The Terrible Catsafterme

Brad's Musings and Meanderings

random acts of quoting

"You can trust me insipidly." - Oliver Hardy, "Our Relations"

SEASON 1

third

Created by Bonnie Turner and Terry Turner

Theme music composed by Ben Vaughn.

  • 001. Brains and Eggs – 1/9/1996
    • Four alien life forms on an extraterrestrial expedition take the life form of humans known as the Solomons and move into an attic apartment in Rutherford, Ohio, owned by landlady Mamie Dubcek (Elmarie Wendel). The leader of the expedition is High Commander Dick (John Lithgow), who gets a job as a physics professor at Pendleton State University. Second in command is Security Officer Sally (Kristen Stewart), the only entity to take on a female form. Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the oldest being and Information Officer, who has taken the form of a teenage boy. Harry (French Stewart) is seemingly the most dim-witted of the crew, but has a transmitter in his head. As the aliens begin to understand the bodies they now inhabit, Dick finds that he is both appalled and attracted to his colleague anthropology professor Dr. Mary Albright (Jane Curtin), while Tommy finds himself obsessed with teenage sexual desire, and Sally is disgusted at the prospect of having dead cow on her hands as she prepares meatloaf. During his physics class, his students Leon (Ian Lithgow), Bug Pollone (David DeLuise), Aubrey Pitman (Chris Hogan), and Caryn (Danielle Nicolet), discuss how ‘feelings’ are the core of the human experience, which inspires Dick to extend his ‘family’s’ mission. The Solomons attend a party at Dean Sumner’s house, during which Dick expresses his desire to experience feelings with Mary. He ends up kissing her, gets slapped, and gets kissed back. After the party Dick pontificates how fascinating humans are, leading the others to speculate that he has ‘probed’ Mary. Simbi Khali plays secretary Nina Campbell. Jennifer Rhodes is Mrs. Sumner. Marnette Patterson is the volleyball girl. Dan Gilvezan is the voice of the D.J. Susan Leslie is the kissing woman. 1/18/16

  • 002. Post-Nasal Dick – 1/16/1996
    • After Dick drops several hints and promises to behave, Mary invites him to attend a wedding with her as her date. Meanwhile Tommy has his first make-out session at school with a girl named Dina (Marla Sokoloff), who ends up passing a cold to him, which then gets passed to all the Solomons. They find such things as sneezing and nasal spray to be exhilarating, but Dick tries to hide his cold from Mary so he can go on with the wedding date. By drinking an entire bottle of cough syrup, his behavior at the wedding becomes more and more erratic and he ends up delivering a toast to Mary. After the wedding, Dick passes out at Mary’s house and confesses that he is an alien and is in love with her. Their next day at work is quite awkward. Sally becomes inexplicably nurturing to Tommy and Harry, but snaps at Dina when she visits Tommy to take him back to her place. Harry has fever dreams that he goes on The Today Show in a segment with Martha Stewart (herself). The Solomons pontificate on the fragility of human life and how it is amazing that they pledge their devotion to one another during their short life span. Marijane Cole is the irritated lady at the wedding. James Earl Jones provides voice-over narration to open each show of the first season (removed in syndication). 1/18/16
  • 003. Dick’s First Birthday – 1/23/1996
    • When Nina asks Dick’s age for the office birthday list, Dick realizes that he and his family have never established birthdays, but doesn’t like the fact that he is older than everyone. He seems to hit it off with a student named Laurie Harris (Lauren Graham) who is considering transferring to Pendleton. Laurie seems to be enchanted by Dick, but Mary is irritated by seeing him hit on a younger woman, and warns him to act his age, a phrase which confuses Dick. Mary gives Dick a birthday card that pokes fun at his age, causing him to go home and dye his hair. Nina and Mary find his new hair and leather pants laughable, and Dick is upset even further when he finds out Laurie has a 29-year old boyfriend named Doug (Robert Lynch), whom she considers to be an ‘older man’. Mary makes him feel better with a different birthday card, and they take a drive and park under the stores and confess to one another that their ages are 42. Meanwhile Sally flaunts her perfect body to everyone who will listen, Tommy learns about sex ed in his phys ed class, and Harry tries to improve his confidence with a self-help tape. Sally fears she’s peaked when she finds a wrinkle. Michael Milhoan is Coach Strickland. Dee Freeman is the waitress. 3/20/16
  • 004. Dick Is from Mars, Sally Is from Venus – 1/30/1996
    • Dick works toward defining each member of the family’s roles, including sending Tommy off to high school. He also suggest that Sally accept a date from a man named Brad (Artie Anderson) in order to be the first to experience sex. Sally is pleased with her date although she misinterpreted Brad’s offer to sleep with her and sent him home because he was tired. She waits for his call that never comes, which sends her into a vortex of depression that forces her to visit Brad and break his door and his arm. Dick talks Mary and Nina into taking Sally out and they end up coaching her on how idiotic men can be. Meanwhile Tommy gets into trouble in gym class for refusing to climb a rope, causing the teacher to call Dick in for a conference. Dick tries to figure out male bonding with his ‘son’, starting with rough-housing and ending with watching a football game with Tommy and Harry. Sally returns home after visiting Brad and telling him that she now understands his limitations. Sally tells Dick that she’s learned that men and women are completely different life forms forced to inhabit the same planet. Harry tests the liquids in the house for their toxicity. Whitney Rydbeck is Mr. Kersey. Elayn J. Taylor is a teacher. NOTE: This episode was filmed prior to Episode 2, as Tommy had already started high school in that episode. 3/20/16
  • 005. Dick, Smoker – 2/6/1996
    • The family goes out for a night of fast food and a movie, where Sally gets a piece of popcorn lodged between her teeth. Sally also starts to resent the fact that Dick is High Commander and has given Harry permission to turn himself into a lethal killing machine, and Tommy to reanimate a toad with his lab partner Jack (Jonathan Everett Lewis). Dick leaves Sally alone and goes to a bar where he runs into his students. Impressed with how cool Pittman looks while smoking, Dick picks up the habit as well… and soon finds himself addicted. Accompanying Sally to the dentist Dr. Bankson (Eddie Allen), Dick steps out to the stairwell to smoke and gets locked in there for three days, surviving his loneliness by having conversations with his hand. Sally takes the opportunity to be in charge, and has to speak to Tommy’s teacher Ms. Koppel (Jane Lynch) Because his toad came alive as a flesh-craving monster. Sally struggles to be in charge, especially when a car mechanic (David Dunard) won’t give her any respect. Harry eventually locates Dick, but they end up locking themselves in the stairwell again for an additional two days before a janitor finds them. Harry makes friends with his hand as well. Sally admits that she is glad that Dick is in charge, while they all make fun of Dick for getting locked in the stairwell in the first place. Kathryn Joosten is the smoking cafeteria lady. 6/22/16
  • 006. Green-Eyed Dick – 2/13/1996
    • After watching a couple cuddling, Dick develops a craving to be hugged by Mary. She says she’s not a hugger, but when her old boyfriend Dr. Jeff Willis (Ed Begley Jr.), who is in town for a book signing for his book Echoes of My Stepfather, pays a visit, she runs into his arms. Dick has to contend with his feelings of jealousy and immediately beats Jeff in a game of racquetball. Meanwhile Dick dispatches Sally to find out what attracts women to men. After interviewing a young woman (Nancy LeSuk) necking in a car, and an old woman (Darlene Kardon) who has been married for 42 years, Sally determines that it is the man’s car. Dick asks Mary to go on a picnic and she accepts, so when she then cancels to attend Jeff’s book signing, Dick shows up at the bookstore to accuse him of plagiarism and stealing the woman he loves. This confuses Jeff’s wife Emily (Katie Layman, named as “Muriel” in the credits), who is actually having an affair with Jeff’s brother (Richard Gilbert-Hill). Jeff and his brother then get in a fistfight in the bookstore. Dick later confesses to Mary that he wants to be her boyfriend. She insists that they let whatever is going to happen occur naturally, but agrees to give him his hug, despite his constant strange behavior. Harry finds a dog named Scruffy, but Mamie won’t let him keep it because she is allergic. He ends up giving it to an attractive single mother named Kate (Katherine LaNasa) and her daughter Lisa (Lindsey Haun), and gets an invite to their house. Tommy learns about jealousy from Archie and Superman comic books. Mark Bedard is the naked guy. 6/23/16
  • 007. Lonely Dick – 2/20/1996
    • Dick is beside himself with loneliness when Mary goes away for a week on a retreat. Nina will not give him Mary’s number, and when Dick tries to take Nina to dinner to get to know her, she assumes she is being fired and causes a scene. Sally reads about lipstick in a magazine so she Tommy and Harry head to cosmetics department store Orca to scope it out. The sales lady Aviana (Carole Davis) gives her free product which Sally becomes addicted to. A classmate of Tommy’s named August Leffler (Shay Astar) is impressed by Tommy’s analysis of the commercialization of fashion and they begin to date. Tommy nearly blows it when he still wants to stare at August’s chest. Harry meets a flamboyant male cosmetician named Phillip (Phil Hartman) and ends up getting hired to peddle makeup. Dick breaks into Mary’s house to rifle through her things and is caught by Nina. When Mary returns, Dick is so excited that he runs to her in slow motion and ends up plowing her down. August takes back Tommy with the condition that she control the speed of physicality between them. Maria Cina is Onya. 9/13/16 
