"Shotgun Wedding: Part 1"

Jumping the cow

Happy Days: "Shotgun Wedding: Part 1"
September 11, 1979
C+


Fred Fox, Jr., who'd had Richie and Potsie cross over for the high school dance contest, wrote this seventh-season-opener for Happy Days, which was one of 237 (!) HD episodes that Jerry Paris directed, and he also did the "Bachelor Party" episode for L & S's first season, which had Fonzie guest-starring.  So they certainly had experience crossing over with the sister show, but throwing the girls into the middle of the episode for a few minutes doesn't entirely work.  I mean, it makes things more entertaining but it does Flanderize Laverne and Shirley in ways that they hadn't yet been on their own show.

The Cunninghams are going camping, and meanwhile Fonzie wants to hook up (I honestly can't think of a '70s or '50s equivalent phrase) with two stereotypical Swedish farmer's daughters he's never met, even though their father likes to shoot traveling salesman.  And although Richie smooches goodbye with his girlfriend Lori Beth, I guess they have one of those Carmine & Shirley understandings, because she's dating while he's out of town (for three days!) and he has no qualms about smooching with one of the farmer's daughters (the blonde one).  The two sisters are "desperate" because of their overprotective father, who of course shows up with his shotgun and wants Fonzie and Richie to marry Helga and Inga.  How will the guys get out of this one?

"But what I really want to do is direct," and other captions that write themselves.

Fortunately, around the midpoint, wearing a cow suit and fleeing a bull, Richie gets stung by bees and Fonzie twists his ankle, so they are rescued by Laverne and Shirley, who are also camping in the vicinity.  Shirley is happy to play candy-striper, while Laverne definitely has a "bedside manner."  Laverne kisses Fonzie and mounts Richie (who's face-down), and she and Shirley accidentally further injure the guys.  They're a bit shrill and simplified here, without (I know it's weird to type this) any of the nuances that they would get on their own series, where a half hour episode would allow time for "this week's lesson" and other non-slapstick.  That said, they certainly perk up the episode, which otherwise is full of tired gags.  (And the cow-suit routine would be done better and more raunchily five years later in the movie Top Secret!)

The bottle-cappers' brief appearance is not only fortunate for the viewer but for the guys, since Fonzie claims to be engaged to Laverne DeFazio.  We saw him look pretty cozy limping around the room with Shirley (remember, Henry and Cindy used to date), but there is of course no question who he's going to pick of the two female friends that could plausibly get to the farm quickly.  He went out with Laverne on the double date four long seasons ago (maybe two or three years HD-time, since Kennedy is now president) and she would be more willing to lie for him, especially if they could smooch some more.  Richie catches on and claims to be "practically married" to Shirley Feeney.  And we know he enjoyed both of their dates, although the second one was two seasons ago.  (Note that Joanie is now almost 17, and I swear she was 12 or 13 in Season One, but Happy Days was ridiculously retconned by this point, ask brother Chuck.)  Richie is sent to go get the girls, while Fonzie must remain in front of the shotgun and the two disappointed Swedish girls, who were totally up for marriage to strangers.

Part 2 would of course see the return of Vicki Frederick (who two months later would be Sutra on the infamous Mork & Mindy Raquel Welch two-parter) as Helga and April Clough as Inga, as well as F. William Parker as their papa Vernon.  Parker was only 38 at the time, making him eight and twelve years older than his "daughters."  (And one year older than Penny Marshall, although she still looked cute and sexy at this point, again showing off her legs in shorts.)