped them out, put them down our pants, and danced around. Then we each drank about 30 beers. Now, wait a second. That’s how we started the meeting.” / Griff: “That’s the only reason we had the meeting.” Calling the garage to order.
• Al: “Well… I guess beer is beer. We didn’t become NO MA’AMers by being discriminating.” / Jefferson: “Or employed.” / Griff: “Or happy.” / Splib: “Or bathed.” / Sticky: “Or documented.” The group talks itself into drinking the cheap beer, and Sticky takes the bit one step past where anyone expected.
• Ike: “Hey, if I wanted to reek of cheap booze, I’d just go kiss my wife.” Arriving up the driveway at the exact moment the rest of the group sprays the first mouthful out of the garage.
• Jefferson: “If Reverend Flashback can call himself a church and not pay taxes, then why can’t we?” / Ike: “Because our wives would take the money and waste it on charities, health insurance… lingerie.” The founding argument of the Church of NO MA’AM, and the objection it has to overcome.

Notes

• The season’s new main-title footage introduces each cast member with a clip from season nine: Al on the couch with the remote, Peggy reacting to an Oprah topic from “25 Years and What Do You Get?“, Marcy breaking the Psycho Dad news from “I Want My Psycho Dad,” Kelly from “Something Larry This Way Comes,” Bud from “Naughty but Niece,” and Jefferson shutting the door on Marcy from “Sleepless in Chicago.”
• The couch gag in the credits is also replaced here, updating it to show an older Bud and Kelly plus the new dog, Lucky. The previous version had been in use since season four.
• Lisa Marie Scott, who plays one of Al’s altar girls, had appeared in Playboy as its Playmate of the Month for February 1995, about eight months before this episode aired.
• Channel 83 Action News had previously covered Chicago events in season four’s “At the Zoo” and “Rain Girl” and season seven’s “The Chicago Wine Party.”
• Jefferson and Sticky’s musical accompaniment for Reverend Al’s entrance is an instrumental take on James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”
• Al’s line about women whipping the men “like a nation of Gerry Cooneys” refers to the 1980s heavyweight, best remembered for title-fight knockout losses to Larry Holmes in 1982 and Michael Spinks in 1987.
• Kevin Curran, a writer and producer on the series, supplies the uncredited voice of Lucky.