"The Dance Studio"

"The Dance Studio"
May 23, 1978
B

Nicholas DeMarco's first and only L & S story is very funny and has some surprising shipping.  (He also wrote only one What's Happening!! episode, one of the better ones, about the guys giving their teacher an empty box as a gift.)  Carmine wants to buy the title location, where he's been working I think a couple years, but the bank won't loan him money.  This plays out in ways that are predictable but still enjoyable, and ways that are very surprising.

First he tries boxing but Shirley disapproves (although she's a little turned on).  Then Carmine goes to the bank but finds out that they'd think he'd be a more stable prospect if he were married.  Men were under less pressure to marry in the '50s than women were (despite the previous episode, Mr. DeFazio is still pressuring Laverne about it), but bachelors were seen as less grounded and reliable.  Shirley agrees to pretend to be his wife, although one would think they'd have to offer proof, but just go with it because we are in Farcetown.  Laverne teases them about "practicing," and Carmine grins, but Shirley says that Laverne took the bus to Filthtown.

As soon as the next scene starts and we hear Shirley is late, we know (if we are '70s sitcom fans, and if you're not, why are you here?) that Laverne will be mistaken by the loan officer for Mrs. Ragusa and will have to play along with it.  We also know that Shirley will come in late, although I'll admit I didn't see the "Wong baby" in the carriage joke coming.  (At least the line is a throwaway, unlike the racial humor when Laverne had a Negro "cousin.")  Carmine of course doesn't get the loan.

He decides to go to a loan shark but the girls put a stop to that by drafting Lenny and Squiggy (Lenny tells Laverne they owe the girls a favor) into a wonderfully horrible "hula" dance routine, yes, with costumes.  Penny M. is pretty sexy in this episode, with her Hawaiian dance and in her grass-skirt-less dance costume earlier.  Poor Shirley can't even woo Carmine when he's mad at the girls later.

Mekka gets more to work with on this episode than usual, and Carmine's pain at the failure of his dream is believable.  Laverne makes a comment about banks not loaning money except to people who don't need it, and later Edna says that "people like them" need to stick together, so she and Frank co-sign the loan, understanding why working-class people would want to be their own bosses.

Carmine of course forgives the girls and he gives Shirley a nice kiss, then ruffles Laverne's hair and calls her "Vernie," as he did in Season One.  She says that next time they help someone, she hopes they kiss her and ruffle Shirley's hair.  So Carmine sweeps her off her feet into a big but short kiss.  Shirley tells him to never do that again.  So we've launched Carverne, right?  I know there will be other moments later (in fact, I dimly recall there's a whole episode about Shirley finding out something her bestie and her occasional beau did in the past), but this seems like the first significant Hm moment.  Oh, and I guess I should mention Laverne offering him a banana and later her ice-cream stick to lick, because it's inverted Freudianism.

Garry Goodrow is Mr. (Euripedes) Caulley here and would years later play a nameless Bank Manager.