Season 2 Episode 15: Build a Better Mousetrap

A mouse gets into the Bundy house, which turns out to be two problems rather than one. Peggy is genuinely frightened of mice, a childhood fear the episode treats with more sympathy than this series usually extended to anybody, and Al’s response to the infestation is a sustained campaign of property destruction. The mouse is never really in danger. The house is.

The episode is a good early demonstration of the show’s preferred comic engine: give Al a small, solvable problem and let his methods be wildly disproportionate to it. Smoke traps go off upstairs, furniture comes apart, and at one point Al concedes he may have killed Bud’s goldfish in the process, a casualty the series confirmed the following season in “Married… with Queen,” where the fish is found in the freezer.

Bud spends the episode consulting a book called Know Your Mouse by Mike Semon, a prop joke at the expense of Michael Semon, the prop master at the Sony lot where the series was filmed. Steve contributes a complaint about Marcy wanting to stop and ask for directions, which season three’s “The Camping Show” answers from her side: she hates that he refuses to. Patrick Thomas O’Brien, who plays Wally the exterminator here, returned nine seasons later as the man running Gary’s sweatshop in “Children of the Corns.”

The mouse itself is handled the way the series handled all its best animals: mostly unseen, entirely unbothered, and more competent than anybody pursuing it. By the end, the household has sustained more damage than any infestation would have caused, Peggy’s fear is unaddressed, and Al is satisfied that he handled it. That ratio, total destruction, zero resolution, complete confidence, is the Bundy method in miniature.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: January 24, 1988
• Season 2, Episode 15, and the 28th episode of the series
• Written by Michael G. Moye, Ron Leavitt and J. Stanford Parker
• Directed by Linda Day

Guest Cast

• Patrick Thomas O’Brien as Wally

Al Bundy Versus One Mouse

What follows is Al demolishing his own house in pursuit of an animal he never catches, which is as close to a thesis statement as the series has. Nobody wins, the damage is self-inflicted, and he would do it again.

Patrick Thomas O’Brien, who plays Wally here, came back in season 11 as the owner of the Happy Soles Shoe Factory.

Famous Quotes

• Peggy: “He was in your shoes and he lived?! This is no ordinary mouse.” Peg, raising the stakes.
• Al: “No, no, it’s personal now. Not only will I kill this mouse, I’ll torture it.” Al, declining the exterminator.
• Kelly: “Your face on a poster with the caption: my daddy didn’t…” Kelly, suggesting Bud take up modelling.

Notes

• The title comes from the old inventor’s saying about building a better mousetrap.
• Bud reads a book credited to Mike Semon, who was the real prop master at the studio where the show was filmed.
• Al suspects he killed Bud’s goldfish with the smoke traps, which gets picked up again in season 3.
• Goof: Al hits his left thumb with the hammer and Peg bandages his right one in the next scene.