"Lenny's Crush"

"Lenny's Crush"
February 13, 1979
B+

Sit down, it's time for deep, penetrating analysis (and other innuendos)....

In 1979 it's the day before Valentine's Day, but in '61 it's already baseball season.  The gang (minus Edna) and a bunch of extras have gathered in the girls' apartment to prepare for "Shotz Day" at the Braves ballpark.  (The team would move from Milwaukee to Atlanta later in the '60s.)  Shirley is cranky, so Laverne sends everyone home.  Carmine tells "Angel Face" she's beautiful when she's cranky, but she denies being cranky.  And that's it for Shirmine, and Carmine, this episode.  As for Shirley, she goes to bed, still cranky and denying it.

Squiggy lingers with the Beehive Girl (still uncredited), telling her, "Keep drinking, it'll make it easier."  When Laverne makes them leave, Squiggy tells BG that they'll have the apartment to themselves, since his roommate won't be home tonight.  Then he tells Lenny not to come home.

Lenny asks Squiggy to see if she has a girl for him, but BG whispers to Squiggy that Lenny is a little too weird-looking, which Squiggy tells Lenny.  Laverne looks sympathetic.  Squiggy escorts BG out, saying he has a moth collection that will look great in her beehive.

Trying to cover up the hurt, Lenny asks Laverne if she needs a weird-looking guy to help her clean up.  She says he has a lot of things going for him, although it takes her awhile to come up with any.  She calls him a real sweet guy, which is what she said when he offered to marry her during her pregnancy scare.  She adds that he's even better-looking than Squiggy, which he's surprised by.

He asks why Squiggy is such a "San Juan" with women and she says that it's because Squiggy finds girls who like the same disgusting things that he does.  Then she has him sit down, which he does exactly the same way she does, putting one leg over the back of a chair.  She tells him he has to find a girl who likes the same things that he likes.  He says no girls like sports or monster movies, but she says some girls like both, especially her.

She takes his hand and leads him to the living room, then she turns and asks if any of what she's saying to him is getting through to him.  It is, but not how she thinks.  He tells her he thinks he's found someone, and she's happy for him.  He asks her to go to the baseball game with him the next afternoon, and she says everybody's going.

He gets his guitar and plans to sleep in the gutter, apparently not for the first time.  She pats his arm and says he can sleep on the couch.  He thanks her and says she talks real good.  She says he talks real good, too, especially when he doesn't spit.  She grips his arm and tells him to not forget that he's a real sweet guy.  She goes to give him a kiss on the cheek, but he turns his head so that it lands on his puckered lips.  She reacts like it's the usual thing of him trying to steal a kiss, although she's more amused than annoyed.  She tells him, "You don't kiss bad either."  He stares after her as the scene ends.

The next morning, Shirley wanders into the living room in her full slip and doesn't immediately process that Lenny is there.  Then she hides behind the kitchen counter and accuses of him being there to see "half-naked women" and she imitates his wrist-biting.  He says he's outgrown that.

Shirley calls to Laverne, who yells back that she's shaving her legs.  Lenny sighs, "The voice of my beloved."  Shirley covers herself with a dishtowel and asks what Lenny is talking about.  He says he knows when he's been kissed and he and Laverne are "sort of a hot item."
SHIRLEY: The day you and Laverne are a hot item is the day that pigs fly.
LENNY: Better clear the runway, Shirl, 'cause there's a pork roast comin' in at twelve o'clock high.
She's understandably skeptical, and he admits that it's unbelievable, "but just when you least expect it, love walks through the door."  So of course Squiggy bursts in and angrily says, "Hello!"

He says he was "a worried stiff," thinking Lenny had been washed out of the gutters and to the waste disposal plant.  Lenny says he had himself quite a night last night, so of course Squiggy assumes something happened with scantily clad Shirley.  Squiggy says that he hopes that Lenny had a good time, and he sounds jealous.  Then he confides, "I could never get her clothes off."

Shirley proudly says that no man has ever had a good time with her.  Lenny tells Squiggy that Cupid's arrow got him and Laverne right between the eyeballs, and he points on his own head.  In case there were any doubts about where Squiggy is on the Lavennist Scale, he sincerely calls this great and terrific.  And then as he and Lenny are heading out, he asks, "How was she?"  Lenny innocently says, "Fine, yourself?"

