He Thought He Could is an episode from Season 3 of Married... with Children.
Steve finds a copy of the children's book in Al's attic (The Little Engine That Could) that Al borrowed from the library back in 1957 and never returned. When Al tries to return the book, he gets out of paying the fine by planting the book on the shelf...and ends up in the news where his name is dragged through the mud.
Tropes
- Brick Joke: As payback on Miss de Groot for all the grief and pain she's caused him over a span of many decades, Al steals her sugar bowl and goes to pour it in the gas tank of her car, which he promised to do in the flashback of his childhood dealing with Miss de Groot.
- Bullying a Dragon: Al and Miss de Groot constantly bully each other with petty insults. He attacks her for being fat, and she attacks him for being a failure. Miss de Groot exposes Al on the national news for sliding the ladder she was on...and Al fulfills the promise he made 30 years ago to pour her entire cup of sugar down her car's gas tank.
- Comically Small Bribe: Al tried bribing Miss de Groot into forgiving his library dues with a donut. It doubles as a bonus for Al since it's another jab at Groot for her obesity.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Simply for failing to return a library book in time, Al is treated as a felon which is odd since library books are public non-rival goods and the book Al borrowed was in no danger of going out of print. He's also accused of trying to kill a librarian when all he did was slide a ladder she had one foot on.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: After Al ends up busted at the library and the shamed family wears paper bags, Buck is seem sporting his own bag.
- Evil Versus Evil: Al Bundy the weight-shaming, lower-class bully vs. Miss de Groot, a Fat Bastard classist who condemns the poor (or at least Al) to eternal suffering.
- Extremely Overdue Library Book: The Little Engine That Could, which Al had since 1957.
- Hypocrite: Steve entices Al to return the book anyways assuring him that Miss de Groot is probably dead because, "No one can eat that much sugar and live"note . Later on, when Al gets caught and humiliated for what he's done, Steve tells Al, "Weren't my property values low enough?"
- Miss de Groot works in a library, despite being discriminatory against anyone who is poor and wants to read. She also calls Al a loser when she bullied a little kid and wasted most of her life working at the library just so she can get revenge on Al for not returning the book.
- Kick the Dog: During the news report where Al is busted, as if the video wasn't bad enough, the reporter covering the story calls him a piece of human garbage.
- Person as Verb: "Hey, man! Don't Bundy that book!"
- Scary Librarian: Miss de Groot.
- Social Darwinism: Miss de Groot has harsh prejudice against the students at her school who don't have any money to pay for books and so have to borrow them from a library. She thinks poor people don't deserve material goods.
- Sweet Tooth: It appears that Miss de Groot has a sugar addiction.
- You Are Fat: Al hurls these at Miss de Groot, who in turn hurls "You are poor" insults at him.
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You Look Familiar: The little boy who played Al as a child (Edan Gross, according to the end credits) was also one of the neighborhood kids who wanted to know if Santa was okay on season two's "You Better Watch Out".
