"The Road to Burbank"

"The Road to Burbank"
January 13, 1981
B-

Jeff Franklin wrote this tricky episode.  It's hard to know how to take, and it's hard to write about, but I think it is ultimately entertaining, and it is not the "rape is funny" scenario I was afraid I was going to find it upon revisiting.  I first saw the episode at almost 13 and thought it was strange but I also think I found the girls' outfits sexy, especially Laverne's*.  The boys' version of events certainly stayed with me more than the more problematic yet truer girls' version.  I remember watching at least some of the episode on Youtube in the past few years.**  But this is my first time sitting down and watching it in context, not just the episode as a whole but within the larger run of the show.

We begin at Cowboy Bill's, where Frank and Edna are celebrating the 50th.  Not either of their 50th birthdays, which I'm guessing are long past, especially with the time-skip.  No, it is the 50th day that they've been running this restaurant.  When we switch to the girls' apartment for the rest of the episode (not counting the flashbacks and pseudo-flashbacks), we'll see that that same calendar as in the previous episode is still up.  So is this November 1965, and they opened in September or early October?  Maybe the girls really were 27 when they got fired.

Anyway, toasts are made, gifts given, a singing telegram sung (by Carmine, with unwieldy lyrics), prop bottles broken over heads, and it's a nice little party, even if Laverne is home with a cold.  (Why?  It doesn't add anything to the episode and seems like something behind the scenes impacting onscreen.)

The party is broken up by the entrance of Chuck Malone, representing the Royal Cactus Motel of Royal Cactus, Nevada. (Larry Gelman would probably have been most recognizable for his recurring role of Dr. Bernie Tupperman on The Bob Newhart Show, although he and Penny both worked on The Odd Couple.)  He is looking for Lenny and Laverne Kosnowski, and Andrew and Shirley Squigman.  It turns out that on the road to Burbank, after four days driving from Milwaukee, they ran out of money and had to share one room in a cheap motel, pretending to be married couples.  Mr. Malone says they have to pay $158 in damages or else, and then he breaks a cob of corn.

Now, I want to note that whatever actually happened in the motel, Shirley doesn't seem to currently have any hard feelings against the boys.  She touches Squiggy lightly when the three of them try to sneak away from the table and she even reaches up and tries to get kernels out of Lenny's eyes, although McKean is about eight inches taller than Williams.  And yet, Shirley says that she and Laverne will sue Lenny and Squiggy to pay for the damages, so the boys plan to counter-sue.

I should mention that Becky Gonzalez is given more to do in her second and last appearance as Rosita the waitress in law school, since she takes notes at the "trial" at the girls' apartment the next day, but she's not strictly necessary to the story.  Still, she's not as pointless as Rhonda here, who makes a few self-absorbed comments but really could've easily been left out.  I'll get to this, but I do see the point of Sonny, so if it had been him and the Core Seven, that would've been fine.

Shirley goes first and says it was a "hot, sultry night" when they were in Nevada, which sounds more like it was September than November, lending support to the theory that it is now November rather than January.  (Note, there was no Christmas episode that year.)

She repeats what we already know about why the four of them shared a room and then we see the actual arrival, and I want you to look at the following still, which remember is from Shirley's perspective.  The boys do not look rapey; they look young and eager and, by their standards, innocent.  Lenny is giddy and giggly about the idea of "constipating" his marriage with Laverne, in the Biblical sense.***  She matter-of-factly tells him she's not the Promised Land.  Shirley is even more crushing, telling Squiggy that if they were the last man and woman on Earth, the human race would die out.  He says they could adopt.

The girls go to change in the bathroom and the next scene opens with the boys emerging in what Squiggy calls their "love clothes."  Lenny suggests a little TV and Bosco before they retire (I guess that's the Kosnowski equivalent of "Netflix and chill"), and Squiggy chimes in that the French say that The Tonight Show can be "used as an African-disiac."  Shirley says no TV, no Bosco, no cigar, so Lenny giggles about cigars and babies.  Laverne slaps him.

