Season 9 Episode 25: Shoeless Al

Al is robbed at the shoe store and spends the night tied up in the stockroom surrounded by merchandise, and the experience gives him an idea worth four million dollars. The lawsuit claims that the ordeal has left him unable to be around shoes, and the mall responds by hiring a private investigator to establish whether the phobia is real. The investigator, Leslie Baum, announces his conclusion at the first meeting and Al’s response to his name is immediate. So Al has to maintain the condition under surveillance, which is manageable until the bowling championship, because the trophy is named after Puggy Weaver and Al wants it, and bowling requires shoes. The dilemma is the episode: four million dollars or the Puggy. The sequence where Al emerges from the back of the alley having made his choice is scored to “Also sprach Zarathustra,” and Queen gets three separate cues across the episode. The opening scene is the best thing in it. Griff arrives to find his colleague bound in the stockroom, asks whether he has been robbed, and accepts Al’s sarcastic alternative explanation without hesitation, then offers one of his own.

The investigator is the engine. Leslie Baum is assigned to establish whether the phobia is genuine, which means following Al around waiting for him to slip, and the half-hour becomes a sustained test of a man who has to act terrified of the only thing he knows anything about. The bowling championship gives the script its stage for the final trap, and the episode works in the news that Puggy Weaver, Al’s rival from season four’s “Peggy Turns 300,” has since died in a waffle-eating competition.

Episode Facts

• Original air date: May 14, 1995
• Season and episode: Season 9, Episode 25
• Overall episode number: 210
• Written by: J. Stanford Parker, credited as “Bootsie”
• Directed by: Amanda Bearse
• Production note: The bowling trophy is named the Puggy, after Puggy Weaver, Al’s rival from season 4’s “Peggy Turns 300,” who the episode reveals has since died in a waffle eating competition.
• Title note: After “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, with the obvious application.

Guest Cast

• Charlie Dell as Leslie Baum
• Mary-Pat Green as Mary-Pat
• Michael Rothhaar as Milt
• Andrew Kavovit as Mark Campbell
• Susan Varon as Brenda
• Mike Finneran as Marv

Four Million Dollars or the Puggy

The stockroom scene is the best Al and Griff material of the season. Griff asks the obvious question, Al gives a sarcastic answer involving a supermodel, and Griff takes it at face value and reports that the same thing happened to him. Jefferson’s arrival adds a third layer, with Griff attempting to repeat the supermodel story before Al cuts him off.

Al’s account of the actual robbery contains the best line in the episode, which is that the thief demanded he open the register and it had been so long since anyone bought anything that he had forgotten how.

Mary-Pat Green plays the championship referee, and her line to Al is a direct callback to the “I need shoes!” running gag she had been delivering since season 8’s “Scared Single.” This is the one where she inverts it.

Al’s demonstration of how convincing he can be, which involves kissing his wife at length and then explaining what he was actually experiencing, is the sort of joke the series could only make this late, after nine years of establishing the marriage.

A nice bowling detail for the observant: Griff is the only member of the team who bowls left-handed, and Al, who writes and signs cheques left-handed throughout the series, bowls right-handed.

Famous Quotes

• Griff, finding his colleague tied up: “What happened, Al? Were you robbed?” Al: “No, Kathy Ireland came in here, tied me up and we had wild sex all night.” Griff: “Cool. Same thing happened to me.” Al: “Untie me, you moron!”
• Al, on the robbery: “He tried to make me open the register and it had been so long I’d forgotten how.”
• Jefferson, with the bad news: “For some ungodly reason they seem to be cracking down on frivolous lawsuits. The mall just hired a private investigator. He trailed me here. I tried to shake him at the nudie bar… Uh, I mean, I got here as soon as I could.”
• Al, having demonstrated his acting range on his wife: “Now, it may appear that I enjoyed that when in actuality, I’m choking on my own bile.”
• Leslie: “Look Bundy, I’ll tell you straight out. I think you’re a fraud.” Al: “Oh yeah, well with a name like Leslie, I think you’re a sissy.”

Notes

• Charlie Dell, the investigator, had appeared back in season 2’s “Poppy’s by the Tree” as Roy.
• Queen’s “We Will Rock You” plays during the championship and “We Are the Champions” is used three separate times.
• J. Stanford Parker, writing here under a pen name, had supplied the story for season 2’s “Build a Better Mousetrap” under his own.
• Goofs: Bud knocks down all ten pins and the stat sheet records neither a strike nor a spare, and a bowling ball bounces off the rack, which bowling balls do not do. The production was almost certainly using light balls, since the lanes point at the audience and the cameras.