Once the boys are gone, Shirley insists that Laverne come into the living room.  Laverne is annoyed that Shirley was using Laverne's razor to clean carrots again, and we can see lots of cuts on Laverne's legs.  Shirley tells Laverne she'll clot and she insists on knowing what went on with Lenny last night.  Laverne admits to "a quiet, gentle kiss, the kind you give a little baby's boom-boom."  Shirley says the kiss was enough to send Lenny "across the border into Loveland with" Laverne.  Laverne says that Lenny has always liked her a little.  Shirley says that Lenny has a serious crush on Laverne.

Laverne doesn't think it's a big deal, so Shirley tells the story of Ned Sterns, with Laverne confusing Ned with other guys, including Allen Steckler, who chewed socks and who I believe was mentioned on some episode where Shirley owed Laverne a favor.  Shirley led Ned on and then her rejection led him to become a doctor, a hunky doctor.  (This seems like a pretty dubious story to tell, since she lost what sounds like just her type.)

Shirley warns Laverne that this will "snowball into something big" and Laverne will "hurt that boy," but Laverne is skeptical.  And then Lenny comes back for his guitar.  Laverne thinks he'll be amused by what Shirley thinks, but he says he doesn't care what the world thinks.

And then he serenades her with perhaps the best McKean-penned song of the series, "In Love with Laverne."  Laverne reacts with shock, while Shirley sees this as the disaster she predicted.  Lenny sings of how Laverne is superior to the pyramids, the Sphinx, and mink coats, and he points out the irony of searching around the world only to "find your special girl in a basement, in your own backyard."  And Laverne wants to speak up, but she waits for the song to end, and then she says, "Laverne who?"  Which makes him guffaw.

(It should be noted that the audience not only claps and cheers but whistles after the song.  Are they reacting to McKean's talent or do they on some level want Laverne & Lenny to get together?  Or are they just terribly amused?)

Shirley says, "Ned Sterns, Ned Sterns," and Lenny looks at Laverne with a goofy, infatuated expression.  Laverne is understandably conflicted.

So we cut to the Braves Stadium and some stock footage.  Up at the very top of the stands, the Shotz crowd has gathered.  Lenny has bought Laverne a corsage and he goes to get her a hot dog even though she doesn't want one.

Squiggy, who's wearing a pirate hat because the Braves are playing the Pirates, asks Shirley, "Don't Laverne and Lenny make a lovely couple?"  They remind him of Fred and Wilma Flintstone.  "Before we know it, bamm-bamm.  Heh heh."  Shirley, who agrees with him about Lavenny as much as she does about the Pirates, says he has Bedrock for brains.

[I run to Wikipedia and find out that unlike, for instance, the reference to My Mother the Car, this one is not actually an anachronism, since The Flintstones had premiered in September of 1960.  However, Bamm-Bamm wouldn't show up until '63.]

A guy named Rusty, apparently an acquaintance of Laverne's, sits down and asks her on a date.  She says she's available Sunday through Saturday, so he suggests Tuesday at 8:00.  [A not so subtle plug for the ABC Tuesday line-up?]

Lenny challenges the "snake in the pants" to a duel and Squiggy immediately offers to be Lenny's second.
LAVERNE: Don't be stupid!
LENNY: It's too late for that, Laverne.
Lenny "demands satisfaction" and slaps Rusty across the face with the hot dog, to Squiggy's delight.  (Seriously, Lander looks genuinely amused, instead of deadpan like earlier.)

Rusty hits Lenny, who sinks onto the stairs.  Laverne hits Rusty with an inflatable bat and tells him to go away but also says she'll see him on Tuesday.

Laverne asks Lenny what he was doing, and he says he was trying to protect "his woman."  When he realizes that she did want to go out with Rusty, he says, "You make it kind of hard to love you, you know that, Laverne?"  And he leaves, handing her the hot dog.  Squiggy comes over and says, "Aww, your first lover's squabble," then he takes the weiner out of the bun and eats it.  Shirley tells Laverne she knew this would happen.

In the next scene, Laverne glumly takes off the corsage.  Shirley comes back from getting Lenny to agree to come downstairs.  She says he was hitting himself in the head with a Polish sausage, screaming, "Pigs don't fly, pigs don't fly!"