The girls get into one bed, the boys in the other, and the guys make gleeful sounds of anticipation.  Shirley says they ought to be "horse-thumped," and Squiggy says they'll be "horse-thumped with smiles on their faces."  He puts a coin in the Magic Fingers box so that the girls' bed will vibrate.  The girls get annoyed and Laverne says her lips itch.  Lenny stands up in bed and says, "OK, Laverne, I'm comin' to scratch 'em for ya!"

And that's where, at roughly the eleven-minute mark, the episode gets really problematic.  Up to this point, in the episode and in the series, the guys haven't crossed certain boundaries.  I wouldn't say they've been respectful of Laverne and Shirley but they haven't pushed things too far.  But now, with the girls telling the boys to stop and go away, the boys persist.  Shirley hits Squiggy over the head with a painting (it fails to crack on the first hit, so he says she missed, which I suspect was an ad-lib), and then she tries to call the police, but Squiggy throws the phone through the window.  As Squiggy chases Shirley down the hallway, Laverne and Lenny emerge from the bathroom that he's dragged her into, and he's got a plunger on his forehead.
LAVERNE: Well, I never!
LENNY: You hold still and maybe you'll get the chance, Laverne.
She now suggests they watch TV but he keeps pursuing her and throws the television set to the floor.

Here's another still as evidence.  Notice that the body language is completely different than every other kiss he's given her, even the grab & kisses that he often teams up with Squiggy for.  He is restraining her hand and not giving her any mobility.  It is played for laughs, just as much as the plunger was, but it is disquieting, especially considering he's supposed to be the more sensitive and emotionally-intelligent of him and Squiggy.  He grabs her and throws her over his shoulder, saying, "You're all mine!  You're all mine, Laverne!" and then the comic relief is that he can't find the bed.

S & S run back in and the girls each end up on one bed.  Shirley says the boys have gone mad and Squiggy laughs maniacally and cries that they're mad with passion.  The boys yell, "Double makeout!" as they did when the lights went out after the "Monkey and the Jerk" dance lesson, but it feels creepier here, especially since they jump on the beds and break them.  The girls run into the bathroom and lock it.  The two supposedly (sex-)crazed men calmly tell each other goodnight and go to sleep.

Shirley's version ends and all Laverne has to add is blowing her nose.  The boys act outraged and Lenny suggests they sue for "inflammation of character."  And then Squiggy tells the "ladies and gentlemen of the dairy" his version, where he and Lenny were as innocent as lambs as they prayed before bed.  (Lenny asks God to "bless the host of Death Valley Days," i.e. the man who would be inaugurated as President a week after this episode aired.)

Then Laverne emerges from the bathroom and wants to "rub-a-dub-dub" against her "hub-a-dub-dub," i.e. her "husband" Lenny.  McKean plays this as if Marshall is a wicked temptress trying to lead poor Lenny astray, but note that nowhere in this episode does he look as repulsed as, well, Williams does in Shirley's version.

Williams of course is much more affectionate with Lander in Squiggy's version, snuggling up to him in her Playboy-bunny-like oufit.  Squiggy looks warier than Lenny, as if (at least in his imagination) he is the more wise to the ways of the world one of the two innocent friends.  And it is Lenny who looks more shocked when the girls strip off their robes, while singing the traditional stripper tune and of course doing stripper-like moves.  (Did I mention that the Family Hour had died years before?)

The girls pose sultrily on one bed, so the boys pray again by the other.  Then Lenny suggests the girls put their robes back on, and holding Laverne's wrap, he says, "You could catch a nasty chest cold."  Laverne, who is showing an impressive amount of skin for an early '80s sitcom, thanks him.  Squiggy says his foster mother warned him about women like them.  (I thought Squiggy grew up with his biological mother, but, hey, it's his flashback and we already know he's playing fast and loose with the truth.)  Laverne suggests the two "handsome husbands" slip into bed, but the boys go change "in the laboratory."  Even though it's Squiggy's fantasy, he has Laverne say that it's a dream come true to spend a night with Lenny in "a dark, sleazy motel room," as if even in Squiggy's imagination, he can't have Shirley say something like that about him.  (At this point, Rhonda is probably the only S/S shipper, since she said Shirley did well in marrying Squiggy.)

