"Lonely at the Middle"

"Lonely at the Middle"
March 29, 1977
C+

Although this is another episode I for some reason vaguely remember watching at the time, especially Laverne using the "happy" suggestion box to sing "Rubber Tree Plant" to Shirley, it would probably be a C if not for the one-year-later frame device* of Laverne telling the story to Lenny.**  The "union" song that Lenny and Squiggy sing in the tag isn't bad but is too short and not one of their classics.  The main plot resembles "It's the Water," in that Shirley gets a promotion that doesn't go well.

Byron Webster is Warren Tompkins here and would later be Mr. Slotnik.


*And I think that's only there so that the girls won't have their own car to go to work in and have to use a car pool or the bus.

**After, at his request, putting a band-aid on his finger and kissing it, which is sweet and possibly shippy.  And he wants to know where the "secret place" is that a girl gets kissed in Laverne's smutty book.  He guesses the basement, which happens to be where he and Laverne are sitting.