Season 4 Episode 8: 976-SHOE

Al’s business idea is a telephone helpline for shoe problems, and he needs fifty thousand dollars to start it. Steve, who is chasing a sales contest with a trip to Hawaii as the prize, signs off on the loan and tells Al to do the paperwork later. That decision is the hinge of the whole episode, and it goes wrong faster than anyone involved anticipates.

Nobody calls the hotline. Al sits at the kitchen table surrounded by telephones, answering handsets that are not ringing, while his family stands over him explaining the problem with his premise. Marcy then lends Al the money to repay Steve’s bank so Steve will not be fired, and Al spends that too. By the trial scene at the end, Steve has lost his job at The Leading Bank of Chicago and Marcy has been demoted from loan officer to drive-up teller.

It is worth watching for the Steve material specifically. David Garrison plays most of the second half in a catatonic state on the Bundy couch, staring at nothing, having asked his wife not to shout at him about the loan until midnight. Marcy’s response when she finds him like that is the funniest line in the episode and the clearest sign of how far the Rhoades had been dragged in by this point. The other thing this episode establishes is the cost of being neighbours with the Bundys. Up to this point Steve and Marcy have lost a dog, a VCR, a house, a Barbie doll and most of their dignity. Here they lose their careers. Marcy spends the rest of the series several rungs lower than she started, and Steve is gone from the regular cast inside two seasons.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: November 12, 1989
• Season 4, Episode 8, and the 65th episode of the series
• Written by Sandy Sprung and Marcy Vosburgh
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Ray Reinhardt as Peamon
• Kari Whitman as Muffy
• Kerry Burke as Swenson
• Dan Tullis Jr. as the sheriff
• R. Leo Schreiber as the farmer

The First Appearance of Dan Tullis Jr.

This is the first time Dan Tullis Jr. turns up on the show, here as a sheriff. He played several different roles across seasons 4 to 6, including an FBI agent in The Egg and I, before finally becoming Officer Dan, a credited recurring character, in No Ma’am.

A number that sticks: the shoe line is 555-SHOE throughout the episode, even though the episode is titled 976-SHOE. A 976 number was the premium-rate line of the era, which is the joke, but 555 is the fictional prefix television had to use.

Bud mentions that Mrs. Donnelly rang for advice about a bunion, which pays off Al shouting at Mr. Donnelly a few episodes earlier in Tooth or Consequences.

Famous Quotes

• Peggy: “Honey, no one is stupid enough to call a shoe hot-line.” Al: “Everyone in high school said no one was stupid enough to marry the big redhead, but someone was, wasn’t he?” The business plan, defended.
• Marcy: “You told me not to yell at you about the loan until midnight, then I’d see. What am I seeing?!” Marcy, arriving.
• Peggy: “He hasn’t spoken for hours, Marcy.” Marcy: “Don’t pull that coma stuff with me, Steven!” The diagnosis, rejected.
• Al: “Hello?! Hello?! Hello?! Hello?!” Al, working the phones that have not rung.

Notes

• Peggy tells the sheriff outright that the family does not pay taxes.
• Goof: the loan arithmetic does not reconcile. Marcy lends fifty thousand to clear Steve’s bad loan, and Al later still owes the original amount.