This time when the boys emerge in their bedclothes, Lenny is wearing Bullwinkle pajamas, a symbol of his innocence.  When they see the bedsheet that the girls hung up on the ceiling fan (present in both versions but with different meanings), it reminds Squiggy of It Happened One Night, not that he says the title but he describes it as "a black-and-white motion picture I once saw where Clark Grable was forced to hang his shorts to protect him from the feminine wiles of Claudine Colberet."****

Shirley says the sheet is up for privacy's sake, but Laverne very suggestively says they should all go to bed, and both girls bite their hands a la Lenny.  He wants to watch the evening news with Walter Brennan (i.e. Cronkite), but the girls would rather kiss goodnight.  Squiggy gives Shirley a pity kiss on the forehead, but Lenny just gently pushes Laverne away.  The boys go to their bed, and the girls paw at the hanging sheet and make animal noises.  Lenny tells them to go to sleep or take a cold shower.

The girls say how hot they are, so Squiggy gives them a quarter for the ice machine.  Shirley instead puts it into the Magic Fingers box.  Laverne calls over to "Lenzoil" (a Penzoil joke?) to come over and help her keep the bed still.  Lenny asks Squiggy if it's another trap.  Squiggy is sure it is, and yet when Shirley comes over to his bed and embraces him, he just sits there, until Lenny pries Shirley away.  Lenny also turns on the fan to cool the girls down.

Laverne comes after Lenny and tells him not to fight it, echoing what he told her in Shirley's version.  She pursues him into the bathroom, while Shirley plants a kiss on Squiggy and then cries, "Love me, Baby!  Love me, Baby!"  He tells her this is no time for loving and he has been "blessed with a headache."  In his version, she hits him with a painting so she can trap him in the frame and her phone call is not to the police but to room service for champagne.  He indignantly calls champagne "the devil's vodka" and throws the phone out the window.

While Shirley chases Squiggy down the hallway, Laverne and Lenny emerge, but this time the plunger on his forehead is how she's caught him.  He keeps telling Laverne no and then says he's saving himself for Walter Brennan.  She says, "He's too old for you, Len, and not your type."  And she throws the TV set to the floor.  She grabs Lenny "by the Bullwinkle" and plants a kiss on him.  Again, the body language is different from any other kiss of theirs in the series.  His arms are free but he's flailing and he can't move easily because she's holding on to his pajamas.  He reacts by...fainting.  So she puts him over her shoulder and cries, "He's mine!  He's mine!"

Squiggy runs back in and says, "Don't do it, Len!  This is just a busman's holiday!"  A busman's holiday is "a vacation or form of recreation that involves doing the same thing that one does at work," and what the boys were doing for a living at this point in the series was truck-driving, and they were indeed driving a truck on their vacation.  Is Squiggy saying that driving the girls cross country was just for the fun of driving and they had no interest in the girls physically?  And is he worried that Lenny is going to give in to Laverne's feminine wiles?

Lenny revives and he and Squiggy go to the beds.  The girls cry, "Double makeout!" and jump on the beds, breaking them.  The boys flee to the bathroom.  We don't know if, in Squiggy's version, the girls calmly say goodnight to each other and go to sleep, but I kind of doubt it.

Back to present-day 1965.  Rosita says it's time to vote.  Squiggy asks Carmine to testify about what it does to him seeing Shirley "prancing around in her bunny-like bathing suit."  Carmine threatens to smack Squiggy in the head.  Shirley thanks Carmine for being a gentleman.  Lenny asks Sonny, as "a strong, rugged, virgile man" to testify about Laverne "paddling around in her Frederick's of Hollywood negligence."  Sonny admits that Laverne is an attractive, desirable woman, and she thanks him for telling the truth.  Nonetheless, he wouldn't chase her around a motel room with a plunger on his head.

