Season 7 Episode 3: Every Bundy Has a Birthday

Seven has been living with the Bundys for a few weeks and nobody knows when his birthday is, so the family picks one for him and takes the party to the park. The park, it turns out, has been rented for the afternoon by a wealthy family throwing a considerably larger celebration for their own son, complete with a hired skywriting display, and they have put up a barrier to keep the public away from it. The father, Philip, is an insufferable man who holds a black belt and mentions it, and the collision between the two parties occupies the rest of the episode. Al’s position is that the park belongs to the people because he pays taxes, a claim Peg undermines immediately by pointing out that he has not paid any in years. Running under the birthday plot is the better story, which is the three natural-born Bundys working out that Peg is giving Seven affection they never got. Their complaint is not that he is unwelcome. It is that he has not earned the name. Being a Bundy, as they explain it, is a qualification you obtain through accumulated humiliation, and Seven has not yet been told that the service entrance is in back. Al delivers a short family history going back to the first Bundy off the Mayflower, who stepped off about halfway across, and whose recorded last words were that he thought they had arrived. It is a better Seven episode than most, largely because the character spends it being talked about rather than talking.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: September 27, 1992
• Season and episode: Season 7, Episode 3
• Overall episode number: 134
• Written by: Richard Gurman
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Taped: September 4, 1992
• Production note: This episode puts three Bundy birthdays on the record at once: Peggy’s in April, Bud’s on January 22nd and Kelly’s on November 27th.
• Title note: Named for the family’s decision to assign Seven a birthday.

Guest Cast

• Andrew Masset as Philip
• Sherry Rooney as Gwen
• Ted Jan Roberts as Brian (credited as Ted Roberts)
• Frank Lloyd as Frank the parachuter
• Weston Blakesley as the park worker

Bundy Is a Name You Earn

The scene in which the three real Bundys lay out the entry requirements for the family is the best writing in the episode and one of the sharpest things the seventh season produced. Bud’s framing, that their emotional scars run so deep you can almost see them, sets it up, and then each of them volunteers the sentence they consider formative. Al’s is being told the service entrance is in back. Bud’s is being turned down for fifty dollars. Kelly’s is being asked not to ruin it by talking, which earns her a long look from her father before he carries on.

Al’s Mayflower story is a small masterpiece of compression. The first Bundy in America got off the ship halfway over, was never found, and his last recorded words were “Methinks we’re here!” It explains the entire family in two sentences.

The confrontation with Philip gives Peg one of her better lines. Gwen warns the Bundys not to provoke her husband because he is a fifth degree master in kung fu, and Peg counters with Al’s own credential, a fifth grade spelling bee. Al then wins the fight by catching Philip’s foot mid-kick and simply holding it, at which point Philip offers him a hundred dollars to be released and Peg urges him to take the money.

Frank Lloyd, the show’s resident stuntman and a recurring presence as Al’s friend Norris in earlier seasons, appears as the parachuter who breaks his leg on landing.

Famous Quotes

• Al, squaring up: “Alright, Goldfinger… Let’s Rock!” Gwen: “Don’t get Philip mad! He’s a fifth degree master in kung fu!” Peg: “Oh yeah, well don’t get Al mad! He’s a fifth grade spelling bee winner!”
• Bud, on the family name: “‘Bundy’ is a name you earn. Our emotional scars run so deep you can almost see them.”
• Al, on the family’s arrival in America: “Ever since the day the first Bundy stepped off the Mayflower… halfway over. They never found him, but they recorded his final words: ‘Methinks we’re here!’”
• Al, reclaiming public property one item at a time: “And I reclaim this park for the people… And I reclaim this, uh, hot dog for the people, and this steak, for the people!”
• Philip, launching his attack: “Eat hot Gucci, pal!”

Notes

• Peg reveals she normally spends her birthday at a club called Club Poof, eating eggs off the chests of the dancers.
• It is also revealed that Jefferson performs a striptease for Marcy’s mother.
• Al’s claim to be a taxpayer is immediately corrected by his wife, which the series had already established back in season 4’s “976-SHOE.”
• Kelly compares the three of them to Tito of the Jackson family.
• The Kelly birthday date given here, November 27th, contradicts February in season 4’s “Peggy Turns 300,” May in season 3’s “Life’s a Beach,” and April later in this very season in “Movie Show.”
• A goof: Bud reads the skywritten message in real time, which is not how skywriting works, and the Blue Angels are not available for private hire in any case.