Laverne thinks that Lenny and everyone hates her, but Shirley reassures her that no one hates her and that this can be set straight.  She refuses, however, to help set it straight, especially since Ned cried like a baby.

After Shirley leaves, Laverne considers telling Lenny through the dumbwaiter but decides that this is a little impersonal.  She starts to pour her comfort drink of milk & Pepsi, but Lenny storms in and orders, "Shut up, sit down, listen to me."  He grabs her hand and throws her on the couch, but he sits on the back of her thighs.  He then reads her a note that starts, "Shut up, sit down, listen to me."  He accuses her of lying to him, hurting his feelings, getting him punched out, and getting mustard on his best jacket.

When he's done, she asks him to get off her legs, so he does and they sit on the couch, but not as close as usual.  He hands her the note and she points out that he misspelled mustard.  He thinks he put too many O's.  She apologizes for not telling him sooner but she didn't want to hurt his feelings.  He says she hurt them anyway.  She says she'll make it up to him, so he asks her to be his girlfriend.  When she says she can't, he asks her to be his wife.  (I don't know if this counts as one of his many proposals, but if it does, it's probably the simplest.)

When Laverne rejects him again, he yells that she lied to him and he tries to hide under the coffee table.  The lie was that if he found someone he had things in common with, that girl would be the one for him.  She admits she was wrong.  She says he needs something else.  He says he'll run right out and get it for her.  She pulls the table off him and has him sit next to her on the couch again.

LAVERNE: You know that special somethin' that happens between a guy and a girl?
LENNY: (looking utterly vulnerable) Yeah, I got that for you.
LAVERNE: (as if this is painful for her, too) This is the hard part, Len.  Sometimes only one person has those feelings.
LENNY: (as it sinks in) So you hate me.
LAVERNE: No, I don't hate you, Len, you big dope.  I love you!
He's excited, but when she says it's as a friend, he tries to crawl back under the coffee table.

She tells him that girlfriends come and go, but real friends, like him and Squiggy, or her and Shirley, go on forever.  He suggests other pairs of friends, from Heckle & Jeckle (referred to on multiple episodes) to "Edgar Bergen & Joseph McCarthy."  [And that is probably the joke I remember most from this episode, go figure.]  Lenny thinks it over and agrees, over a handshake, to be friends.  Laverne says she feels better, but Lenny doesn't.  So Laverne tries to crawl under the coffee table.

They agree to go see Godzilla on Monster Island together as friends.  [This is especially impressive since in the real world that movie wouldn't come out until 1972 in Japan and '77 in the U.S.]  They're both excited about it and he again thinks they have a lot in common.  She says his name warningly and then tells him, "Put it on," meaning her coat, so he puts it on himself, just to break the tension with humor  Then they shake hands as friends again, and he pulls her off to catch the cartoon before the movie.

And then there's one of those tags that are not throwaways.  Squiggy is playing Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral with the girls and apparently he always chooses lettuce.  Lenny comes in with a girl named Bridget and points out Laverne, "the girl I dumped for you."  He tells Squiggy that he'll need the apartment that night and then he and Bridget leave.

Even though Bridget didn't say anything and was there only long enough to glare at Laverne, Laverne says, "I don't know if she's good enough for him."  Squiggy tells her that she's jealous because she's "just seen two people very much in love, just like me and Shirley."  And he drapes his arm on Shirley's shoulders.
SQUIGGY: Our hearts, they beat as one.
SHIRLEY: The day you drop dead.
Then she goes over to scold Laverne about wanting to lead Lenny on again.  It's hard to hear Laverne over the wrap-up music, but she seems to be saying that Bridget is too short for Lenny.  The top of Bridget's bouffant looked to be on a level with Lenny's chin.  McKean was six inches taller than Marshall.

So what just happened here, in less than twenty minutes of screen time?  (But a lot longer to write up.)  We can guess that Edna would've felt bad for both Lenny and Laverne but given advice even more sensible than Shirley's.  Frank would've yelled if he knew how Lenny felt, while Carmine probably would've been amused.  It's clear where Shirley and Squiggy stand on Lavenny, and that Squiggy ships himself with Shirley and she definitely does not.

