"Here's what Lenny and Squiggy had to say about each other:
"Squiggy on Lenny: 'When you've known a person as long as I've known Leonard Kolowski [sic!], you can easily describe him as being a guy whose weight is one hundred fifty-five pounds, about six feet tall, and also has kind of sandy beige hair. When we first met we was having a fistfight in the schoolyard. I guess it was fate or something, but we've stayed together for the rest of our lives (so far). If I had to put Lenny on kind of a macho scale from one to a hundred, I'd probably give him an eighty-three. I'd probably be a ninety-four, but that's what makes us different. His favorite drink is beer. And he's great at making funny noises with this skin. He's got many interests but spends most of his time at his hobby.'
"Lenny on Squiggy: 'Squiggy was born in either Newark, New Jersey, or Flushing, New York. His ma is okay, but strict, which is why Squig has earaches. Him and his old lady moved to Milwaukee to be with some Germans, and that's where he met me. We got to be best friends before you know it. We grew up a lot together and got a job driving a truck together. He's a short guy with strawberry-black hair and pink skin. He's cute-looking to girls, or at least he can usually scrape up something on a Saturday night. He always wanted to go to Canada and he once pushed my sister in a hole.' "
Please tell me David and Michael actually wrote those excerpts.
ReplyDeleteAlso THAT IS HOW IT'S SPELLED IN THE SEASON 1 CREDITS. Was that how it was spelled in the Credibility Gap days?! I CONTINUE TO WONDER.
And I'm screaming at that last bit for many other reasons. AGAIN with Lenny's sister!
It totally sounds like DLL and MMK, including the physical descriptions of each other's characters. Notice that Lenny has a sister here but Squiggy might not.
DeleteAs for Kolowski, yeah, that caught my eye. It might date back to the days of Squiggy being Italian, and then somebody figured out that Kosnowski sounds funnier than Kolowski. Or it could've sounded too much like Stanley Kowalski, which doesn't fit Lenny's softer image.
It really does. Also I can picture tiny Squiggy just shoving Lenny's sister into some hole. He would.
DeleteAlso meeting as children in a playground brawl. (Lenny would so lose oh my Goodness).
I just know it's for-sure Kosnowski by the time we get to One Flew Over Milwaukee, because that's when Carmine says Lenny's name out loud for the first time (and solidified by LBYL and then by YOBIP when we see it on his uniform). Maybe someone out there was named Kolowski and that's why they changed it? That happened a lot on the Golden Girls.
Was Lenny canonically bigger than Squiggy when they were wee tykes? I picture Squiggy as a dirtier fighter. Also, what hole and why?
DeleteRandom Google stats: 128,000 hits for "Kolowski" (especially the Nebraska State Senator, who obviously wouldn't have been a factor in '76), 71,500 hits for "Kosnowski," and of course Lenny is the top of those search results. "Annoying neighbor" and "lovable goof."
I think it's canonical that he was always taller. Michael was a tall kid (vis a vis the pics he posted on his blog of his childhood theater activities) so I imagine that was Lenny's childhood makeup as well.
DeleteHuh. I wonder if someone objected or Michael just decided to rename him.