Season 5 Episode 5: The Dance Show

Peg has been going out dancing, which is how she meets Andy, who is handsome, attentive and entirely uninterested in her for reasons she never once considers. Al meets Andy’s husband Pete, who turns out to cook, and the single most dangerous thing anyone can do to Al Bundy is feed him properly.

The episode works because both Bundys are getting something they want and neither can admit what it is. Peg wants to be looked at. Al wants dinner. The show had already run a version of this in season 2, when Steve moved in and started cooking, and Al reacted the same way then: instant, uncomplicated loyalty to whoever is operating the stove.

The cold open is the strongest run of material. Al announces he wants to do what the newlyweds down the street were doing, having watched them through their window, and Peg is enthusiastically on board until he reveals what he actually saw. He had been at that window long enough, he says, that the neighbourhood children mistook him for a jack-o-lantern.

Peg also tells Andy, apparently sincerely, that it has been two years since she had sex with Al and twelve since she danced with anyone. Both figures contradict episodes the show had already aired, which is normal for this series: the numbers exist to serve whichever scene needs them. The episode is also a decent snapshot of where the show sat in 1990. The gay couple are written as the only functional, mutually happy marriage anyone in the neighborhood has met, which is doing something, even if the Bundys never quite notice. Al’s objection to Andy is never about who he is married to, it is that Peg went out and he did not get fed.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: October 21, 1990
• Season 5, Episode 5, and the 85th episode of the series
• Written by Arthur Silver
• Directed by Gerry Cohen

Guest Cast

• Sam McMurray as Andy
• Dan Castellaneta as Pete
• Dorit Sauer as Trixie

Homer Simpson Cooks Al Dinner

Pete is played by Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, who came back to the show in season 7 as a funeral director in “Death of a Shoe Salesman.”

Andy is played by Sam McMurray. Both actors were billed as special guest stars because they were also appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show, which was on the same network.

Al being won over by a man who cooks is a straight repeat of what happens to him in season 2’s The Razor’s Edge.

Bud’s date Trixie comes back later this season in “All Night Security Dude,” and in both episodes he has to beg Al for the money to take her out.

Famous Quotes

• Al: “You know the newlywed couple at the end of the block? I peeked in their window.” Peg: “Oh, you’re so kinky, baby!” The setup.
• Al: “I wanna do what they were doing!” Peg: “Well, I’m game! What were they doing?” Al: “THEY WERE EATING!” The turn.
• Al: “I was at that window for so long, the neighborhood kids thought I was a jack-o-lantern.” The duration of the surveillance.
• Al: “Now, feed me or feed me to something.” The request, restated.

Notes

• Goof: Peg says she has not danced with anyone in twelve years, having danced with Al at a restaurant in season 3’s Eatin’ Out.