"Laverne & Shirley": The Collector's Edition, Volume 3

We've met the girls and the boys, so let's see them "At the Brewery":

"Laverne and Shirley, television's first female blue-collar workers, went to work at the Shotz Brewery as bottle-cappers immediately after high school and 'seem to survive,' commented The New York Times, 'through the mercy of wisecracks.'  While the best friends dream of a better life and sing 'High Hopes,' the Frank Sinatra song about an ant who wants to move a rubber tree plant, their jobs in the brewery pays [sic] tribute to the virtues of hard work with proletariat dignity.  Laverne and Shirley premiered at No. 1 in 1976 and ran through 1983--for a grand total of 178 hilarious episodes."  Inaccuracies aside (it wasn't No. 1 right away, and even a die-hard fan doesn't believe every episode is "hilarious"), this is a decent (and possibly socialist) view of the girls' working life in Milwaukee.  And since bottle-capping was mentioned even on their first Happy Days cameo, this is a good idea for a theme.

The first episode on this cassette is indeed about and heavily set at the brewery.  It's from late in the second season, "Lonely at the Middle": "Promoted to supervisor, Shirley gets carried away trying to increase productivity and becomes an unbearable efficiency expert at the brewery and at home with Laverne.  Note: Director Jim Burrows created Cheers.  Pat McCormick (Big Henry Wanda) was a regular on The Don Rickles Show and The New Bill Cosby Show."  This time the Stay Tuned is Laverne's straightforward, "Shirl and I will be back in a minute, so don't go away."

The next selection is an odd choice, and not just because it's one of my least favorites.  In "Take My Plants -- Please," from Season Three, "Laverne and Shirley are laid off from the Shotz Brewery and go into business selling plants--relying on a book of zany sales techniques--while Lenny and Squiggy invent a radio toothbrush.  Note: Cissy Colpitts (Dolores) starred as Graziella on the short-lived Ted Knight Show."  I would think the appearance of Ralph James before Mork & Mindy is more relevant, but whatever.  I'm more puzzled why they would include an episode whose synopsis has the words "laid off from the Shotz Brewery" on a collection of "At the Brewery." 

This time Shirley's Stay Tuned is "There's more coming up, so don't you go away."  The rock & roll music for the radio toothbrush incidentally remains generic, so we don't even have a music-rights reason for this episode to be in the collection. 

While Season Four's "There's a Spy in My Beer" is not one of my favorites, it definitely fits the "At the Brewery" category, with everything except the middle third being set at Shotz:  "When Laverne, convinced that a spy is trying to steal the secret formula for diet beer from the Shotz Brewery, persuades Shirley to help her stake out the vat room one night to catch the spy in the act, the two girls wind up swimming in a vat of beer.  Note: Dick Yarmy (Ludwig Stenger) was Don Adams' younger brother, best known for his 'George and Martha' commercials for Union Oil."  The Stay Tuned is again Shirley's "There's more coming up, so don't you go away."

Season Five's "Testing, Testing" is one of my all-time favorites, at the brewery or elsewhere.  "When Laverne and Shirley discover that employees at the brewery must undergo psychological examinations, they panic, concerned that they will reveal their innermost thoughts.  Note: This episode contains the classic TV line: 'Why do you want to live in a cow?' "  That's hardly the funniest line on the episode, but that's OK.  This is a great episode and it is mostly set at Shotz, with some "industry jargon" that Shirley tries to teach Laverne.  The Stay Tuned is the one where Lenny calls Squiggy a jerk for thinking the show is over before the tag.

If I were putting this tape together, I would've swapped out "Plants" for one of the "Shotz Talent Show" episodes, but overall this is a good representation of what life is like "at the brewery."