"The Mummy's Bride"September 28, 1982
B-
By the Fall of 1982, my loyalties to ABC sitcoms were wavering. The network had sent Mork & Mindy off into the ether and killed off Bosom Buddies far too soon. (Although not before we got the irony-rich moment of Tom Hanks as Kip asking guest star Penny Marshall, as herself, if it's true that "she and Shirley hate each other.") There was still the ol' Tuesday night line-up, but I wasn't nearly as invested in Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, or Three's Company as I'd been five years earlier. I was actually equally into other long-running sitcoms over on CBS: The Jeffersons, Alice, and M*A*S*H.
And there were some promising new sitcoms on both CBS and NBC: Cheers, Newhart, and a little show called Square Pegs. I was a high school freshman and it was about high school freshmen. The main "pegs" were Lauren, who was socially ambitious and wanted to befriend "the cool kids," and Patty (a young Sarah Jessica Parker), her taller friend who had lower, more realistic expectations. The girls were followed around by two weird new friends, Marshall, an aspiring stand-up comic who had a huge crush on Lauren, and Johnny. Ah, yes, Johnny. He was tall, blond, musical, Polish, sentimental, and probably from a broken home. (He was raised by his grandparents.) I was a Lauren/Johnny shipper of course. And the parallels to Laverne & Shirley may've been accidental, but considering how deeply pop-cultural SP was, I have to wonder.
But that last week of September, I didn't know how high school would go for me or the pegs, or how much television would change by the time I'd graduate in 1986. (Surprise, in '84 I had a boyfriend/future-ex-husband who'd make Laverne & Shirley references, and my new favorite ABC sitcom was Who's the Boss?, which was all about the central ship.) I was just tuning in to see one of the Milwaukee girls yet again almost get married, but surely Shirley wouldn't go through with this, right? (I would be more heartbroken over Janet's marriage on Three's Company in 1984, even though we did in fact see her bland fiance's face and hear his voice. Vive le Jack/Janet!)
This is, perhaps even more than the California move, which I still have mixed feelings about, seen as the Universal Shark Jump, Shirley becoming "the mummy's bride." Perhaps if they had carried through with their plan, hinted at here, that Shirley would still live with Laverne while Army medic Walter Meeney is away for a year, there wouldn't be such resentment in the fandom. But Cindy W. and the producers quarreled, leaving a bad taste for decades, including for Cindy & Penny's rocky but close friendship. (Not on the level of Suzanne Somers vs. Joyce DeWitt, but still notorious.)
Would it have helped if we actually got to know Walter, or even heard about him before this episode? I mean, Laverne's live-in (for a few hours) boyfriend David at least got lines, a job, and a hobby, and he was played by a then very recognizable actor. Walter, due to a skin rash, is bandaged from head to toe at the rushed hospital wedding, but he appears to be short and thin.
(When Margaret married Lt. Colonel Donald Penobscott on M*A*S*H, we'd been hearing about him for months, and we did actually see him in two episodes, although played by two different actors. He was in a half-body cast at the wedding, but due to Hawkeye and BJ's prank. In both cases, you've got to wonder why the brides are looking forward to the honeymoon.)As with David, Sabrina, and others, Shirley's husband (and, yes, she goes through with it) turns out to be yet another McGuffin of Romance. No one cares about him (not even Shirley it feels like at times), and he's just there to throw light onto Shirley & Laverne, Shirley & Carmine, and Laverne's fears, exacerbated by Lenny & Squiggy (who have funny reactions throughout the episode, like to "Shirley Feeney Meeney"), that she is or will be an old maid.
I have to note that this episode is supposed to have Lenny proposing to Laverne to try to win a bet from 17 years ago (when the girls were 12 I think) about who would get married first, but either it flew right by me or it got edited out of the DVD copy for some reason.
Shirley doesn't want to tell Carmine she's getting married, and she tries to get Laverne to do it, but Carmine takes it very well, since he's conveniently also fallen in love offscreen. (He half-jokes that he and Shirley can still make out.) They promise to always be there for each other, which would be sweet if she weren't going to vanish in a couple episodes.
As for Shirley and Laverne, Laverne is happy for Shirley and very supportive of the wedding, although she faints at least three times over it. Laverne always seems to take Shirley's engagements better than Shirley takes hers, for whatever reason. The wedding teases Lavley, with Laverne helping Walter give Shirley the ring and all.
Everyone is at this wedding, including, yes, Boo Boo Kitty. Mr. DeFazio gives Shirley away and her friends and the other patients do the wedding march on kazoos. It's not Shirley's dream wedding, but at least she's marrying a doctor.
I like this episode, the penultimate one written by Roger Garrett. I've seen worse season-openers (like for Season Seven). By itself, it's perfectly fine. But if you want to call it a shark jump in hindsight, I understand.
Chaplain Richard Stahl had two earlier roles on this series, including the premiere.
That Lavenny scene definitely exists ("We can be in Las Vegas by midnight")and I'm pissed it didn't make the DVD cut.
ReplyDeleteFun fact: CW wanted a "name" actor for Walter (one of the names bandied about was Al Paccino) but either the budget or GM going "enough" resulted in Walter the mummy.
A LOT of the bitterness about the marriage stems from Shirley/Carmine folks, and I can't blame them, especially after "I Do, I Don't." David, Cindy and I think Michael and Penny are on the record that in hindsight, Shirley should've just married Carmine, because the audience would've accepted that (Michael flat out says in the A&E biography that "some shows just go on one season too long"). IMO they really do just shrug and happily accept the situation too easily but that's just my feeling about it. But yeah, for me the shark jump is coming. You'll see it when you hit it.
That is annoying about that cut.
DeleteI can't see Pacino as Walter, but then again, I didn't expect Jeff Goldblum.
I was annoyed with "I Do, I Don't," and I'm not even a Shirmine shipper. (Still pretty neutral about that couple.) I would've been fine with a marriage then and now, but then what would've happened when Cindy left the show? Maybe they would've had her move in with her mother elsewhere in California (with banished-Chrissy-Snow-like phone calls in the tags for awhile) and Carmine would be, I don't know, touring in a play but coming back to visit now and then.
I have a theory about what you think the shark jump is, but I won't guess until we get there.
It really is. But I think it survived syndication.
ReplyDeleteI think Cindy really wanted it to be a big deal and, well. Didn't work out.
I think they could've actually handled it easier - Carmine and Shirley move into his apartment, but Shirley's always there anyway. If what happened with CW still actually Happened, Carmine could've kept being Laverne's friend while Shirley's upstairs, being pregnant and on the phone/sending her notes. Anything's better than 90 percent of what happens.
Now I'm curious what your guess is!
My guess was the "monastery" episode, when it turns out to be the same as what mine is.
DeleteThe audience might've wondered why Shirley couldn't come downstairs (or Laverne go upstairs if Shirley had to do full bed rest), but yeah, it still would've been better.
Y E P. That's the other half of my shark jump. When you get there, you'll get there, but they don't handle it well. The message is better than I remembered on review, and Louise Lassiter absolutely gives her all in a really good monologue - but on the other hand, the big horn. Speaking through pickles. Laverne basically acting like Lenny and Squiggy.
Delete