  • 008. Body & Soul & Dick – 2/27/1996
    • The Solomons attend a dinner party given in honor of obnoxious professor Dr. Leonard Hanlin (John Mahoney), who has taken a liking to Dick because he is the only blunt and honest person he knows. Shortly after being rejected by Sally, Hanlin falls over dead, which temporarily makes Sally think that she has killed him. Dick tries to get closer to his student, now cognizant that death can take anyone at any time. Meanwhile Tommy begins dating a cheerleader named Cheryl (Anna Slotky), who he thinks is easier than August, but soon he beings to tire of Cheryl’s cheering and longs for August, who has walked out on him for being dishonest. Tommy promises to take August somewhere nice if she begins seeing him again. Dick finds out that Hanlin has requested that Dick present an honest eulogy at his funeral, so struggles to come up with something nice, but failing even after consulting Father Rice (Bruce Ed Morrow). Harry, who is excited that they got cable television, steals Hanlin’s corpse, which makes everyone think about when they will have to leave their bodies behind. Dick manages to deliver a satisfactory and truthful eulogy by describing death in scientific terms. August is unimpressed that the nice place Tommy takes her to is the funeral. William Bogert is Dean Sumner. Harry S. Murphy is a professor. Steven R. Barnett is the cable man. 9/14/16 
  • 009. Ab-dick-ted – 3/4/1996
    • With everyone in his house bickering, Dick turns to Mary to inquire about sibling relationships, and she reveals that she has an obnoxious brother named Roy (Bronson Pinchot) with whom she rarely speaks despite the fact that lives nearby. Dick insists that she invite him to accompany her to dinner at their house. However when Roy starts talking about his experience being abducted by aliens – much to Mary’s embarrassment – red flags go up with the Solomons, and Sally and Harry take Roy to a cornfield to kill him. When Dick finds out, he grabs Mary and they head there to stop the murder just in the nick of time. Mary forces Roy to admit that he is lying merely to impress Sally and get her to the cornfield to score. Sally apologizes to Dick and awaits her punishment from the High Commander but inspired by Mary tolerating her brother, he decides to simply lover her as a sibling. This doesn’t stop her from pushing him off the roof before telling him she loves him too. Meanwhile Harry does cleaning around the apartment in hopes of a promotion, and Tommy tries to figure out the fickle nature of August, giving in to her every whim including ditching his family when she asks him to. 12/6/16
  • 010. Truth or Dick – 3/12/1996
    • Mary takes advantage of Dick’s willingness to do anything for her, and flatters him asks him to substitute for her in a meeting of the Rules Committee. Sally realizes that Dick has been ‘lied’ to to get what she wants. Dick espouses his own version of the truth in the meeting, telling Dr. Byron (Richard Roat) and the group about Mary’s disdain for them. Dick and Mary get into an argument about this, with Dick angry that Mary has lied to him. Dick teaches about Universal Truths in class, and the class tutors on him on times in which it’s okay to lie. Meanwhile Sally and Harry attempt to get a drivers license, but Sally is enraged by the long line. When she finally gets in, she fails the written exam and successfully gets a second chance by lying and flattering the DMV agent (Andrew Hill Newman). Sally continues her lying streak with Dick, and he finds that he loves it. He attempts to lie to Mary, but finds that he likes complimenting her with the truth better – even if it means a few insults – which ultimately impresses her. Tommy battles puberty when he gets a pimple and feels irritable. Mrs. Dubcek takes him to the mall to cheer him up, and he meets more teenagers which makes him feel that he belongs. Mailon Rivera is the campus cop. Kristin Morley is the waitress. Dee Freeman is the DMV clerk. 12/6/16
  • 011. The Art of Dick – 3/19/1996
    • Harry is looking for something he is good out, so Dick gets him involved in the art class that Dr. Albright is taking, and in order to prove that he is good at everything he tries, Dick takes the class as well. Harry seems to be a natural at painting and in addition is very gifted in art theory. Dick is furious because he can’t get the hang of it. Meanwhile Tommy signs up Sally to participate in the school bake sale and quickly takes it over from its long-time leader Grace (Charlotte Booker) and proceeds to run the sale in militant tactical fashion. Dick talks to Dr. Albright about his woes and she tells him that although not everyone can be an artist, anyone can be an inspiration… which inspires him to show up at the art class and strip nude so that he can be everyone’s ‘muse’. Kimberly Scott is Emily. Lorna Scott is Mrs. Walters. Peggy Billo is Mrs. Harzinger. Heather McPhaul is Mrs. Duvall. Jane Gordon is Mrs. Greenstein.  3/18/17
  • 012. Frozen Dick – 3/26/1996
    • Dr. Albright is excited to head off to Chicago to receive the Louis Leakey Award until she finds out that Dick too is receiving one and plans to travel with her. Nina points out that Dick stresses out Dr. Albright, along with everyone else he encounters, so Dick aspires to make the trip stress-free for her. Once they get on board the plane, Dick has a meltdown about having a plane crash and they both get kicked off the flight and are forced to drive to Chicago. En route it begins to snow and Dick causes the car to crash into a snow bank. Back home Sally fears the snow and offers to preserve the human race with Leon, who is dropping off a term paper. Harry has gotten a job at Gung Ho Video, and in the midst of de-alphabetizing the movies in favor of arranging them by movies he has seen and not seen, he also freaks out when he sees the snow. Tommy hangs out with Harry as well so he can do his report on David Copperfield by watching the movie, but ends up with a video of David Copperfield the magician. The stranded Dick and Dr. Albright hang out at a diner where the local folks coach Dick on how to impress Mary. He leads them in a rendition of Oklahoma! to her delight and then they simulate the awards ceremony for her. When Sally realizes that there are still people left on earth shoveling their driveway, she sends Leon home. Rex Linn is Chuck. Robert Knott is Ellis. Linda Dangcil is a singing trucker. 3/19/17
  • 013. Angry Dick – 4/2/1996
    • With the Solomans spending their time glued to the TV or watching their neighbors the Mullers, Dick proclaims that they need to make friends with them. Dick is initially able to become friendly with Frank (Mike Starr), and Patty (Lois Foraker) takes a liking to Sally. However after Dick is extra thrilled with Frank’s back-scratcher, Frank starts to realize that Dick and his family are strange, and eventually blows up when they come to visit the Mullers at 3am. Dick doesn’t understand why Frank turned on him and becomes angry at being snubbed. Patty wants to maintain her friendship with Sally, but Dick can’t control his anger… until Tommy makes him repeat his vows as Commander. He shows up at Frank’s to try and make peace, but ends up punching Frank… and gets punched in return. After they understand each other’s boundaries, Frank is willing to become friends with Dick again. Harry critiques President Clinton’s addresses to the nation, and offers some suggestions on how to spice them up. 9/13/17
  • 014. The Dicks, They Are a Changin’ – 4/9/1996
    • When Nina finds out that Dick claims to have been at Stanford in the 60’s, she starts to think that she recognizes him as an anarchist named Manny Rosenburg from the counter-culture movement, who is wanted by the FBI. Nina is titillated by this, so after initially denying it, he starts to lead her to believe that it is true. She invites him over for a date and after some kissing, she invites him up to her room. Dick is torn on whether to take advantage and decides to go for it… but then Nina recalls that Manny had invited her up to his bedroom, and when she went up, she found him in bed with two women already. Nina comes to her senses and throws Dick out of the bedroom, and although Dick vehemently denies being Manny, she now just sees him as being an opportunistic jerk. Meanwhile Harry gets roped into a CD club, and eventually builds up the courage to quit it… even though he then recommends Sally as a new member. Tommy tries to come up with feasible backgrounds for the family. Nina later forgives Dick for going out of his way to impress her. 9/15/17
  • 015. I Enjoy Being a Dick – 4/21/1996
    • Dick can’t understand Sally’s need to spend, nor can he understand why Dr. Albright and Nina are attending a women’s group that he can’t go to. He solves the problem by dressing as a woman and crashing the meeting. Most of the women feel that ‘Dickie Jo’ has valid points about being excluded, and encourage ‘her’ to let out her feelings. Dick does so by kissing Dr. Albright, leading the group leader Judith (Ilene Getz) to believe she’s a lesbian Meanwhile Tommy starts to feel conflicted about telling August about his true identity when she starts talking about future plans. This leads her to believe that he is hiding something from her, and in her anger cuts of Tommy’s ponytail. When Dick comes home dressed as a woman fuming about the meeting, she assumes that this is Tommy’s big secret. Sally and Harry get a job at a diner, but Sally is hugely disappointed with the meager amount of tips she receives. Jane Galloway is Dr. Blumfeld. Bart McCarthy is the grouchy customer, and Scooter Stephan is customer Sally criticizes about his tip. 4/21/18
