Season 11 Episode 18: A Babe in Toyland

Uncle Dudley, the children’s television host Peggy used to park Kelly in front of, has a breakdown on air and frightens his audience, which leaves his programme without a presenter. Kelly takes over as Princess Kelly and is an immediate hit, and the stardom works on her the way stardom always does in this house, fast and badly. Bud, who negotiated the arrangement and installed himself as agent, discovers the limits of his position when his sister introduces a new character to the show.

The character is Budrick, a puppet in a dark blue shirt and brown boots who looks exactly like him. Kelly explains to the studio audience of small children that Budrick is the saddest little boy in Puppet Land, that no girl puppet will play with him, and what he therefore has to do instead, and the room erupts. Bud watches from the side of the set with his tie straightened and his hair brushed, having come expecting a tribute. The show’s sign-off slogan, don’t be a Budrick, be a Goodrick, is on merchandise by the time he gets home.

The second plot has Al and Peggy sleeping in twin beds, then bunk beds, which produces the two clips that had already turned up in “Breaking Up Is Easy to Do (Part 3)” two weeks earlier. The production numbers confirm this episode was filmed before that trilogy, which is how a montage of Peggy’s memories came to include footage from an episode viewers had not yet seen. Al’s comfort to his son after the humiliation, that he tried his best and failed miserably, is the warmest thing he says all season.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: Monday, March 17, 1997 on FOX
• Season 11, Episode 18
• Overall episode 256 of the series
• Production code 11.15, filmed before the “Breaking Up Is Easy to Do” trilogy, though it aired after it
• Written by Valerie Ahern and Christian McLaughlin
• Directed by Gerry Cohen
• The title plays on the 1934 Laurel and Hardy film Babes in Toyland
• Neither Marcy nor Jefferson appears

Guest Cast

• Brandon Maggart as Uncle Dudley
• Blaire Baron as Jordan
• Richard Israel as the Court Jester
• Richard Taylor Olson as Bobby Beaver

Don’t Be a Budrick

The Budrick sequence is the most sustained cruelty the series ever directed at Bud, and it is constructed with real care. The show lets him prepare: he fixes his tie, checks his breath, fixes his hair, so the audience knows exactly what he expects before Kelly produces the puppet. Then it gives the joke to an audience of children, who point and laugh, and then it puts the slogan on a shirt. Each stage is worse than the last and none of them is Kelly being malicious; she is simply working the room.

Al’s response is the episode’s redeeming note, and it is characteristically sideways. He laughs first, catches himself, concedes it was wrong, suggests the whole thing is probably forgotten, and is then shown the merchandise. His first question about the shirt is whether it comes in extra large. What follows is as close to paternal comfort as the character manages: an acknowledgement that his son tried and failed completely, offered with an arm around the shoulder.

The bed subplot is slight but it has a production footnote attached. Two of its scenes appeared in the montage in “Breaking Up Is Easy to Do (Part 3),” broadcast a fortnight before this episode, because the production order and the broadcast order diverged: this was shot first. Anyone who watched in order saw the footage before the episode it came from.

Famous Quotes

• Kelly: “Boys and girls, I’d like you to meet Budrick.”
• Peg: “Isn’t that sweet of Kelly? She has Bud on the show.” / Al: “Seems a little stiff though, huh, Peg?” / Peg: “Well, you know, Kelly is the talented one.”
• Kelly: “Budrick is the saddest little boy in Puppet Land. None of the girl puppets will play with him so… he has to play with himself.”
• Kelly: “So remember, kids: ‘Don’t be a Budrick, be a Goodrick.’”
• Al: “You shouldn’t have slept on top of me, Peg. My spine is cracking like a plumber’s ass.” / Peg: “Don’t be silly, Al. You don’t have a spine.”
• Bud: “Kelly humiliated me on the air with that puppet.” / Al: “Yes, I know… And that was wrong, son, but it’s only a puppet. The whole thing is probably forgotten by now.” / Bud: “They were selling these on the way home.” / Al: “Is that an extra large?”

Notes

• Peggy’s admission that she left Kelly in front of Uncle Dudley rather than looking after her continues a running thread from several earlier episodes.
• Peggy also reveals that boys used to sneak into her room to make out, and that Al was not among them.
• Richard Israel, the court jester who argues with Princess Kelly over purple M&M’s, had appeared in season four’s “Fair Exchange” as Myron, one of Kelly’s dates.
• Kelly reads the children a book titled Curious George Converts to Judaism.
• Goof: Bobby Beaver’s scream when the dummy’s head lands in the green liquid is dubbed.
• Goof: Bud’s hands swap which one holds the Budrick shirt between consecutive shots.
• Goof: the dummy standing in for Al falls the wrong way through the ceiling, and the tumbling mat is visible beneath Peggy on the bunk bed.