"Honeymoon Hotel"

"Honeymoon Hotel"
February 22, 1977
B+

There's no depth to this Johnson & Cohen story, like there was in "Look Before You Leap," but it is an utter delight, from the opening scene rich with Lavenny fodder to the girls getting away with a scam, OK, thanks to Rosie.

Laverne is letting the guys watch From Here to Eternity with her, since their TV isn't working and hers is.  (Presumably the one she won dancing with Richie.)  She is sitting very close to Lenny on the couch and keeps reaching for the popcorn on his lap, and, yes, you could fit four people on that couch, as on "Playing Hooky."  Squiggy is in the room but upset about a relationship that soured.  Laverne complains that the popcorn is unbuttered, so Lenny mocks her but he nonetheless goes and gets a stick of butter and a knife.  And he proceeds to butter every single kernel that he hands her, while she's oblivious!  This is funny and in a weird way romantic.  (Well, Lavenny is by definition almost always weirdly romantic.)  Not only that, but when Laverne reacts to the famous lovemaking-on-the-beach scene, Lenny says, "He ain't such a much.  He didn't even remember to bring a blanket to the beach."  And yet when Squiggy says that the whole world is out on a date and Lenny gives her a look, she reminds him that he and Squiggy are only there because of the TV.

There's also a moment that is inadvertently Lenny/Squiggy, when they both try to put an arm around Laverne and instead touch each other.  Laverne notices, they don't.

The TV announcer draws a name to win a honeymoon weekend at the Hotel Pfister (a hotel mentioned in previous episodes) in beautiful downtown Milwaukee.  The winner is Miss Shirley Feeney, who is out on a date with someone we never see.  The announcer calls the apartment and Laverne answers and has to pretend to be Shirley, with the guys rooting her on.  Shirley comes home towards the end and Laverne and the guys race out of there without seeing her.

This is not an episode where there's a voice of reason saying, "You can't cheat the hotel out of a weekend's stay in the honeymoon suite."  Even the sensible Mrs. Babish rolls in (with Lenny's help) a garment rack with her five (!) wedding dresses.  Carmine agrees to put on a mustache and carry Shirley over the threshold for a publicity photo.

Unfortunately, as the girls discover after Carmine returns mustacheless to the dance studio, it isn't going to be just one photo op but a series of pictures taken throughout the weekend.  They are going to have to bluff their way through this "honeymoon," while still having a good time.  And they do, from setting off the musical bed to throwing a party with Big Rosie and a circus.  Just being in a fancy hotel is a thrill for these working-class women, and I love the line, "Laverne, this must be how Liberace lives!"  We're rooting for them and, yes, Rosie redeems herself by bribing the hotel manager.

In the tag, Laverne almost says what she often does, "Doesn't your balloon ever land?" but then she stops herself.  And she reveals that she's stealing the heart-shaped toilet seat!  The manager, after bribery, has a very '70s line about "who are we to say what's right and what's wrong?"  For once, the sentimental Garry Marshall touch is gone and we get something more anarchic, more Marx-Brothery, yet in its own way lovable.

On his way out, seeing Squiggy "in love again," this time with the bearded lady, Lenny kisses Laverne on the top of her head.  So, yeah, the episode has Lavenny, but it should be noted that there's some Shirverne, as when Shirley accuses Laverne of trying to abandon her on "their honeymoon" and Laverne dresses in drag (including the mustache) to try to pull off the ruse.  Heck, we even get Rosie/whatever the bodybuilder's name is, as she embraces her inner bimbo and forgets about her husband Ogden (who's at a proctologist convention elsewhere in the hotel).

Gary Shimokawa unfortunately wouldn't direct any other L & S episodes.