  • 016. Dick Like Me – 4/23/1996
    • Dick and Sally attend a parent-teacher conference for Tommy, where Sally becomes immediately smitten with his teacher Mr. Kevin Randell (John D’Aquino). He invites her to be his date to chaperone a school dance, which she gleefully accepts although she has no idea what dancing is. Dancing comes naturally to Harry, so he and Dick attempt to teach Sally. Meanwhile Dick tries to assist Tommy with coming up with a culture so that he’ll fit in by being unique race. When he finds out that Nina is black, he begins to study cultures and survey his students for their ethnic groups. When Dr. Albright tells Dick that Italians are the sexiest, he and the family serenade her with That’s Amore in full Italian regalia, much to her chagrin. Although incredibly nervous about her date, it goes very well and leads to a passionate kiss. Tommy ties his hand at being Korean, and winds up with a black eye, and then a black blues singer. Mrs. Dubcek identifies them as being Jewish because of their last name ‘Solomon,’ so they adopt that ethnicity. Sally goes on to the family how much she likes Kevin, but Dick questions whether he is Jewish. 4/24/18
  • 017. Assault with a Deadly Dick – 4/30/1996
    • Dick has a new ATM card and is anxious to spend money by taking out Dr. Albright and taking his family shopping and buying Tommy a basketball. However when they return to the car, they find that someone has stolen their car radio. The family gets paranoid about being victims, so they report the incident to the police, where Sally begins a flirtatious relationship Officer Don (Wayne Knight). Tommy is encouraged to play basketball by August even though he has no interest, and soon gets on Coach Strickland’s nerves when he questions the team’s practice of playing. He is benched for every game, but finally convinces the coach to let him in the last couple of minutes to impress August… and is promptly squashed by the other team. Tommy lays into August and tells her that she needs to accept him as he is, a notion that seems to impress her. However he is careful not to overdo it, and tries to get clues as to when behaving assertive is appropriate to her. Things get worse for Dick when he is robbed at an ATM by a mugger (Ray Proscia). Now virtually afraid of everything, he consults a salesman (Lance E. Nichols) about purchasing foolproof security. Dr. Albright convinces Dick that he needs to begin trusting again, so when he is called down to ID the mugger, he attacks him and beats him up. Officer Dan insists that the mugger will get due process, an idea that turns off Sally completely, and thus ends their relationship. Robert Arce is the vagrant from another planet. 12/16/18
  • 018. Father Knows Dick – 5/7/1996
    • When Dick tells Harry to keep busy by painting, he starts painting on the side of the house. Dick comes to the conclusion that Harry needs a father figure. He turns to his class to find out about their various father-son traditions. Dick can’t seem to make any headway with keeping the restless Harry from leaving, so Dick confesses to Harry that he is carrying a cranial micro-receiver chip in his brain that can communicate with their supreme leader, the Big Giant Head. Harry storms out and head to a bar where he meets a lady named Margueritte (Lisa Kaminir), and is confronted by her boyfriend Frank (J.J. Cohen) who challenges him to a race. Harry crashes Dick’s car and Harry rushes out to make sure he is okay, and finds Harry realizing how much he wants to be alive. The two make up, but Harry and Dick decide to go back being brothers rather than father-son. Meanwhile Sally is distressed because Mr. Randell doesn’t want to introduce Sally to her mother Frances (Naomi Judd). Sally shows up the school looking sexy and forces him to arrange a get-together. When they meet, Mrs. Randell uses every passive-aggressive trick in the book, while an oblivious Sally tells all about her relationship with Kevin. Once Sally realizes that Frances hates her, they wind up in a fistfight. Sally and Kevin decide that they won’t let his mother ruin their relationship. Adam Consolo is Tommy’s classmate. Craig Tolliver is the bartender. Ken Magee is the policeman Joe. Jesse Jacobs is the waiter. 12/17/18
  • 019. Selfish Dick – 5/14/1996
    • When Professor Bosco gets a new job offer, Mary gets the opportunity to move into a larger office with bay windows, leaving Dick behind to share his office with the all-business Judith (Ileen Getz) and her assistant and brother Roger (Steven M. Porter). Dick decides that his needs are more important than Mary’s, so he concocts a scheme to let Professor Suter (Harry Morgan) know that with his tenure, he is entitled to the office. Suter visits Mary in the office and makes her feel guilty by telling her that he had proposed to his late wife right outside the bay window. Dick tells Dean Sumner that it is a disgrace that Suter didn’t get the office, and also goes to Father Rice (Bruce Ed Morrow) in the Theology department to trying to talk him into shaming Mary out of the office. Dick’s scheme ultimately works in his favor, but not as designed: Suter is let go when the Dean realizes how old he is, and Father Rice is given the office. Meanwhile when Sally sees Mrs. Dubcek cut he finger, she passes out, and then is dropped down the stairs by Harry. They take her to the hospital for recovery. While there, Harry, Tommy, and Sally find doctor’s coats and adopt every hospital trope they have seen on TV and go around the hospital making diagnoses on the patients… one of which ends up being correct, resulting in Harry saving their life. Richard McGonagle is the head doctor. Tom Jourdon is a doctor. Tom Simmons is Peter. D. Elliot Woods is Dcotor Ladypart. Jan Claire is Nurse Wounds. Lily Knight is Nurse Turner. 12/15/19
  • 020. See Dick Run – 5/21/1996
    • Tommy prepares the report for the Big Giant Head and mentions Dicks’ inability to form a meaningful relationship with Dr. Albright, which is then transmitted by Harry. Dick doubles down his efforts and with Nina’s help in convincing her, Dr. Albright agrees to a date with Dick. They go to a Japanese restaurant and when Mary accidentally knocks out the chef (Yoshihisa Kiwayama), Dick takes over with a dinner show at the grill, which greatly impresses Mary. The two go back to Mary’s house and have sex, which is news that Dick can’t resist telling his entire class the next day. Meanwhile Harry receives a transmission from the Big Giant Head telling them that their mission had failed, that replacements are being send, and that they are to return home. Dick cancels his next date with Mary, while Tommy and Sally prepare August and Mr. Randell for their upcoming departures. As Dick is telling Mary his true feelings, Harry interrupts with good news: that it is only Dick who has to be deported… and that he has seen Dick’s replacement in the basement. Dick confronts his look-alike replacement (John Lithgow), and cold, smooth, and seemingly conniving version of himself. He encases Dick in an invisible box in the basement and confronts Mary with a much more aggressive tone. Mary is initially appalled at the new Dick, but soon falls under his spell and gives him a passionate kiss. NOTE: This is the season cliffhanger, to be be resumed in the second season. 12/17/19

SEASON 2

  • 021 & 022. See Dick Continue to Run – 9/22/1996
    • As the original Dick continues to sit in the basement trapped inside the invisible box and reflects on the recent events, the new Dick takes command of the mission, re-naming everyone Tommy, demanding the Sally wear skirts, is briefed on his job, and sends them on an errand to buy supplies for an undisclosed project. While they are at the hardware store on the errand, they run into the alien Dennis Rodman (himself). The new Dick is suave and commanding with Mary and insists on a date, but also has no qualms about planting a kiss on Nina as well. He has no idea how to handle his class room, and gives everyone a D… with which they are more than satisfied. Back at home he expels the crew to the roof and starts a fire while working on his project, then later plants a kiss on Mrs. Dubcek as well. When Harry is alone with the new Dick, he receives a transmission from the Big Giant Head warning that a disgruntled employee was accidentally sent to take Dick’s place. Since Harry is not lucid during the transmission, only the new Dick hears it. He continues his diabolical plot in the closet to rule the world. Harry finds the old Dick downstairs and tells the other, who head down to see him. Sally initially doesn’t want to let him out since he is not longer High Commander, but the other convince her. Tommy gets him out merely by clapping, which dissolves the box. Upstairs the new Dick is on his date with Mary, while a downtrodden Dick is ready to give up and move to Florida. The crew talk him into taking his position back, so while the new Dick goes to consult with Sally about what ‘doing it’ actually means, the old Dick goes in to see Mary and tries to convince her to escape. She won’t listen, and then unbeknownst to her, both Dicks get a fight. Mary hits a Dick over the head and knocks him out, and it appears to be the bad Dick. He has them tie up the other Dick, but it turns out that the one tied up is the good Dick, while the other is ready to use his new contraption that will release spores all over Ohio and impregnate the eligible woman with space creatures. AS he is about to employ it, the original Dick confronts him about his father issues. As the old Dick laments the lack of love he received from his father, the good Dick takes the device away. Dennis Rodman shows up and agrees to escort the evil Dick home, and also to get rid of the spore maker. When it is done, Dick returns to his post as High Commander and sits on the roof with Mary looking at the stars, the trees, and the neighbors having sex. NOTE: This episode aired in two parts in syndication. 4/1/20
