Hi I.Q. was the 20th episode of Season 6 of Married... with Children, also the 125th overall series episode. Directed by Gerry Cohen and written by Steve Crider, the episode first aired on the FOX network, premiering on March 22, 1992.
Synopsis[]
Kelly gets invited to a party for geniuses, which turns out to be a party where intellectuals bring along idiots as dates to win a contest. Meanwhile, Al and Jefferson attempt to build a tool bench — with disastrous results.
Storyline[]
An invitation to join the high intelligence Alpha club, is issued to Kelly and not Bud. When they discover the real reason behind the gathering (the nerd version of a pig party), Kelly and Bud decide to handle things with the usual Bundy charm (and violence). Meanwhile, Al buys a new "Handyman's Workbench 5000" that requires some assembly. This challenge requires the combined skills of Al and Jefferson, while Peggy and Marcy watch and enjoy the show by taking pictures and counting the number of times the men injure themselves! The task is finally, and inadvertently, accomplished by Kelly.
Recurring cast/Guest stars[]
- Cast Regulars
- Amanda Bearse as Marcy D'Arcy
- Ted McGinley as Jefferson D'Arcy
- Buck the Dog as Buck Bundy
Guest starring[]
- Joshua Beckett as Scott (as Joshua Rifkind)
- Gary Epp as Security Guard
- Rana Kirkland as Margie (as Rana Mack)
- James Quattrochi as Delbert (as James Quarter)
- Christopher M. Brown as Ralph
- Tim Hill as Man
- Gita Isak as Woman in Commercial (voice only)(uncredited)
Quotes[]
- Bud: Seriously Kel, now what are you doing outside? Did you get this far and you can't find the house?
- Kelly: Laugh on, goo-boy. But remember, he who laughs last, laughs west.
- [Al and Jefferson are examining a blowtorch, with Al holding a small lighter near its nozzle]
- Jefferson: [tapping the nozzle and fiddling with the knob] Hmm... Well this blowtorch doesn't look clogged to me.
- Al: [frustrated] ...Well you hold the lighter and I'll look.
- [In the kitchen, Peggy and Marcy are watching them in disbelief]
- Peg: Wow, you can almost hear the "Looney Tunes" theme, can't you?
- [the women's eyes suddenly widen as the sound of the blowtorch spewing fire is heard, followed by Al's scream]
- Al: OHH-AHHH! [gets up and runs around the living room] AHHH! MY EYEBROWS!
- Jefferson: AL! [gets up and follows Al with a couch pillow in his hand]
- Al: MY EYEBROWS!
- Jefferson: COME ON, AL! [hits Al with the pillow] COME ON, AL!
- Al: SOMEBODY PUT OUT MY EYEBROWS! [throws himself onto the couch]
- [Jefferson moves in and puts the pillow directly over Al's face, causing Al to panic and flail his arms and legs around. He then tries to tap Jefferson on the shoulder to stop]
- Jefferson: Relax, Al! I'm depriving the fire of oxygen!
- [Al continues trying to tap him before going completely limp. Jefferson eventually lets up on the pressure as he moves the pillow from Al's face and realizes that Al's not moving]
- Jefferson: [awkwardly calm] Alright, th-that's better... [to Marcy and Peg] Well, n-no need to worry. Fire's out.
- [After a moment, he immediately starts to panic and desperately tries to revive Al by performing chest compressions]
- Jefferson: One!... Two!... Three!...
- [Bud tries to stop a devastated Kelly from leaving, after she realized the truth about Alpha's party]
- Bud: Kel, come on! You can't run and hide! That's not the Bundy Way! You gotta get back at these people, the Bundy Way!
- Kelly: …But I like changing my underwear.
- Bud: [awkward pause] Uhm... Th-The other Bundy Way, Kel. [grins and rubs his hands] Destroy their superior smiles with sheer, pointless violence!
- Kelly: You'd do that for me, even after the way I treated you tonight?
- Bud: [points to the crowd behind him with his thumb] Hey, they did turn me down!
- Kelly: Well then you'd have to go and beat up every girl in Chicago! [smiles and puts her arm around his shoulder while patting him] I'm just kidding 'ya, you lil' wallaby! Let's go kick a little genius butt!
