"Upstairs, Downstairs"

"Upstairs, Downstairs"
October 4, 1979
B-

Alan Aidekman's story of the girls dreaming about the results in the afterlife if they return or keep a $56 check for a mistaken refund from the phone company is pretty well done, with Shirley's dream of Heaven followed by Laverne's nightmare of Hell.  But the two things that most amused me have little to do with the moral dilemma.  When Laverne finds out she's going to be the Heaven bus driver but with no bus, she doesn't mind when she sees her hunky passengers.  Watching it today, I burst out into raucous laughter, because they look like two-thirds of the Village People!  I'm not sure if it would've had that association in '79, or how much the mainstream knew that the VP were very gay, but the subtext is glaring now, like the "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?" number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

And this is the episode that my then-future-ex-husband would quote for years out of context.  We got together in '84 and I assume we later saw L & S on cable a bit (I do have Lenny's "In Love with Laverne" song on videotape), but even if we hadn't, I'd probably have been able to place "You bought a Hubba-Hubba Heiny??" back in context.  Remember, a big butt was not yet bad in American white culture (that came in during the '80s), and it's plausible, if ridiculous, that Shirley would order such an "enhancement" in the '50s.  Laverne and the studio audience were very amused, and I still am.

Dick Shawn's tendency to overact serves him well in the triple role of Gatekeeper for both Heaven and Hell and Phone Company Representative.