  • 023. Hotel Dick – 9/29/1996
    • The family is taken aback when they see the violence and contempt for aliens in the movie Dawn of the Aliens. Dick becomes even more concerned when Mary and Nina agree that the movie is fantastic. In light of this, he decides to tell Mary that he is an alien and runs it by the family. They are adamant that it is a bad move and insist she won’t be able to handle it. With a Sci-Fi Convention going on in Cleveland that the others want to attend, Dick decides to take her on a romantic trip there and it would be the perfect place to tell her. Dick and Mary get their own room, but when he tries to tell her, she assumes he means he was once in a clinic…just as she was. It turns out hers was a ‘fat camp’. Dick starts to admit the truth, but is interrupted by Sally who tries to stop him by warning him that she might never want to see him again. Back in her room, Sally freaks out when the maid cleans the room and calls the assistant manager Frank (Tim Bagley) to complain. When he tells her that it is a service of the hotel along with room service, she goes nuts with ordering food, toiletries, and massages, while making demands of the maid and valet (Larry Sousa). Actor George Takei (himself) makes a guest appearance, but Harry interrupts him to criticize everyone for stereotyping aliens causing George to call security. Dick decides not to tell Mary about being an alien, but feels guilty. When Mary enters the room role playing as a space vixen, Harry finally tells her the truth… but she assumes he is role playing. Everyone gets on board with abusing room service, but once they get the $30,000 bill, Tommy has it transferred to George Takei’s account prompting a bewildered “Oh my!”. Tim Pulice is the guy in the movie theater line. Future series writer and producer David Goetsch appears as a convention Trekkie. 7/13/20
  • 024. Big Angry Virgin from Outer Space – 10/6/1996
    • Things begin to get a little awkward for Sally and Mr. Randell when he confesses that her domineering behavior is getting on her nerves. She desperately tries to correct it by being completely submissive and leaving every option up to him. This also irritates and he storms out of their dinner date. As Dick gloats about his perceived perfect relationship with Dr. Albright, Harry realizes how lonely he is and begins a video dating service where the cameraman Alan (Jim Meskimen) desperately tries to get a good video of him. Tommy faces relationship troubles with August when she questions whether he would be loyal to her if she were deformed. When she shows up at the house with her fact bandage claiming that her nose was bitten off by a hamster, Tommy passes her ‘test’ by agreeing to stay with her, upon which she reveals she still has a nose. Dick advises Sally that she needs to have sex with Mr. Randell if she wants their relationship to succeed. She agrees and visits him at his home, where she aggressively seduces her. She tries to get him to say that this will solve all of their problems, but he can’t commit to this so she angrily leaves confused and upset. Dr. Albright comforts her and tells her she made the right decision if Mr. Randell can’t accept her as she is. Harry goes to meet one of his video dates and finds a beautiful woman (Joy Stevens)… who it turns out is not his date. As the family sits on the roof, Sally seems remarkably content and tells Dick that she now faces an entire smorgasbord of men whereas he will be stuck with the same ‘grilled cheese’ sandwich day after day. As Dick later enjoys a real grilled cheese sandwich with Dr. Albright, he becomes ecstatic at her suggestion of adding a tomato slice to it. Jean St. James is the waitress. 7/13/20
  • 025. Much Ado About Dick – 10/13/1996
    • As Dick and Mary’s relationship advances, the family is getting tired of her staying over. Dick also gets offended by Mary herself when she insists on keeping their relationship secret from the school faculty. When they visit a restaurant and run into a group of other faculty members Professor Sutor, Father Rice, and Judith, and they all let on they know about their relationship, she is mortified…especially since she’s gotten over a bad reputation for sleeping with the Dean when she was younger. Meanwhile Sally gets a parking ticket and goes down to the police station to question it, thinking that they are going to pay her for the amount. The desk cop (Steven M. Gagnon) turns her over to Officer Don, he former boyfriend. He tries to impress her by ripping up the ticket, and then acting beyond his authority by taking her on a ride-along. She becomes so impressed, that she wants to become a cop as well. Dick expressly forbids it because he doesn’t think any of them should have that much power to interfere with Earthlings. She finally acquiesces and breaks it off with Don again. Dick is upset because he can’t declare his love with Mary, and gets the advice from Professor Sutor to give her the cold shoulder to bring her around. When they all attend a trustees cocktail reception, he does his best to ignore her, but winds up taking over the piano and singing her Night and Day. This prompts her to lay across the piano and kiss him passionately in front of everyone. Later Dick and Mary sit on the roof professing their love with a bullhorn. At Sally’s request, Don drives by and tells them to put the bullhorn down. 10/30/20
  • 026. Dick the Vote – 10/27/1996
    • While the family is walking the park, Harry accidentally chains himself to a tree, prompting some picketers to assume he is trying to help save the park from being torn down. As a result, he is asked to run for City Council against incumbent Frank Gansmiller (Al Franken). Dick immediately register to vote so that he can help support Harry, but he is quickly taken in my the rhetoric of Gansmiller. When Harry announces during the debate that his platform is to see more women, it is mistaken that he is an activist for women’s rights. Gansmiller wants to find dirt on Harry, and turns to Officer Dan, who does his dirty work but can turn up nothing on him. Dan is then told to go after Sally, but still in love with her, he can’t do it and warns her to watch out. Gansmiller also tries to bribe Harry to drop out and promises him a job as a crooked building inspector. When Harry says that he will have to check with the head of his family, Gansmiller uses that to run ads to imply that Harry might have mafia ties. Dick becomes confused with the lies of Gansmiller, and disillusioned with the state of American democracy. Dick’s students become scared of him and think he is the Godfather of a crime family. In the end, Harry loses the election, and is then denied the building inspector job. Dick claims that he voted for Harry, although the TV news anchor (Dan Givezan) announces that there was one write-in vote for Mary Albright. The family then exercises the right to democracy to vote for who is High Commander. Everyone votes for themselves, but Dick says that the High Commander gets to then decide in the way of a tie, so votes himself to keep the post. Thomas Bankowski is a protestor. Wendy Schenker is a reporter. John Aylward is the registrar. Christine Zander and Angela Robinson are voters. Michael Adler is the handler. John Henry Kurtz is the mob commercial voice. 10/30/20
  • 027. Fourth and Dick – 11/3/1996
    • Dick quickly gets fed up with everyone’s football obsession as Pendleton’s homecoming game approaches with Ohio Western. He tells Sally to stop watching football and go hang out with a girlfriend, and she instantly realizes she doesn’t have any. She chooses Nina to be her best friend and they begin shopping together, and plan to go to the homecoming game. When Dick assigns his class a heavy homework load before the game, they balk and deliver some compelling speeches about school pride. Dick is slowly won over, and by the time the game comes, he is mooning the Ohio Western Mustangs and painting his body the team colors. Meanwhile, Tommy has joined the school glee club because he has fallen in love with the teacher Miss Frost (Brenda Strong). He breaks it off with August, who struggles not to cry, but then tells Tommy she’s been seeing Val Kilmer in order to save face. However when Tommy gives Miss Frost a ticket to the game, joins her there, and makes a pass at her, he quickly finds out she doesn’t feel the same way. Harry has been rejected as unqualified to be a hot dog vendor, but gets a job as a security guard. After he frisks Dean Sumner’s wife and then yells at the crowd for being too noisy, he pelted with food. Dick and Sally run afoul of a a trio of Ohio Western fans (Matthew Michael Mahaney, Brian Mathew Carr, James Grace), and exchange trash talk. Sally gets tired of the losing score, so she goes down to confront the Pendleton Badgers’ coach (Mike Ditka). They argue, until she presents him with a viable play that the assistant coach (Clifford R. Bernay) validates, and then she winds up helping lead them to victory. As a reward, Sally gets two of the players to go on dates with her and Nina. Back home, Dick and Sally revel in the victory on the roof until Harry, still in his security uniform, tells them to come inside… and gets mooned by both of them. Tatum Shank is football player #23. 2/17/21
  • 028. World’s Greatest Dick – 11/10/1996