- [Kelly walks up to Scott who is talking to Margie and taps him on the shoulder]
- Kelly: Hey, five-eyes! [punches Scott in the face, knocking him out and then skips to the center of the room] Attention, all guests! We are the Intellectually-Challenged. Does that mean we let nerds make fun of us? That would make us lower than them. So I say lets return to the pecking order of high school? So come on, people, if you're stupid and you know it, punch a nerd!
- [A guest sees Bud in his nerd disguise and punches him. Bud then responds by punching him in the face, knocking the guy out]
- Kelly: That's right! Make them eat their pencil pouches!
Notes[]
Title[]
- The title of this episode is a play on "High I.Q.", which is considered to be a score of 130 or higher on an I.Q. test.
Trivia[]
- The answer to Bud's question to Kelly, "How many are in a gross?" is 144.
- After Kelly sorts out the mail, it is revealed that both Al and Bud have a subscription to Playboy, Peggy has one to Playgirl and Buck has one for Bitches in Heat.
- This is one of the few times that Marcy mentions her father. In this case, she describes her father has having built her a bike for Christmas.
- In the season 9 special, "My Favorite Married", Ed O'Neill said that this was one of his favorite episodes.
- Christopher M. Brown, who played Ralph, the network executive, previous appeared in the 1980s sitcom It's Your Move as Alfred, one of the students at Van Burren High School. The series was created by MWC creators Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye and featured MWC star David Garrison as Norman Lamb, who became the English teacher to Alfred and the other teens on the show.
Cultural References[]
- The group that Kelly is invited to, Alpha, is a reference to the group, Mensa, which is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world.
- The concept of the Alpha members bringing the dumbest people that they could find to an "Idiot Party" is similar to a "Pig Party", in which college aged males from a fraternity invite the most unattractive females that they can find to a party thrown by the fraternity. The goal is typically to win a prize among the males. The true intentions of the men are eventually revealed and the unattractive females are made fun of in front of the group until they leave in tears.
- Peggy calls Al and Jefferson "Fred and Barney" in reference to the cartoon cavemen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.
- In Bud's attempt to get in to the Alpha party, he refers to himself a young doctor named "Doogie Howser", a reference to the fictional character from the television series Doogie Howser M.D.
- A picture of then-Vice President Dan Quayle is displayed as the previous winner of Alpha's Idiot Party. He was often mocked in the media during his tenure for gaffes that he made in public.
- His most famous gaffe was in June of 1992 when he misspelled potato by adding an "e" at the end to produce "potatoe" at a spelling bee.
- Kelly misquotes the phrase "He who laughs last, laughs best".
- At the party, Kelly tries to convince the members that she understood the fall of the Soviet Union, before mistakenly believed that it fell due to its location on a map.
- When Peggy is watching the commercial for "The Law Office of Shirley, Janet and Patsy", their client says "Shirley, Janet and Patsy got me...2.5 million". This is likely a reference to a commercial from Los Angeles based accident attorney, Larry H. Parker and a commercial featuring one his clients, whose line, "Larry Parker got me...2.1 million", is delivered in the same manner as the client in this episode.
Locations[]
- Bundy Residence
- Banquet Hall
Sets[]
- Bundy Living Room / Kitchen
- Bundy Veranda
- Alpha Idiot Party
Goofs[]
- The workbench that Kelly completes has three boards that form its work surface. However, when Al emptied the contents of the box at the beginning of the show, there was only one board.
- After playing with the blowtorch, Al's face is burned and he screams his eyebrows are gone. Even though the flames went onto the front of his face, he has a much darker ring going around the entire top portion of his shirt collar including the back, where the flames didn't reach.
- Some of the pieces of the workbench that Jefferson were examining were actually joist hangers (painted black), and would not have been necessary for the construction of the workbench.
- After Bud was turned away by the security guard for not having an invitation, he beats up a guy named Harvey by the elevator which is only a couple of feet away from the guard's desk. He then steals Harvey's pass and glasses and easily walks in without concern from the same security guard who had just turned him away less than a minute beforehand, and surely would have heard the fight by the elevator.
- When Al is turning on the flashlights that are hanging from the ceiling, Buck is laying down in the middle of the kitchen. A few scenes later after Al points one of the flashlight on Jefferson, Buck is now on the stairs. There was not enough time for buck to move from the kitchen to the stairs.
- The caption under Dan Quayle lists him as "Last Years Winner". It should have read "Last Year's Winner". The Alpha group would never have made such an obvious grammatical error (omitting the apostrophe in 'Years' to make it possessive).