Season 10 Episode 7: Flight of the Bumblebee

A Halloween episode in all but name, and the one where the series finally puts King Kong Bundy in the ring. NO MA’AM has the evening planned: the wives are supposed to be out at bingo, the snacks are bought, and the sport of kings is on television. Al swings open the front door mid-song and finds Peggy, Marcy, Frannie and Louise on the couch watching a romantic miniseries, which is the kind of reversal this show could run in its sleep and still land. The rest of the half-hour is a territorial dispute over one television set, conducted by people who have nowhere else to go.

Bud’s story is the one that pays off. He wants into NO MA’AM, and the final initiation test is to come back with a photograph of himself alongside King Kong Bundy. He turns up at the arena in a wrestling costume as the Bumblebee, acquires a valet, and gets into the ring with a man roughly twice his size who makes a point of promising to go easy on him. He does not go easy on him. The match plays out on the living room television while the assembled couples watch without any idea who is being dismantled in front of them, and Peggy’s delighted commentary on what King Kong is twisting off supplies the episode’s best line.

King Kong Bundy had been on the show once before, back in season two’s “All in the Family,” playing Peg’s cousin Uncle Irwin. This is his only appearance as himself, and the episode treats the wrestling persona with complete sincerity, right down to a ring announcer and a referee. It is also the last appearance of Sticky, who had been part of the NO MA’AM lineup since earlier in the season.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: Sunday, October 29, 1995 on FOX
• Season 10, Episode 7
• Overall episode 218 of the series
• Production code 10.07
• Written by Calvin Brown, Jr.
• Directed by Gerry Cohen
• The title plays on Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” and on Bud’s wrestling persona
• King Kong Bundy’s second appearance on the series, and his only one as himself

Guest Cast

• King Kong Bundy as himself
• Michael Clarke Duncan as the Bouncer
• Harold Sylvester as Griff
• E.E. Bell as Bob Rooney
• Tom McCleister as Ike
• Benjamin Lum as Sticky
• Carol Ann Susi as Frannie
• Alix Elias as Louise
• Neriah Davis as Anytime
• Carrie Genzel as Natalie
• Jimmy Lennon Jr. as the Ring Announcer
• Frank Lloyd as the Referee
• Kate Weiskopf as the Girl Witch

The Bumblebee in the Ring

The initiation plot is the series’ standard shape for Bud: set him a task that requires courage he does not have, then let him attempt it anyway, but the execution here is unusually committed. The show builds a working wrestling environment around him: an announcer, a referee, a valet, and an opponent who sells the match properly. Bud nearly pins him, which is what provokes the turn, and King Kong Bundy’s objection is not that he lost ground but that he was tricked after offering mercy.

The living room half of the episode is a good illustration of how the show used its single set. Nobody leaves. The men cannot watch wrestling because the women are on the couch, the women will not move, and the resulting standoff generates the material. When the wrestling does come on, the two groups end up watching it together, and Marcy’s reaction to the match is the episode’s quiet suggestion that the gender line NO MA’AM spends so much time defending does not actually hold.

Michael Clarke Duncan turns up as the bouncer, eight years before Daredevil. There is a small piece of trivia attached to that casting: King Kong Bundy was reportedly asked to audition for Kingpin in the same film and did not get it, which means the two men who crossed paths in this episode were, years later, up for the same part.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “Well, tonight, my NO MA’AM brothers, while our wives are flirting their lives away at bingo, we will be watching the sport of kings: Wrestling.” On the veranda, before the door opens.
• Jefferson: “Just Oreo filling.” / Sticky: “Just jerky.” / Griff: “And I’ve got ‘Just alcohol.’” The haul from the Just Store.
• Al: “Well, Peg, like I said when I woke up this morning: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” On finding four women on his couch.
• King Kong Bundy: “That’s what I get for trying to take it easy on you! I expect that kind of chicanery from the Fighting Florist. But I assumed from your valet you’re the kind of guy that liked girls.” / Bud: “I do.” / King Kong Bundy: “Then prepare to become one.”
• Peg: “Wow, this is cool. King Kong is twisting off the Bumble Bee’s stinger.” / Al: “That’s not his stinger.” Watching from the couch, neither of them aware who is in the ring.

Notes

• King Kong Bundy had previously appeared in season two’s “All in the Family” as Peg’s relative Uncle Irwin.
• This is the final appearance of Sticky, the NO MA’AM member last seen in “Reverend Al.”
• One of the trick-or-treaters, the young witch, is played by Kate Weiskopf, daughter of executive producer and writer Kim Weiskopf.
• Neriah Davis, who plays King Kong Bundy’s valet Anytime, was Playboy‘s Playmate of the Month for March 1994, and an edited version of her centerfold had already turned up as a prop in season eight’s “The Legend of Ironhead Haynes,” where Bud folds it into a paper aeroplane.
• Frank Lloyd, the show’s stunt coordinator, plays the referee here after appearing uncredited as the mugger in the previous episode.
• NO MA’AM sings James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” twice, both times arriving at the Bundy house.
• Goof: Bud’s costume is intact but his front teeth are missing in the photograph, then his teeth are fine and the costume is shredded when he wakes up on the gurney.