    • While looking for change for the meter, Sally and Harry roam into the Lone Star Drilling Company gay bar, where they encounter a drag queen (Craig Olsen), and gay man named Glenn (Burke Moses), who is immediately attracted to Sally, but thinks she herself is a male drag queen. Meanwhile Dick gets a visit from Tommy’s guidance counselor Candace Ballard (Laraine Newman), who informs him that Tommy has scored very high on the National Merit Quiz and recommends that he attend the Pickney school for the gifted. Tommy has no interest in leaving his friends, but Dick relishes in the compliments about being a great father who raised a great son, so he forces him to attend. The headmaster Dr. Menard (Paxton Whitehead) welcomes him with open arms and sends him with the nerdy ‘welcome wagon’ Aramis (Danny Strong). Tommy is chosen to participate in the school’s Knowledge Bowl, but by the time it rolls around, Tommy has had enough, so he purposely blows it as he competes against Victor (John Patrick White), Porthos (Trevor Bullock), and Brianna (Kimberlee Kramer aka Riley Weston), causing a major meltdown from Dick in the audience. It is enough to get Dr. Menard to ban Dick from the school, which gets him to pull Tommy out of it, much to Tommy’s relief. Sally and Glenn rehearse to enter a dance contest, and while Glenn is helping her change clothes, he discovers that Sally is a woman and breaks it off with her. The family sits on the roof and discusses the intricacies of the father/son relationship, while Sally thinks all men are to blame. Harry tries to perfect his magic throughout the proceedings, with varying degrees of tricks failing or working on their own, much to his own surprise and confusion. 2/17/21
  • 029. My Mother the Alien – 11/17/1996
    • Mrs. Dubcek is babysitting her grandson (Brady McGuire, Sean McGuire) while his parents are away at Caesar’s Palace, and she in turn asks the Solomons to babysit while she goes to the doctor. All are resistant, but once they start watching him, a maternal instinct in Sally kicks in and she becomes ultra-protective of him. Tommy and Harry struggle with feeding him, and when he spits food on them, Harry starts to spit back. Meanwhile, Mary is going away for three days for a conference, and Dick wants to throw her a surprise party. However, he is upset when he finds out that Nina is watching Mary’s fish. He talks Mary into letting him be the one to take care of them. She is very particular about what she needs him to do, and very attached to the fish. After reading them maritime stories, he decides they need another companion, so he buys them another fish… that promptly eats the others. She is aghast when she comes home, so Dick swipes the child and tries to give it to her to make up for the fish. When she insists that he take the child back, he buys her a dog instead. She starts to like the dog, although it seems to want to climb all over her. Sally decides she wants to keep the baby and refuses to give him up once Mrs. Dubcek returns. However, she then considers how she felt when the baby jumped into a ball pit at the toy store, and decides to return the baby. Dick suggests that she could have her own baby, but she doesn’t want to destroy her body. Bodhi Elfman is the toy store clerk. Tara Strong aka Tara Charendoff is the voice of the exercise video. 6/14/21
  • 030. Gobble, Gobble, Dick, Dick – 11/24/1996
    • Thanksgiving is approaching, and the Solomons are confused about what it all means. Dick is disturbed by the turkeys he sees on television, and Sally is afraid of the crowds at the supermarket. Dick rushes to the school to see Mary, but encounters the custodian (Victor Raider-Wexler), who explains what Thanksgiving is all about. Dick explains it to his family, and they are excited to partake, particularly when they learn that Mrs. Dubceck has her attractive daughter Vicki (Jan Hooks) in town. They decide to celebrate together and invites Mary over as well. Dick wants Tommy to wear a pilgrim outfit that he doesn’t want to, so he storms off and heads to the pool hall. There he meets two guys named Dale (Tom Towles) and Walt (Jim O’Heir) and hustles them of all of their money. They explains the nature of Thanksgiving to him and tell him that his father probably just cares about him and wants to make him strong. Tommy returns the grateful men’s money and heads home. Back at home, Sally is on edge because after working in the kitchen with Mary and Mrs. Dubcek, Tommy hasn’t shown up for dinner. Dick and Harry are completely stuffed yet want more dessert. Harry and Vicki get into some strange shenanigans rubbing the food on themselves before making out on the table. While playing Yahtzee and watching Dick cheat constantly, Sally blows up at everyone about her ruined holiday. He later apologizes to Mary, who tells him that things are exactly like this at her holiday gatherings. Likewise, Tommy returns and says he’s learned the same thing: that all the hating, screaming, and fighting is completely normal. Later Mrs. Dubcek brings out the Jello, which sends all of the Solomons screaming and running for their lives. Sally thinks she deserves a quiet day, so she plans to spend Friday at the mall. Marc Christopher Lawrence is Francis the bartender. 6/14/21
  • 031. Dick Jokes – 12/8/1996
    • The Solomons attend a stand-up comedy show at the Chuckle Hut, where Dick hears comedian Joe Baggadonuts (Mark Pitta) making jokes about his fat mother and confronts him about his rude performance during his routine. A drunk (Don Dowe) joins in the attack, and the audience turns on Joe. Dick tries to ask Mary about what’s funny in comedy, but she isn’t in the mood to talk. However, when Mary sees some jokes that their colleague Ben Littmeyer (Dick Martin) wrote for a fundraiser speech, Dick gets jealous immediately and want to take his spot on the bill. Dick engages the family in trying to figure out what is funny, but when Sally inadvertently goes through a slapstick routine while trying to build a shelf, no one even notices the humor. They also attempt a Three Stooges routine, but Dick doesn’t find that funny either. Tommy tries to pry August for information, but they can’t see eye to eye on what is funny. After Dick pick up some practical jokes and a joke book, he thinks he is ready to go on. Dick finally confronts Ben and makes him tell him what makes him so funny. Ben says it just so happens that funny things happen to him, and then cites an example when his toupee flipped up in front of a beautiful girl. This gets Dick laughing so hard that Ben has a heart attack and gives him the perfect opportunity to take over his spot in the fundraiser. Dick tries his luck at the Chuckle Hut, but everyone thinks it’s terrible. He then chats with Joe Baggadonuts, and he explains to Dick why insult humor is funny. At the fundraiser, Dick uses his newfound knowledge and roasts Mary – and a little of Nina – during his routine, much to their embarrassment. The next day at the office, they systematically nail him with a half dozen pies. Meanwhile, Harry loses his favorite coat on a bus. The go to the lost and found at the bus station and find a clerk (Lance Davis) wearing it. He won’t give it back, so Sally punches him and they take it. Hubert Hodgin is the lost and found clerk. NOTE: Jay Leno is rumored to appear in this episode but is not credited and does not appear on the DVD. 10/11/21
  • 032. Jolly Old St. Dick – 12/15/1996
    • Dick is excited when the sees the bright lights of Christmas that Mrs. Dubcek puts up, and Sally and Harry decide to get jobs at the mall to enjoy the holiday atmosphere. However, Tommy is shaken when August tells him that she got him a great present, and he has no idea what to get her. Dick, however, doesn’t understand the concept of mistletoe or the faculty gift exchange, and gets upset when he draws someone he doesn’t know. He keeps drawing and eventually ends up with Judith and makes it obvious. Spirits among the family start to go down when Harry finds out the Santa Claus (Michael McCarty) he is playing elf for is just a man wearing a fake beard, getting even more distressed when he sees more Santas (Ken Polk, Jack Lindine) at the bar. Sally starts to lose the spirit with all the rude people she is acting as gift-wrapper for at the mall. However, when Dick tries to cut down a tree in a stranger’s (Edward Evanko) yard, he gets arrested and develops the worst repulsion to Christmas of all. He goes into class the next day and destroys his students’ Christmas cookies, and hands out assignments that are due that night after break starts.  Tommy buys lots of expensive gifts for August to make sure he keeps up. Dick also assigns Nina work to do during the Christmas party. Sally begins intentionally giving out the wrong wrapped gifts that are better suited for each individual customer. When Nina gives Dick a mug he likes, suddenly his mood changes, and he becomes happy again. A drunk Mary introduces him to the concept of the mistletoe. His students bring him the papers he assigned, and he happily tosses them aside and gives them all C pluses, which they are quite happy with. Judith enjoys her gift basket which is much more expensive than it should be, and then slinks out. Harry ponders how Santa can get down their small chimney. The cast including the three Santas do a conga line to Christmas music through the Solomon attic. August gives Tommy the ornament with their picture on it that she made. Tommy can’t believe that’s all he got, and cracks up at how much better his gifts are than hers. Nikki Tyler is Christine the two-time customer. Peggy Mannix is the charity woman. Jason Horst, George Hertzberg, Martin Braverman, and Amy Arnelle are customers Jason, David, Izzy, and Marie. 10/11/21 
  • 033. Proud Dick – 1/5/1997