But what's going on with Lenny and Laverne?  Let's start with him, because we can assume that's more straightforward.  He's been interested in Laverne since high school and he often tries to grab and/or kiss her.  He considers her smart, pretty, and the classiest girl he knows.  He was willing to talk about his mother to help her deal with her grief.  Prior to this episode, he would've described the two of them as friends.

But something shifts here.  He has feelings he didn't have before.  We see that in his body language in the living room, as she thinks she's just giving him a pep talk but he starts seeing her, and their relationship, in a new way, finding what he's been searching for.  (And there's something poignant about a working-class guy who's probably never traveled further than New York thinking he's looked around the world for true love.)  He thinks he's in love, and he assumes it's mutual, until he finds out otherwise.

And when she offers him friendship, real friendship, he accepts it.  What choice does he have?  She's not going to go out with him except platonically.  But it's not like his feelings just die.  He may be pretending to have moved on, but notice, he made a point of bringing Bridget by the girls' apartment, when he could've talked to Squiggy more privately.  Is he trying to make Laverne jealous, or does he just want her to know he's not hurting anymore?  As I recall, subsequent episodes would show that Lenny still is emotionally and physically attracted to Laverne, and it's not like they suddenly don't have things in common.  How he handles this over the next four and a quarter seasons will be interesting to trace.

And what about Laverne?  Prior to this episode, she has been growing closer to Lenny, in this season ranging from their little connection at the dog pound to their bonding over a lack of a mother.  And of course there was their magical if disastrous night at the debutante ball.  (It's worth noting that Judy Ervin, the screenwriter for this episode, co-wrote "The Debutante Ball," so it's fair to say that she was an in-house Lavennist.)  This is not the same relationship they had in Season One or even Season Three.

Was it all platonic?  Were they, are they, just good friends?  On his side, no, but what about hers?  And here we have to discuss the tricky subject of Marshall & McKean's chemistry, tricky not because they don't have any-- they clearly do-- but because, while I sincerely believe they didn't cheat on their spouses with each other, that doesn't mean that there isn't something special and, yes, romantic about how they interacted onscreen.  So even when their characters weren't supposed to be flirting, that's not always how it looked.

If they were simply very good actors putting in subtext, at their own whims or at her brother Garry's secret orders, the question is why?  Why tease the audience like that?  It wasn't a canonical pair, or a will-they-or-won't-they Tony & Angela situation.  Even Jack/Janet on Three's Company was something that the audience was deliberately teased about off and on for eight seasons.  As far as I recall, there were no print ads or promos that suggested that Lenny & Laverne were "finally" getting together.  And yet, audiences then and now picked up on Lavenny.

So let's go back to Laverne.  The episode is telling us on the surface that the attraction is one-way.  Laverne herself gently says that to Lenny.  But, as with the double date, where she had a great time until Lenny wanted to have another date, Laverne seems to only be attracted to Lenny if she is unconscious of it.  She thinks she loves him as a friend, which I don't doubt after the "cemetery" episode, if not before.  And she wants to spend time with him, and he's not a bad kisser.  But she tells herself she can't think of him that way, even though we know that she's dreamed of marrying him, admittedly in the distant future.  And way back in Season One, she was willing to have sex with him when she thought they were going to die.

But OK, let's take her at her word.  She wants a strong platonic friendship with Lenny.  Maybe she's just protective of him when she thinks Bridget isn't good enough for him.  But she's going to base it on height?  After being attracted to Shirley's 6'2" blond brother, she's going to think Bridget isn't a good match for Lenny?  And this isn't the worst, or shortest, girl Lenny has gone out with, so why the concern now?  Shouldn't she at least want him to have a nice rebound to get over her?  Or does she miss him having a crush on her, even if she couldn't handle it?

As with Lenny, I'll need to gather more evidence as we go along.  But, yeah, all that stuff about pork and hot dogs and Polish sausage, is definitely TV Freudianism.

Carl Gottleib had played the Station Master on "Bus Stop" but this is his only directing gig for the show.

ETA pics showing Bridget and Laverne's reactions to each other:

I'd say Squiggy looks mildly surprised, Shirley wary, and Laverne in shock.  And Laverne does do a hand gesture indicating shortness at the end of the scene.