Psycho Dad has been cancelled, and the episode that was supposed to air has been replaced by a celebrity interview special. For Al this is not a scheduling change, it is a civil rights matter, and NO MA’AM convenes in the Bundy living room to decide what to do about it. The brainstorming scene is the best thing in the episode: Griff proposes letters, Al rules that real men do not write letters, Griff clarifies which publication he had in mind, and Bob Rooney’s two follow-up questions about the contents of that magazine establish exactly how much reading anyone in the room has done. Al then instructs the group to apply the power of their giant manly brains, and the show holds on three men thinking, cuts away, and comes back to find them still at it. Bud’s suggestion about jumper cables and Peg’s response is the punchline. The plan they eventually arrive at is a protest outside the television station, which they hold in forty below with twenty mile an hour winds and then abandon in order to get warm, leaving behind the only evidence the news crew is able to find. With Chicago unmoved, the group decides to take the campaign to Washington.
What gives the two-parter its edge is that the show had been through this fight itself. Michael G. Moye had clashed with FOX over the script while it was still in draft form during the eighth season, accusing the network of trying to censor it, and the finished episodes arrived a year later with that argument baked into them. Al protesting a cancellation on the steps of a television station is not an abstract premise for the people who made it, which is why the brainstorming scene plays with more conviction than the plot strictly requires.
Episode Facts
- Original air date: December 11, 1994
- Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 12
- Overall episode number: 195
- Written by: Barry Gold
- Directed by: Gerry Cohen
- Production note: This two-parter had a difficult road to air. In 1993, while it was still an early draft slated for season 8, co-creator Michael G. Moye publicly accused FOX of trying to censor it, which he attributed to the network wanting to appease Congress during Attorney General Janet Reno’s campaign against television violence.
- Title note: A play on MTV’s “I Want My MTV” slogan.
Guest Cast
- Andrew Prine as Psycho Dad
- Tom McCleister as Ike
- Teresa Parente as Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal
- Bill Lee Brown as the cameraman
The Power of Our Giant Manly Brains
The letters exchange is a perfectly built three-step joke. Al dismisses letter-writing as something real men do not do, Griff objects on the grounds that men write to one specific magazine, and Bob Rooney asks whether that magazine contains letters. Bud’s intervention, explaining why it does and then having to revise his explanation under his mother’s gaze, leads to Rooney’s second question, which is better than the first.
The thinking sequence is the sort of thing a sitcom in its ninth season can only attempt if the audience already knows the characters. Nothing happens for a long time. Three men concentrate. The camera leaves and comes back and they are still concentrating. Peg’s solution to the problem of how to restart them requires no equipment.
Miranda Veracruz de la Hoya Cardinal gets her best material of the series here. Her opening monologue, delivered to camera while shivering, works out exactly why she and not one of her colleagues has been sent to stand in forty below, and her sign-off, after finding nothing at the scene but a discarded magazine and a name written in the snow, is the funniest line in the episode.
The censorship history is worth knowing. The network’s reluctance to make this story is the reason it was pushed from season 8 to season 9, and the irony of a two-part episode about the cancellation of a violent television show being itself held up over concerns about televised violence is not lost on anybody.
Famous Quotes
- Bob Rooney: “What can we do?” Griff: “We can write letters.” Al: “Aw, real men don’t write letters.” Griff: “They do to Penthouse!” Bob Rooney: “They got letters in Penthouse?”
- Bud, after a look from his mother: “So you’ve got something to do right after you… you finish reading the interviews.” Bob Rooney: “They got interviews in Penthouse?!”
- Al, rallying the group: “Alright, come on, everyone! Think! We’re men! Let’s use the power of our giant, manly brains.”
- Bud, some hours later: “Mom, they’ve been like that for hours now. Should we get the jumper cables?” Peg, opening a beer: “No need.” Al: “I got it!”
- Miranda, live from the empty protest site: “The only evidence we could find is a crumpled copy of Penthouse magazine, and the name ‘Al’ mysteriously written in the snow. So, once again, it seems the joke’s on me.”
Notes
- Al sings the Psycho Dad theme on arriving home. Marcy performs her own version after the cancellation is announced.
- Andrew Prine plays Psycho Dad himself, finally putting a face to the show-within-a-show after years of clips.
- Every member of NO MA’AM stands outside in the snow, and Al is the only one who comes away with a fever.
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