Sanford and Son: Top Five Bubba Episodes.

Kendall Rivers
4 min readApr 21, 2023

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Image Source: Tandem Productions.

Who doesn’t love good ol’ Bubba? Another one of Fred’s most loyal and most goofball buddies played with pure effervescence and childlike naivete by Don Bexley. While Bubba wasn’t in as many episodes as other classic buddies of Fred and Lamont such as Grady and Rollo for example, he made enough impact in his appearences to garner love and adoration from fans across the world. Here are the top five episodes of that lovable chubby dope, Bubba Bexley.

5. Tooth or Consequences. Season 2, episode 5.

Image Source: Tandem Productions

Synopsis: Fred’s toothache becomes an exercise in patience for Lamont when Fred refuses to see a dentist and instead tries Bubba’s home remedy and a hypnotist. Finally, Fred decides to throw in the towel and visits a dentist but insists on a white dentist.

Fred and Bubba had many classic moments together and in this episode we got a great one as Bubba plays dentist with his old school remedies and complete lack of any medical or dental knowledge whatsoever.

4. The Masquerade Party. Season 4, episode 18.

Image Source: Tandem Productions

Synopsis: Fred, Grady and Bubba become contestants on a television game show.

While not officially a Halloween episode, you still get all the fun of characters wearing crazy costumes. Fred, Bubba and Grady go all out in their wild costumes, Bubba especially steals the show as a viking.

3. Lamont as Othello. Season 3, episode 1.

Synopsis: Fred comes home to find Lamont and his drama teacher Marilyn acting out a choking scene from the play `Othello’. Fred then jumps to the logical conclusion that Lamont is trying to kill a white woman. Later, Fred becomes the victim of assumption when Marilyn invites Fred and Lamont to her place and her parents think Fred and Lamont are trying to rob the place.

One of the absolute wildest, most gut busting scenes in the entire series is Fred and Bubba catching Lamont rehearsing Othello with a white female acting partner and mistakenly think that he’s gone out of his mind choking a white woman. Fred’s heart attack was hilarious enough but Bubba and the look on his face when he has his is just pure gold.

2. Lamont Is That You? Season 3, episode 6.

Image Source: Tandem Productions

Synopsis: Lamont and Rollo are out on the town one evening and decide to stop in at a new bar for a couple drinks. However, they soon realize they have stumbled into a gay bar. Unknown to them, Bubba just happened to see them go inside. Bubba promptly jumps to conclusions and then proceeds to tell Fred that Lamont is gay. Not believing Bubba’s story, Fred decides to get to the bottom of the situation.

Fred and Bubba always seem to have the wildest adventures, but staking out a gay bar to see if Lamont and Rollo are there is certainly the craziest. The scene where Bubba tells Fred that he saw Lamont and Rollo walk into the bar is also classic.

  1. The Blind Mellow Jelly Collection. Season 3, episode 10.
Image Source: Tandem Productions

Synopsis: Lamont advises Fred to donate a collection of Blind Mellow Jelly records to a music library for a tax write-off. After doing so, Fred finds out from an appraiser that the records are valued at five hundred dollars. Fred, with dollar signs in his eyes, has Bubba act as though he were the son of Blind Mellow Jelly in an attempt to get them back.

Was there any doubt that this would be number 1? Truly Bubba’s brightest moment as well as one of the most memorable episodes of the whole series. The phrase “I want my daddy’s records” has taken a life of its own on the level of “Bye, Felicia” or “Whatchu Talkin’ Bout, Willis?” This was absolute the funniest and best of Fred and Bubba’s adventures.

Honorable Mentions:

Wine, Women and Aunt Esther, Steinberg and Son, and Home Sweet Home For The Aged.

Next time we get into the top five greatest episodes of Fred’s main squeeze, the lovely Donna Harris. Till next time, folks!

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Kendall Rivers
Kendall Rivers

Written by Kendall Rivers

Kendall is a screenwriter who’s a huge fan of classic tv and movies. He enjoys creating good stories and characters. https://www.facebook.com/kendall.rivers.3