"Window on Main Street"

Reality TV prototype

"Window on Main Street"
October 12, 1982
C+


Al Aidekman wrote this story where the girls' boss, Mr. Hildebrand (Norman Barthold for the last time), makes them "live" in the Bardwell's store window or else they'll get fired.  Unfortunately, Laverne, who seems to have even more phobias than we realized, has claustrophobia.  So she sees a hypnotist, Hal Dawson (Charles Thomas Murphy, bearded and not immediately recognizable as Dr. Mathew Gentry).  He unfortunately hypnotizes both girls into thinking they're chickens when a bell rings.  The result isn't hilarious but it's not painful.  And the episode ends with Shirley finding out that the rabbit died* and she's pregnant.  Laverne is happy for her, but this will be the last we'll see of Shirley, although I don't think they knew that when this was shot.

Larry Breeding, who plays Mike, the man Laverne flirts with through the window, and who would return in the role, was the married man Hank a few months earlier.

Note that in the opening and closing credits, here and on the previous episode, it's New Year's 1967, but Shirley is in the closing but not the opening.  I have not yet spotted that Monday-the-first kitchen calendar yet, but I'll keep an eye out for clues.  And the "home of the future" is designed for the Year 2000, when we will eat red pills and fried chicken.


*The rabbit always died.  The Billy Crystal movie Rabbit Test came out in 1978 but even by then it was an outdated reference.