    • A tornado touches down near the Soloman house, and it picks up Harry and drops him in a neighbor’s yard, causing him to lose his memory. Meanwhile, Dick notes that Mary has gotten a new, ideal parking space based on her tenure. Dick is upset that he wasn’t asked so he goes and speaks to President Dewey (Philip Baker Hall), president of the university, and demands the space. When Dewey tells him he can’t have it, Dick threatens to quit. Dewey take him up on it, and allows him to leave. While Mrs. Dubceck is going over the storm losses with the insurance man Ron (Laurence York), Harry roams back home. No one can tell he has amnesia, but when Harry reads Dick’s log book, he realizes that everyone in the house are aliens. He doesn’t realize that he is one of them, so he tries to act nonchalant while living in fear of his roommates. Dick packs up his things and leaves work, thinking that Dewey will come crawling back to him. When he doesn’t after ten days, Dick is forced to take a job at the fast food restaurant Rusty’s, where he is forced to take orders from the teenage boss Dougy (Curtis Andersen), and then is demoted from the register to the drive-thru window. Harry goes to see Father Rice (Bruce Ed Morrow) to see if it is okay to turn in his family. When he mentions that his family works for the Big Giant Head, and the priest mentions that he too works for a ‘big giant head’, Harry thinks that aliens are everywhere. Bug and Pitman come into Rusty’s to humiliate Dick, while Mary comes to try and talk him into coming back, Dick still maintains he is doing it for his pride. Out of money, Sally starts buying cat food for the family’s meals. Mary comes to see Dick and is pulled into the closet by Harry, who tries to explains to her about the aliens. Dick pulls them out of the closet, and Mary tells Dick that she’s gotten him a meeting with President Dewey so he can apologize. Dick tries to play it off and demand an apology, but when Dewey won’t budge, Dick asks Mary to wait outside and then pleads with Dewey to take him back. The family sits out on the roof, when Harry is struck by lightning and regains his memory. Bill Lee Brown and John Maynard are Rusty customers. 4/10/22
  • 034. Romeo & Juliet & Dick – 1/12/1997
    • Tommy is anxious to get into the play Romeo & Juliet at school so that he can play the lead opposite August and enjoy the major make-out scenes. He talks Dick into directing the play, and Dick is excited to take over the play and take all of the credit. Meanwhile, Mary gets a notice that she owes $1500 is parking tickets, and she will have to drip into her savings to pay them. As Dick throws himself into the play, he also asks Don to fix Mary’s parking tickets so they will go away. In order to impress Sally, Don reluctantly agrees to take care of them. Dick tries to instruct the guys auditioning for the role of Romeo on how to play the part, but ultimately thinks that Tommy isn’t good enough for the lead, so he makes him the prop guy, although he still gives August the role of Juliet. Dick forces the kids to all watch him perform the play alone. Tommy works on the authentic props, including the sleeping potion, which Mrs. Dubcek accidentally drinks and passes out. Don doesn’t think that he can fix so much in tickets, so he advises Mary to dress sexy and flirt with the judge, but at the last minute the judge is switched for the more conservative Judge DeBelko (Richard Fancy) and winds up charging her extra for contempt. When some of Mrs. Dubcek’s old friends Jimmy (Richard Karron) and Diane (Mary Pat Green) come to see her, Harry dresses like a woman and poses as her… and is able to seduce Jimmy like the real Mrs. Dubcek was planning to do. Dick starts to put so much pressure on the kids causing them anxiety, the school fires Dick from the job and replaces him with Coach Mafferty (Mike Ditka), leaving Dick with the role of Mercutio. He gets a review that he was over the top. Don comes to see Sally, despite the fact that Dick now hates him, and speaks to her like Romeo spoke to Juliet. Judge DeBelko asks Mary back to court and offers to lower the fines, and remove the contempt charge if she will go to a hotel in Chicago with him. Robert Lyon Rasner is Timothy. Anna Slotky is Cheryl. Joshua Ekblom is Benvolio. Bart McCarthy is the Hamlet voice over. 4/10/22
  • 035. Guilty as Dick – 2/2/1997
    • Mary asks Dick to adjust a ceiling vent and her office, which causes him to fall off a chair and sprain his ankle. After showing off that his ankle doesn’t hurt by poking it and stapling it, he realizes that it is in fact very painful after the numbness wears down. The doctor (Richard McGonagle) advises Dick to stay off of his feet. Mary feels guilty and starts waiting on him hand and foot, and soon Dick realizes that his foot has given him magical powers to get everyone to do things for him. Even Sally, who seems completely apathetic to his injury, discovers that her human nature forces her to wait on him as well. Meanwhile, Coach Strickland tries to get Tommy and his teammates to sell chocolate bars to help send the band to Washington D.C. Tommy initially takes fifteen boxes thinking they are his to eat, but then vows to sell them. Unfortunately, all is he is met with are slammed doors in his face. He tries taking Harry with him, but that fails. However, the first time he brings Sally along, one man (Jim O’Doherty) buys several. His coach commends him for selling so many, but Tommy is furious when he learns that the team is also paying for the band to return. Harry tries to find a place in the attic that he can call his own room, including the hall where he puts up a shower curtain. When Sally tells him he can’t have that as a room, he moves into the bathroom, but is forced to vacate when Sally needs to use it. Harry winds up using a platform that is in the tree as his new room, and soon everyone gets jealous. Dick discovers that his foot has healed, but doesn’t want all of the attention to stop. When he can’t resist going up into the treehouse, everyone in the family catches him up there, and cuts off part of the rope. Dick is forced to dangle from the rope, and then fall into the bushes. This leaves him with a broken leg and arm, and they all sit up on the roof and analyze the nature of guilt as it relates to life and sex. Later Harry watches a healing televangelist and tries to see if he can heal Dick but only manages to throw him to the floor. 8/6/22
  • 036. A Dick on One Knee – 2/16/1997
    • Sally meets a Frenchman named Michel (Jim Pirri), and she – along with Mary and Nina – become smitten with him. He tells Sally that he needs to get married or else he will be deported from the country. She agrees to marry him and gives the family a $5000 dowry. She puts Tommy in charge of getting flowers from the wedding, and Harry in charge of getting something old, new, borrowed, and blue. Harry brings back an old tire, a new jar of Vaseline, a borrowed cup of salt, and a blue mint Life Saver. Tommy visits the flower store where he impresses the worker Gabby (Lise Simms) with his ability to put together a bouquet. He continues to fuss with flowers, until August starts to wonder about his sexuality. Dick doesn’t understand the need to get married so quickly, but Sally explains that it is a woman’s purpose. Dick repeats this to Mary, who also thinks the wedding is coming too quickly. This gets them started on a conversation about their own potential plans to get married, but the decides not to discuss it. Dick however brings this up to some of his students, and they suggest that he buy her an engagement ring, which will keep her at bay for a while. Dick goes to see a jeweler (Raye Birk), but finds the $3000 price tag laughable. When the jeweler tells him the meaning of the ring being a circle of unity, Dick realizes he could just give her his watch and it would mean the same thing. Sally makes Mary her Maid of Honor, but after Dick decides he is going to give Mary his watch, he thinks the spotlight should be on him since he is the High Commander. Michel starts to realize how strange the family is when he tells Dick that the marriage is a business arrangement only, and Dick insists that he sleep with his ‘sister’ Sally. When Tommy wears knickers that he made to the wedding, August gives him a big kiss to see if he responds to it. He does indeed, but then she walks away, pleased that he is straight. Harry brings Blind Joe Slocum (David Kirkwood) to the wedding: he’s old, a new friend, borrowed from the Tip Top Club, and sings the blues. Mrs. Dubcek encounters an immigration officer (Lewis Saunders) among the wedding guests who thinks there is an illegal alien in the wedding party. She notifies the Solomon family, and they think he is after all of them. Michel tells Sally that he is after him since he is an alien, Sally tells him that she is an alien too. They now have no reason to get married, so Michael asks for his money back… but Sally has spent it on her dress. The family rushes home to try and pack up and move, but when Mary explains that Michel had been caught by the agent, they realize they were after the French alien. While all dressed up, the family heads to the bowling alley. Dick presents Sally with his watch, but she has no idea why. Tommy stars working on a floral centerpiece for the football team. NOTE: Blind Joe Slocum is billed as Yellin’ Joe Slocum in the credits. 8/7/22
  • 037. Same Old Song and Dick – 3/9/1997
