0917  -  Get the Dodge Out of Hell


Married ... with Children: Get the Dodge Out of Hell
 
(Sun. (5), 8:30-9:30 p.m., Fox) 2/7/95
 
Taped in Los Angeles by ELP Communications and Columbia Pictures
Television. Executive producers, Katherine Green, Michael G. Moye;
co-executive producers, Richard Gurman, Kim Weiskopf; producers, John
Maxwell Anderson, Larry Jacobson; co-producers, Michael Greenspon,
David Castro; director, Gerry Cohen; writer, Jacobson.
 
Cast: Ed O'Neill, Katey Sagal, Amanda Bearse, Christina Applegate,
David Faustino, Ted McGinley, David Garrison, Harold Sylvester,
Michael Faustino, Ian Gomez, Rick Batalla, Pierre Gonneau.
 
By RICHARD S. GINELL

 
Writer Larry Jacobson sets up a delicious chain-reaction of
buck-passing as Al (Ed O'Neill), Bud (David Faustino), Kelly
(Christina Applegate) and even Buck the Dog try to get out of Peg's
(Katey Sagal) planned field trip to infamous Wanker County.

Naturally they fail and victorious Peg leads them to a car wash, where
the attendants somehow lose Al's vintage Dodge clunker.

Steve (former regular David Garrison, in a rare, welcome guest spot)
turns up at the car wash, where ex-wife Marcy (Amanda Bearse) has
forced her kept husband Jefferson (Ted McGinley) to take a job.

The back-and-forth barbs create twinges of pain, but Jacobson
masterfully keeps on provoking laughs without letting the tension boil
over.

The cast's timing, particularly the chemistry between O'Neill and
Sagal and the great zingers from Faustino, is on a high level.

With the possible slight exception of Bud, the characters haven't
exhibited a whit of emotional or intellectual growth in eight years
and that's as it should be; it helps to keep this endless inquest on
the possibilities of Murphy's Law in biting form.

Only for a fleeting second does a hint of sentimentality creep in when
the thing that Al treasures the most about his car turns out to be an
idealized photo of his family in the trunk.

Thankfully, the writer and producers quickly deflate that image by
superimposing the legend, "For Your Emmy Consideration: Thank You Very
Much."