"Short on Time"February 8, 1983
C-
Frank DeFazio confides his marital woes to a chimp, as Laverne realizes the importance of family while singing with the Spinners.
Oh, you want me to go on? OK, in Jack Lukes's last L & S story, Laverne has three different demands on her night, none of them romantic for a change: an invitation from Rhonda passing on a chance to sing with the Spinners, a request to baby-sit "Chucky, Jr." (and if you didn't guess that the presumably single Chuck* was talking about a "monkey," then you've probably never watched a slapstick sitcom in your life), and a chance to finally talk to her father about why he's recently decided he hates women. So her solution is to have her father chimp-sit while she goes to the concert. Then when she gets home, she finds Frank's conveniently dropped "Dear John" letter from Edna and discovers what her pop has already confided in Chucky, Jr.: Edna has left him for a jockey.
Quite frankly, the writing is a mess. You've got three threads that might've worked individually but don't work together here, comedically or logically. Even a detail like Laverne inexplicably being in her Cowboy Bill's waitress uniform (when we last saw her in the padded red gown she sang in, and before that it looked like the the costumer character ripped the blouse off her so that she's probably missing buttons) shows that no one really cared anymore. And what about the thing with Carmine's girlfriend Suzi (the same Suzi as on the Jim Belushi episode?) being offstage and stupid? What's that about? I'd guess it might be in service to Lavmine, but on this episode and the "ulcer" one, Laverne and Carmine bicker more in a sibling kind of way than a romcom "They are obviously meant for each other" kind of way.
And, oy, really, show? That's how you're gonna belatedly deal with the "absent Betty Garrett" situation. I understand that due to Cindy W's unexpected early departure, this plot had to be pushed back, but with only six episodes to go, why tarnish Edna's image like this? She deserts Frank and it has to be treated like a joke, because you know, jockeys are funny, amirite?
Anyway, the Spinners are pretty good of course, and this is far from the worst episode, but it is a mess.
Oh, calendar note, I almost forgot. I couldn't see the month or year, but I did get a look at the calendar in the kitchen that has the 24th and the 31st on Sundays. In 1967, this only fit December. Awww, Edna left right before Christmas!
*This is the last Chuck episode, so maybe he got beamed up at the Star Trek convention. And don't ask me why there are already Trekkies in '67, when that show didn't become a cult until after it was cancelled.
YEP. Total betrayal of Edna Babbish and all the work BG put into the role. This woman became Laverne's mother, she meant a lot to her, but there's no time for Laverne to register the betrayal or to react to it on her behalf.
ReplyDeleteAlso the Spinners being this famous in '67 is a huge anachronism.
Yeah, how about an episode where Edna leaves Frank because she just feels that they're incompatible, because he's too much of a stick in the mud, or too old-fashioned, or something plausible? Edna left at least one of her other husbands for a serious reason, alcoholism, and I don't think she'd dump Frank that frivolously. Laverne was so happy to get a new mother, and now, after having lost Shirley's mothering, she just shrugs off Edna.
ReplyDeleteRe the Spinners, I could've sworn there was a line about Laverne loving them as a teenager. The group didn't record until 1961, and you're right, they didn't really break through until '72.
Exactly! She's been in their lives for years and they have to shrug, because the audience needs to accept it.
DeleteThere is, and yep, that's also a huge anachronism!