Season 9 Episode 21: And Bingo Was Her Game-O

Peg has qualified for a bingo invitational, and the venue is in a neighbourhood she is not willing to drive to alone, so she brings Marcy. The hall turns out to be run on terms the two of them were not prepared for, populated by serious players who have been doing this a long time and who regard outsiders accordingly. Jean Speegle Howard and Clint Howard both appear, which puts Ron Howard’s mother and brother in the same episode of this series. Peg wins ten thousand dollars. Getting home with it is the problem, and the resolution involves the entire amount going to a taxi fare. Meanwhile Al and Jefferson are on the couch watching monster trucks, which Peg assesses as a decline in PBS programming standards since the Republicans took Congress, and then their beer commercial comes on. The brand has a new spokesperson. She is Yoko Ono, she would like to tell them about the rainforest, and she has written a song. The sequence that follows, ending with Al putting the remote control through the television screen, is the funniest thing in the episode, and Jefferson’s summary of her career is the line of the season.

Peg’s story goes exactly the way the title promises: she wins, and the ten thousand dollars does not survive contact with her. Al’s half is a beer taste test, convened after NO MA’AM loses faith in their brand’s spokesperson, and it gives the garage another round of men evaluating products they cannot afford. Jean Speegle Howard and Clint Howard, Ron Howard’s mother and brother, appear among the bingo regulars, and Howard had turned up on the show twice before in other roles.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: March 26, 1995
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 21
• Overall episode number: 205
• Written by: Alison Taylor
• Directed by: Amanda Bearse
• Taped: February 24, 1995
• Production note: Jean Speegle Howard and Clint Howard, Ron Howard’s mother and brother, both appear. Jean Speegle Howard had already been on the show twice this season and last.
• Production note: Christina Applegate’s hair is noticeably shorter from this episode, a chin-length bob she keeps into the following season.
• Title note: From the folk song “Bingo,” with the obvious application to Peggy’s evening.

Guest Cast

• Jean Speegle Howard as Ceil
• Clint Howard as Mullen
• Rusty Schwimmer as Babs
• Peter Spellos as Elmo
• Pat Crawford Brown as the bingo caller
• Vick Sabitjian as Abdula
• Julia Kato as the voice of Yoko Ono

The New Spokeshuman

The beer commercial sequence is the best thing in the episode and it is built entirely on anticipation. Al and Jefferson clink cans, identify the brand as the official beer of NO MA’AM, and then each describe the advertisement they are hoping for, with Jefferson’s variation being marginally more specific than Al’s. What arrives instead is a lecture about nickels per case and the rainforest, followed by an original composition. The remote going through the screen is the only available ending.

Jefferson’s verdict, that breaking up the Beatles was not enough and now she has ruined their beer, is one of the best closing lines of the ninth season. The credits bill Julia Kato not as Yoko Ono but as “Celebrity Impersonation by Julia Kato,” which is a lawyer’s note made funny.

The monster truck exchange that opens the episode is a model of economy. Al and Jefferson describe what they are watching in the language of ballet criticism, the announcer explains what is actually about to happen, and Peg’s one-line assessment of public broadcasting lands the whole thing.

The bingo hall gives the episode its edge. These are not casual players, Marcy is physically threatened over a marker, and the fact that Peg wins does not make her safe. The taxi fare resolution is the sort of ending the series specialized in: the money exists, the money is gone, nobody is better off.

Clint Howard plays the church janitor, and Peg’s assessment of her husband’s reliability, delivered to him while she waits for a lift that is not coming, is the sharpest thing she says all episode.

Famous Quotes

• Al, watching television: “Look at it, Jefferson. The elegance, the form, the sheer grace of motion.” Jefferson: “The triumph of the human spirit.”
• The announcer: “And now, on Monster Trucking! Tyrannosaurus Wreck will attempt to mow over nine flaming prison buses!” Peg: “Boy, PBS has really changed since the Republicans took over.”
• Jefferson: “Bingo invitational. Jeez, the things that excite women.”
• Al, hoping for the best: “I hope this is where the girls are washing their cars and they turn their hoses on each other.” Jefferson: “Oh, I hope it’s the one where the girls are studying at the library and then they turn the hoses on each other.”
• Jefferson, after the remote goes through the screen: “It wasn’t enough breaking up the Beatles. Now she’s ruined our beer.”

Notes

• David Faustino is clean-shaven in this episode and has his beard back in the next.
• Al suggests Peg hitch a ride on Marcy’s poultry wagon.
• Jefferson claims Marcy told him she once had a cat that lived to a hundred. The record is thirty-eight.
• A goof: the caller announces N 33 and Peg marks an O number before calling bingo, having apparently missed a number two calls earlier.