    • Dick’s reading of Bridges of Madison County causes some problems when he asks Sally to write it. She says it is not in her job description, leading to Harry questioning how difficult her job is compared to his, as fact gathering and acting like a sponge of information. They challenge each other to swap jobs within their unit. It also affects the way Dick thinks of his relationship with Dr. Albright, as Sally and Tommy point out how boring and predictable they are. Harry goes shopping, while Sally stays at home trying to find things to do. Meanwhile, August wins the Rutherford County Essay contest for the second year in a row. This drives Tommy crazy because everything about her is so perfect. When Dick sees how wild and romantic Mrs. Dubcek is with her new boyfriend Charlie (Frank Kopyc), he doubles down by reading an article that Nina recommends from a women’s magazine. He rushes into a class that Mary is teaching and kisses her passionately in front of all of the students, while not wearing any panties. They decide to go out on a double date with Mrs. Dubcek and Charlie, and then back to their place for an evening in bed by candlelight. Mary reads him an erotic book, and Dick falls asleep. When a teacher (P.B. Hutton) introduces August to receive her award, everyone in the auditorium including Tommy laugh at her because she has a paper toilet seat cover sticking out of her pants. Dick proposes that their relationship becomes stale because he knows everything about her. She counters by bringing him to a keg party with their students. Sally becomes so bored that she begs Harry to trade their jobs back. When it comes time to kill a spider, Harry overcomes his fear, but then once he kills it, he feels so sad about it that he gives Sally her job back. August yells at Tommy for not helping her on stage, and Tommy responds that this is the first time she’s acted ‘human’ rather than perfect. She responds by pointing out all of her flaws, and Tommy finally agrees and almost takes mentioning her imperfections too far. Mary plays strip poker with the guys and gets way ahead of them. Dick later tells Mary that the game made him feel uncomfortable and cold. When Mary passes gas in front of him, he realizes this is something new and they’ve reached a new phase in their relationship: being comfortable with each other. Harry holds a bathroom funeral for the spider, while Tommy plays the bagpipes. Marcy Goldman is the sample lady at the grocery store. 12/3/22 
  • 038. I Brake for Dick – 3/16/1997
    • August wants Tommy to ask her to the Spring dance at school but tells August that she really doesn’t care if they go. However, when he admits that he doesn’t want to go, she becomes angry. Meanwhile, Harry decides to study the Boys Scouts Handbook, and going for a merit badge in insect husbandry, he builds an ant farm under Sally’s bed. He later attempts to put a tourniquet around his leg. Mary brings Dick home shaken up after he hits a chipmunk with his car. He names it Chippy and rushes him to a veterinarian where he is touch and go. He can’t stop talking about it, even using the subject as a word problem in his class. Tommy continues to try and figure out exactly what August wants in regard to the dance, but she keeps vexing him with unclear answers about whether she wants to go. When she storms out again, another pretty girl named Alyson (Nicki Lynn Aycox) asks him about his status, and then asks him to take her ugly friend Beth. Dick becomes upset when he realizes that humans revere some animals, and then eats others. He even stops Sally when she tries to kill Harry’s ants. He declares the apartment to be a cruelty-free zones, ordering Sally to clear it of any animal by-products. Tommy asks Nina for advice about August, and when he shoots down all of her ideas, she advises him to contact the newspaper columnist Dear Sandy. Sally is forced to throw away Harry’s coat. Dick can’t stop thinking about Chippy, even sending him nuts, and then demanding that the veterinarian (Bodhi Pine Elfman) give him his pain medicine the minute it is time. Later, he takes Mary out to eat and has a giant salad, then has a fit when Mary orders steak and lobster, but he can’t take the crunching of the lobster, and tries to liberate all of the lobsters at the restaurant. Sally is devastated when she has to get rid of all of her shoes. Dick comes home wearing a ridiculous leisure suit and flip-flops, claiming he is animal free. While completing his merit badge for water conservations, he finds one pair of Sally’s shoes taped to the inside of the toilet that she doesn’t want to get rid of. Harry issues the family flip-flops as well, and the goes to a cow pasture to bury their shoes. Dick beings a recovered Chippy home, and then invites his family to watch him set Chippy free. He is immediately picked up a flown off by an endangered peregrine falcon. Dick throws a rock at it and hits it. Mary convinces Dick that they are all animals, and they all behave the same. Dick lifts his ban on meat and animal biproducts. August sees a note in Dear Sandy that August believes Tommy wrote, even though it’s not the one he wrote at all. Nevertheless, she forgives him. Harry tries to tell him that it was him doing a good deed, but no one is listening. The family all sits down to eat some meat, not realize that the ant bomb that Sally has started will render them all unconscious. Later, Dick rescues a seeing-eye dog from a guy wearing dark sunglasses who is ‘pushing’ him down the sidewalk. 12/3/22
  • 039. Dick Behaving Badly – 3/23/1997
    • Sally destroys one of Dick’s blue suits using a sandblaster on them, causing Dick to freak out because they were the pants that Sally wanted him to wear to the party they are throwing. Dick’s family accuses him of being ‘whipped’. Dick firmly denies this, but then if asks Nina if she agrees… and she does. Since Tommy is also whipped by August, Harry takes charge of showing Dick how to be manly. Meanwhile, Harry pulls down the Monopoly game thinking it is breakfast food. After he and Dick are done eating some of it, Sally and Tommy begin playing a game, in which Tommy pushes Sally closer and closer to bankruptcy. Dick takes a stand and tells her that he won’t be wearing his blue suit, and she is okay with this, but then tells him what else he can wear and tells him to get a haircut. When Dick catches his class with a dirty pen that Bug plans to use at his brother’s bachelor party, he asks the guys why he wasn’t invited to go to the Roy’s House of Class, the strip club, with them. Leon reluctantly tells him when it will be happening. Even though it is taking place on the night of his and Mary’s party, he tells Mary that he’s going to go the strip club. She reminds him that the party was all his idea and they’ve only invited his friends. After Harry gives Dick his lessons, Dick dresses up in a leather jacket to wear to school and tries to act cool, telling Mary that he won’t be coming to the party. She eventually gets frustrated when he tells her that he won’t let her run his life and tells him just to go to the bachelor party. Dick brings Harry along as well, but after watching the strippers for about 12 minutes, they are bored and want to leave. They head back to Mary’s for the party, which even Judith finds incredibly boring, but she tells Dick that he won’t be welcome in her house or life for a long time. However, when one of the guests suggests playing Astrophysics Charades, Mary invites Dick to come in after all. Tommy eventually winds the game of Monopoly and responds by dumping the game pieces down the garbage disposal. The entire family then tries playing Clue, with similar success. J.J. Rodgers is Bambi, the stripper selling champagne. India Dupre is Christina the stripper. Tim Truby is Dr. Talbert. Darlene Levin and Maureen Sue Levin are Darlene and Maureen the twins. Ron West is Dr. Strudwick. 5/22/23
  • 040. Dickmalion – 4/13/1997
    • The North Rutherford Country Club is planning its charity auction, and Mary volunteers to let them use her house in hopes of being asked to join the club. When she fears her place may not be big enough to host the event, Dick offers his place, but Mary alludes to the fact that he’s from the ‘wrong side of the tracks,’ and worries about his strange family. Meanwhile, Tommy is attacked by two bullies named Elman (Blake Soper) and Romano (Justin Urich) who throw him in his locker. Their female friend Lorna (Linda Cardellini) rescues him and takes a liking to him for his intelligence. When they attack him again, she steps in and tells them how smart he is. Tommy then uses his intelligence to convince them to leave another kid alone because he is related to a hall monitor that can help them skip chemistry. Soon Tommy is joining into the bullies’ antics, pushes around a kid (John Craig) of his own, and helps them pull a fire alarm. When Tommy gets suspended, Lorna gets turned off by this and tells him that he’s acting just as stupid as the other guys, but without his own car. Sally and Harry have been watching professional wrestling and start their own wrestling in the living room where they try moves on each other. Mary hosts her party, where the guests are all haughty and stuffy. One couple, Mr. (Henry Woronicz) and Mrs. St. Clair (Nancy Lenehan) take a liking to Dick, who adopts his own haughty voice and laugh and proceeds to make jokes. Dick overhears them talking about Mary and saying that she is trying much too hard to fit in. Despite the fact that everyone liked him, Dick has a terrible time. When Mr. St. Clair calls Mary and invites her to another party, he tells her to bring Dick along to their club. Dick tries to get out of it, but Mary insists. This time Dick brings Harry and Sally along to party, which they circle making non-sequiturs, with Sally trying to get one man (Sam Chew Jr.) to wrestle her. Sally is pleased that everyone seems to be eating out of Dick’s hand, but she then overhears a man named Mr. Patterson (James Ingersoll) refer to him as the ‘nutty professor’. She then realizes that everyone sees Dick as a joke, and that’s why they have him around. Mary is suddenly ready to leave and drags Dick out of the party and lays into Mr. St. Clair. Mary and Dick sit out on the roof and she admits that she went overboard trying to fit in and has no idea why she wanted to impress them. Dick just enjoys the shrimp puffs he stole from the party. 5/22/23
