Season 9 Episode 2: Driving Mr. Boondy

Bud wants money for a road trip and Al refuses to provide it, delivering a lecture on the value of hard work instead. Al then discovers that his own affairs are not in order, because Peg has been handling the paperwork while she has been away, and among the things she has not handled is his driving licence, which has been suspended. To get it back he has to sit the test again. The examiner assigned to him is Bud, who has taken a job at the licensing office and has been waiting for precisely this opportunity. The test itself is the episode, and the scene in the car park afterwards is the best thing in it: Al, having performed badly and knowing it, explains to his son in detail what life will be like if the licence is not restored, since without a licence he cannot drive, without driving he cannot work, and without work he will be at home permanently, in his underwear, clipping his toenails, when Bud brings dates round. Bud’s identification of the specific underwear in question is the punchline. Elsewhere Kelly loses the Verminator job after asking to be treated better, and takes work standing in a bank window in a bikini holding a sign about interest rates. It is one of the better Al and Bud episodes of the late run, because for once Bud holds all the power and Al has to negotiate rather than bully. Kelly’s half of the episode, meanwhile, moves her from one humiliating job to another without anyone in the family noticing either.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: September 11, 1994
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 2
• Overall episode number: 185
• Written by: Donald Beck
• Directed by: Gerry Cohen
• Production note: Katey Sagal’s first on-camera appearance of the season after the birth of her daughter, though Peg is still away and is only seen from the chest up beside a telephone.
• Production note: Kelly states that she is twenty-three.
• Title note: A play on Driving Miss Daisy, crossed with the licensing clerk’s pronunciation of Al’s surname.

Guest Cast

• Oliver Muirhead as Mr. Blithers
• Nicole Nagel as Heidi
• Isa Totah as Ahmed
• Greg Callahan as the bank president
• Jeffrey Winner as the driving test examiner
• Deborah Lee Hall as the DVS woman
• Kevin Curran as the voice of Buck

The Driving Test

The car park scene is a masterclass in how Al negotiates. He does not dispute that he failed. He simply lays out, step by step, the consequences for Bud personally, building from employment to the specific garment he will be wearing while permanently at home, and lets his son draw the conclusion. Bud’s response, naming the underwear from memory with its slogan, is the funniest line of the episode, and his verdict follows immediately.

Kelly’s bank job gives Marcy two of her best lines of the season. Kelly complains about the location, next door to a bar, and Marcy explains how that won them an account. Kelly then says she feels like a cheap slut, and Marcy explains which account they are hoping that will win.

Marcy also reveals in this episode that she graduated with a double major in business and economics, which is the most specific the series ever got about her qualifications and makes her tolerance of Jefferson considerably harder to explain.

Bud and Heidi singing a German folk song in the back seat of the Dodge on the way to Oktoberfest in Milwaukee is an odd, charming detail that the episode does nothing else with.

Famous Quotes

• Kelly, at the bank window: “Great location for a bank. Right next to a bar.” Marcy: “Well, that’s how we got the Kennedy account.”
• Kelly: “Yeah, but I feel like some cheap slut.” Marcy: “Well, that’s how we’re hoping to get the Clinton account.”
• Al, in the car park: “If I can’t go to work that means I’ll have to stay home and I’ll be home… all the time. Day and night. When you bring your dates over, I WILL be in my underwear. You know the underwear, don’t you, son?”
• Bud: “Not the ones that read, ‘If you lived here, you’d be home now’?”
• Al, pressing: “And I’ll be clipping my toenails and eating Cheez Whiz out of the can. Now, let me ask you, son… HOW DID I DO?” Bud: “You passed.”

Notes

• Peg is still in Wanker County looking after her mother, who has had a heart attack.
• Kelly loses the Verminator job in this episode after demanding better treatment.
• A goof: a boom microphone drops into the top right of frame as Al gets up to answer Peg’s call.