Season 8 Episode 10: Dances with Weezie

Peg and Marcy have tickets to a touring stage reunion of The Jeffersons, third row centre, and they expect their husbands to come. Al and Jefferson have no intention of sitting through it, so they arrange substitutes: Bud and Kelly are paid to impersonate them in the seats while the two men slip away to the Bullpen, a newly opened sports bar. The bar is everything Al has ever wanted. There are televisions on every wall showing things no network would broadcast, there is memorabilia, and the man working behind the counter is Joe Namath. Also present are Johnny Bench and Ernie Banks, all three playing themselves, and Officer Dan, who is extremely drunk. The dispute that consumes Al and Jefferson for most of the episode is which former athlete appeared in the first Lite beer commercial, a question they take to Namath directly and which eventually escalates into a brawl involving most of the room. Back at the theatre, Kelly is having a considerably worse evening, because Marcy has mistaken her for Jefferson in the dark and has made a proposal about what the two of them might do during the next scene change. The series had earned this one: the show’s creators and several of its producers had all worked on The Jeffersons a decade earlier. It is one of the better late-period Al and Jefferson episodes, and the sports bar is the rare setting where the show lets Al be happy for a sustained stretch before taking it away. The affection for The Jeffersons is real rather than ironic, which is unusual for this series and entirely explained by who was in the writers’ room.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: November 14, 1993
• Season and episode: Season 8, Episode 10
• Overall episode number: 167
• Written by: Richard Gurman
• Directed by: Tony Singletary
• Taped: November 5, 1993
• Production note: Series creators Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, and producers John Maxwell Anderson, Kim Weiskopf, Sandy Sprung and Marcy Vosburgh, had all worked on The Jeffersons in the early 1980s.
• Production note: The Bullpen set was later reused on the WB sitcom Unhappily Ever After, redressed as a Planet Hollywood-style restaurant.
• Title note: Dances with Wolves crossed with Louise “Weezie” Jefferson.

Guest Cast

• Joe Namath as himself
• Johnny Bench as himself
• Ernie Banks as himself
• Jillian Johns as the waitress
• Sherman Hemsley and Marla Gibbs as George Jefferson and Florence Johnston (uncredited, archival audio)
• Frank Lloyd as a bar patron (uncredited)

Who Was in the First Lite Beer Commercial

Joe Namath’s appearance pays off a joke from three years earlier. Back in season 5’s “Weenie Tot Lovers & Other Strangers,” Al told a secretary at the Weenie Tot factory that he was Joe Namath and recounted winning Super Bowl III. Here he gets to ask the actual man a question, and the question is not about football. Namath’s reply, and Al’s immediate misreporting of it to Jefferson, is the best beat in the episode.

Officer Dan settling the argument is the pay-off, and the answer he produces, delivered as he loses consciousness, names Bubba Smith, who had guest starred on this show twice. It is a nice piece of internal bookkeeping for a joke nobody needed to tie off.

The theatre half of the episode belongs to Kelly, and the scene with Marcy is one of the most uncomfortable things the series put her through. Marcy, believing she is holding her husband’s hand, comments that it feels moist like her own, mentions what the show always did to her, and then leans in to whisper a plan. Christina Applegate plays the reaction entirely with her face.

The Jeffersons material is affectionate rather than parodic, which makes sense given the overlap in personnel. Archival audio of Sherman Hemsley and Marla Gibbs is used for the stage show, and “Movin’ On Up” recurs throughout, including over the final scene, where Al and Jefferson end up having to watch the thing after all.

Famous Quotes

• Marcy, arriving with the tickets: “Third row, center aisle. The best seats in the house for the greatest show on earth!” Bud: “What, Public Enemy?”
• Kelly, in the theatre: “This is the lowest thing that I’ve ever done.” Then, under her brother’s gaze: “Okay, the lowest thing I’ve ever been paid to do.” And again: “Okay, the lowest thing I’ve ever been paid to do that I didn’t enjoy.”
• Al, to the man behind the bar: “Hey, Joe, I just got one question for ‘ya.” Namath: “Oh, I know, I know. Did I really believe I’d win the Super Bowl?” Al: “Uh, no, no… Who was in the first Lite beer commercial?” Namath: “…Who cares?!”
• Al, turning around immediately: “See, he said ‘Bubba’!” Jefferson: “It was Billy!”
• Officer Dan, arbitrating: “After sucking down twenty cold ones and a couple of warm ones… my memory and bladder have been jogged… it was Bubba Smith…”

Notes

• Peg reveals that Al was not at the hospital for either Kelly’s or Bud’s birth.
• Frank Lloyd, the show’s stuntman and former recurring player, is one of the men fighting Al in the brawl.
• Other MWC guest stars with Jeffersons credits include Garrett Morris and Irwin Keyes.
• Goofs: a boom microphone crosses the top of the overhead shot during the beer commercial argument, and the camcorder Al is holding when they walk in has moved to Jefferson’s hand by the next shot.