  • 041. Sensitive Dick – 4/27/1997
    • When Sally is asked to drive Tommy on his date because he doesn’t have a license, she insists that he learn to drive. Meanwhile, Mrs. Dubcek’s daughter Vicki comes back from Orlando to attend her high school reunion and reunites with Harry and invites him to be her date. When Dick gets frustrated with his class when they can’t answer a question, he assigns them to write an apology to their parents for wasting their tuition money. Someone then reports him for being insensitive to his class, and he is assigned to attend sensitivity training with an instructor named Yasmine (Greg Proops). After having Dick role play using puppets, Dick suddenly has a revelation about his insensitivity. He begins to baby his class and hugging them when they miss questions. He grades their mid-terms using only happy faces rather than letter grades. However, he becomes furious again when someone complains about the grades. Judith tells him that he will be brought in front of the disciplinary board, which includes herself, Professor Suter, and Dr. Strudwick. Many of his students and colleagues provide their own testimony, and then Dick gives his own defense that he admits that he is insensitive, but the world needs people like him. The board unanimously decide to admonish him, which carries no additional consequences. Don takes Sally out on a date, but she insists that Tommy come along so that he can learn to drive in the squad car. Harry attends the reunion with Vicki and pretends to be a successful and rich man, although he often changes his made-up occupation, which helps to improve her reputation among her former classmates. The students apologize to him, and he admits that he is rude and they are stupid and agree to move on. Tommy fails his driver’s test when he hits three parked cars. Winifred Freedman is Vicki’s classmate Suzette. Layne Beamer is classmate Jace Carter. Kyle Colerider-Krugh is classmate Elroy. 9/24/23
  • 042. Will Work for Dick – 5/4/1997
    • When Dick makes unreasonable demands on Nina and tells her that she can’t go on a date because she has too much work to do, she tells him that she is quitting working for him and will now only work for Dr. Albright. Dick then makes Harry his new assistant at work. He quickly proves to be incompetent when he doesn’t answer the phone and pre-licks all of his postage stamps. Meanwhile, Sally looks after Mrs. Dubcek’s illegitimate granddaughter Melanie (Sydney Berry), she doesn’t understand why the little girl is serving fake pink tea and cake. When she later discusses it with Mary and Nina, they reminisce about how much they enjoyed their childhood games. Sally decides that she needs to have a childhood, so she starts playing with Barbies and starts giving Tommy pigtails and doing his hair. Dick lays down the law with Harry and tells him that he had better be more committed to his work. When he begins to act like a tyrant, Nina advises him to just tell Dick to ‘talk to the hand’ and ignore his demands. This leads to a rift between Dick and Harry, and Harry ends up quitting. Mary asks if this means he will apologize to Nina, but he refuses and says he will be his own assistant. He spends some time running back and forth between desks as he tries to handle both roles. When he has to make copies of his class exam, he struggles to get the copy machine to work and ends up beating it with its own toner. He then goes over to Nina’s apartment covered in black toner. He winds up getting it all over Nina’s rug, couch, door, and clothes, before pleading with her to come back and work for him. Sally begs Dick to let her join ballet classes, but then he fails to show up for her recital. Tommy tells her that the emotional baggage Dick gave her is a great gift, as it will now give her a license to blame Dick for gaining weight or killing a man. Leslie Lunceford and Whitney Dupree are the ballerinas in Sally’s class. 9/24/23
  • 043. Fifteen Minutes of Dick – 5/11/1997
    • The Solomons go out to eat at Mauricio’s to celebrate the fact that Dick has been published in the Pendleton yearbook, but they are not given their normal table and are shoved into the corner by the kitchen. It turns out they can’t get their table because it has been reserved for celebrity Mark Hamill (himself). When Sally approaches him to get their table back, Mark first offers her an autograph and then a copy of his new book, but she isn’t having it. She winds up getting rough with him and throws him across the room. When this story gets picked up in the local paper, suddenly Sally becomes very famous. Sally is called by Good Afternoon Rutherford and they invite her to be a guest on the show. Sally thinks it is crazy that everyone is making such a big deal out of the fight, while Dick is furious that she is becoming famous while he toils in anonymity, even after appearing the college yearbook. As Sally is interviewed by the host Margie (Linda Kash), Dick tries to get attention by calling into the show pretending to be different people. Mary tells Dick that Sally has just entered her ‘fifteen minutes of fame,’ but Dick gets impatient waiting for the clock to run out. Tommy is picked on by school bullies Elman (Blake Soper) and Romano (Justin Urich) when Tommy claims to be Sally’s brother. They eventually find out he is telling the truth and offer to hang out with him, but when Tommy is busy, they tell him that he thinks he’s better than them because of Sally, and they chase him down to beat up on him again. Maurico’s invites Sally to return to the restaurant where she gets the star treatment. Harry becomes Sally’s secretary arranging her appointments and special appearances. A reporter (Micahel Cervin) comes to do a photo spread on her in the newspaper. Dick orders her to no longer be famous, but she says this is bigger than her mission. Even Mary wants Dick to set up a personal appearance for her to come to her rotary luncheon. Dick tries to replicate Sally’s fame by approaching Mark Hamill at his book signing and demands the table where he is sitting, before he can get a bookstore employee (Rif Hutton) to throw him out. Dick finally gets word from August that Sally’s fame is finally over now that all the rage is a woman from East Rutherford living on nothing but spices. Sally learns from her lack of flowers and phone calls that her fame is fading, so Dick tries to cheer her up by telling her how special she really is to those who know and love her. Harry, however, heads to Mark Hamill’s hotel room and tells him that his sister is dying and that she wants him to meet him at a restaurant so that she can beat him up again. Hamill traps Harry in the closet and calls for security. Having failed to bring back her fame, Harry calls the paper and reports Sally as an alien. Dick finds out that Tommy also has a yearbook and is destroyed that it is bigger than his. Christpher Holloway is the stage manager. Lori Hall is the voice in the audience. 1/22/24
  • 044. Dick and the Single Girl – 5/11/1997
    • When one of Mary’s Eastern European colleagues named Sonja Umdahl (Christine Baranski) plans to leave the university after fifteen years of service, everyone who drops by to see her takes their cake and flees. Mary feels bad for her, so she invites Sonja to join her and Dick for dinner at Mary’s house. However, Mary becomes annoyed when Sonja and Dick seem to be connecting so strongly as they talk about quantum physics and asks Dick to drive Sonja home. When he doesn’t return until the next morning, Mary is furious, but Dick swears they were merely talking and nothing else. Meanwhile, Harry and Tommy watch an episode of The X-Files, and think because of their experience, they could write a better script, so they set out to work to do so. Sally meets Don for a date, and when she arrives and sees him wearing a Hawaiian shirt, she no longer has any recognition of him. Later, when he is back in his uniform, she still has affection for him, but when they go for a walk in the rain and he is wearing his yellow raincoat, she seemingly doesn’t like him again. They decide they should just part ways, but as soon as he takes off the raincoat and she sees the uniform, she is attracted again. Don comes to realization that she is merely in love with the uniform, so he agrees that from now on, she will only see him in the uniform. When Mary questions Sonja o whether she is attracted to Dick, Sonja becomes embarrassed and sad and tells Mary that she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her friendship with Mary. However, after Mary leaves the room, Sonja professes her lust for Dick and tries to jump all over him on the desk. Dick is able to separate himself from her by agreeing to meet her that night, much to Mary’s annoyance. When Dick meets up with her, she sings him a seductive song You’ve Awakened My Passion, Dick Solomon, and then at the end, pulls down Dick’s pants. Dick flees and tells Mary what happens, so she returns to stake her claim on her man. Dick accompanies her and tries to keep them from fighting, but Mary merely asks Dick whether he is interested in Sonja, and Dick says that he does not. The women get into a weak slap-fight, and then Mary puts Sonja’s nose into a compact causing Sonja to give up. Dick is thrilled with Mary’s defense of her relationship with him but admits that she doesn’t stimulate him intellectually. However, he says he merely wants to hear simple things from her like why she got angry at the dry cleaners or her misguided theories on evolution. Harry and Tommy come up with a plot for their X-Files episode, but then promptly forget it. Once they finally get the script written, Tommy drops it and it scatters everywhere, made worse by the fact that they didn’t number the pages. Rochelle Robinson is the waitress. 1/22/24

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