Season 3 Episode 22: Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid

A Peeping Tom is working the neighbourhood and every woman on the street has been a target except Peggy, which she takes as a verdict on her own attractiveness rather than a stroke of luck. The episode is built on that inversion, a crime wave that becomes a compliment, and a woman insulted by being left out of it, and it is one of the better uses the series found for Peggy’s vanity, which is usually played as armour rather than need.

Al’s half has him pressing Bud into tutoring Kelly, which gives the show one of its most useful pieces of character mechanics. Bud explains that Kelly’s capacity for information is fixed, so new knowledge displaces old, a rule the series then enforced for eight more years. It is why she eventually forgets who her father is and, in a later game show episode, forgets the four touchdowns at the worst possible moment.

The half-hour was designated the third-season finale but did not air until late August 1989, months after the rest of the season, which is why it sits slightly apart from the episodes around it. It also carries the only on-screen appearance of Mrs. McGinty, a neighbour the series name-dropped for a decade without ever showing again.

School years get pinned down here: Peggy notes Kelly is a junior and she becomes a senior by the end of the episode, and Bud identifies himself as a freshman at Polk High in his last week. The episode also puts a number on the Bundy marriage, sex about once a month, lasting thirty seconds. The outfit Peggy wears in the closing scene is the one she wears in the season four opening credits.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: August 27, 1989
• Season 3, Episode 22, the season finale, and the 57th episode of the series
• Held back from May and burned off in late August, after season 4 had already been produced
• Teleplay by Jeanne Baruch and Jeanne Romano, story by Len O’Neill
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• LaRue Stanley as Fanny
• Shirley Prestia as Marsha
• Dolores Albin as Mrs. McGinty
• Healy Cunningham as Lois
• Luann Lee as Fifi

Once a Month, Thirty Seconds

This is the episode that puts a number on the Bundy marriage. The couch scene establishes that Al and Peg have sex roughly once a month and that it lasts about thirty seconds, and both figures got quoted back for the rest of the series.

It also fixes the kids in school: Peg places Kelly as a junior who becomes a senior by the final scene, and Bud mentions it is the last week of term, making him a freshman at Polk.

Goof: Al is standing on a ladder outside his own bedroom window when Peg pushes it over. Nobody inside the house questions how the peeper could have been her husband.

Famous Quotes

• Peg: “Let’s have sex!” Al: “Wait a second, Peg! Didn’t we do it last month?!” The schedule, confirmed.
• Peg: “Now sit up, shut up and brace yourself.” Peg, taking charge.
• Al: “Help! Kids! Save me!” Peg: “No one can help you, Al. Take me on a thirty second trip to the moon.” The duration, confirmed.
• Bud: “Damn! It’s Mom’s birthday.” Bud, walking in and drawing the only possible conclusion.

Notes

• The title is the line from Casablanca.
• Fifi is played by Luann Lee, a Playboy Playmate of the Month in 1987.