Frank asks people to raise their hands if they believe Lenny and Squiggy, but Lenny breaks and admits that they lied.  Squiggy reluctantly says that they fibbed a bit but they were on the road and the girls were the only game in town, and after all a man has needs.  Lenny puts it as they were "starved for affection."

Edna tells the boys that everyone understands they have needs but wrecking a motel room isn't the answer.  "A woman wants to be treated like a lady.  Like a friend, like a human being."  The boys are surprised by this, and Rhonda chimes in, "At least until after dinner."

Frank gets everyone to agree to pitch in to help pay the motel bill.  Lenny swears they'll pay it back.  Frank says they settled all this without expensive lawyers.  Rosita, in her last line, says maybe she should become a doctor.  (Maybe she quit the restaurant to go to med school.)

Frank says that the boys owe the girls an apology.  Squiggy tells Lenny to do it, "You're the one with the honest face."  Lenny quietly and sincerely tells Laverne sorry, but he yells his apology at Shirley, who's sitting right next to where he's standing, and slaps her back.  And cue the closing credits.

So what was this half hour?  It's worth noting that the Happy Days and Three's Company plots that evening were a lot less sexual.  (Joanie, Chachi, and Jenny Piccolo steal Fonzie's money to buy him a new motorcycle; and Jack pretends to be a famous chef.)  The very racy Soap had been moved over to Wednesdays by that point, for its disappointing last season, and the 9:30 slot on Tuesdays was now filled by the first season of Too Close for Comfort, and that night's plot was (and, no, I don't remember this) "Henry and Muriel's table doesn't include a setting for a lion that wanders into their dinner party."  Which sounds like, yes, a Laverne & Shirley plot.  So I think even in that original airing, this episode stood out.

Is it about sex, rape, seduction, fantasy?  What is it?

Here's the description from the "shipper's manifesto" for Lavenny (https://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/190382.html):

This is "an episode that still causes discomfiture in the fandom.  The girls and the guys are trapped together in a seedy room at the Royal Cactus Motel, where the boys may or may not have tried to forcibly make out with the girls.  A lot of people have trouble accepting this episode canonically; Lenny has always, for instance, understood 'no' with Laverne, and to have him ignore it throws darker shades onto him; Laverne, who's always been able to fight him off before actually being afraid of him also is pretty chilling.  The entire incident is played for burlesque comedy, however, and ends with a whispered 'I'm sorry' from Lenny to Laverne."

I do want to add that, however you take it, we don't have Squiggy apologize to Shirley, not directly.  It is clear that Jeff Franklin knew on some level that the audience was more invested in L & L's relationship/friendship than they were in S & S's.  I don't think Laverne, even in the first season, ever made the equivalent of Shirley's "last people on earth" declaration.  There are stray moments where Shirley seems fond of Squiggy but there is no real ship-tease as there is off and on throughout the series run for L & L.  The episode is indeed discomfiting, but we do need Lenny to revert to the relatively sensitive guy we and Laverne know and love.  Whether you or I can accept it as canon is a different matter, but it is part of the bumpy road of this series, especially of Season Six.


*I was always "out" as bisexual to myself.  Growing up it was more a matter of discovering that the world is mostly monosexual, although probably less so now than in the '70s and '80s.  Penny Marshall was not one of my female crushes in the sense that Suzanne Pleshette or even Goldie Hawn would've been in the Carter era, but I certainly found her attractive, not counting the unflattering clothes and hair they gave her in Season One.  And I thought Cindy Williams was cute and pretty of course, but that was just common sense.

**As recently as 2017, whole episodes were on Youtube, but that no longer seems to be the case.

***The episode is full of Lenny and Squiggy's malapropisms, one reason why it's a B- rather than lower.

****Almost five years later, Tony and Angela would find themselves sharing a motel room in a two-parter called "It Happened One Summer," but on Who's the Boss? the sexual tension was so strong that they had to hang up a sheet so they could resist each other.