"Baby Show" script, Scene B

The episode switches over to Cowboy Bill's, where Laverne interacts with her father, who's just been named chairman of the funeral committee of his lodge.  Frank, and any regular other than the girls, are conspicuously absent in the script.

Scene B is set in a workroom, "a short time later."

THERE ARE INSPECTING TABLES DOWNSTAGE AND ALONG THE SIDE OF THE SET.  THEY ARE EQUIPPED WITH VARIOUS THINGS AN INSPECTOR WOULD USE INCLUDING MICROSCOPES.  THERE ARE ALSO BOXES OF THINGS TO BE INSPECTED.  LAVERNE ENTERS, PUTS ON HER LAB COAT AND CROSSES TO A CUTE LOOKING GUY, CHUCK, SITTING AT ONE OF THE TABLES.

LAVERNE

I love these lab coats, don't you?  Makes me feel like a doctor.

LAVERNE REMOVES A PENCIL FROM THE TOP POCKET OF HER LAB COAT, SHAKES IT DOWN LIKE A THERMOMETER AND PUTS THE ERASER END IN THE GUY'S MOUTH.  SHE TAKES HIS WRIST IN HER HAND AS IF TAKING HIS PULSE.  

LAVERNE (CONT'D)

Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Just what I thought.

LAVERNE TAKES A SMALL PAD OUT OF HER OTHER POCKET, JOTS SOMETHING DOWN AND HANDS IT TO THE GUY.

LAVERNE (CONT'D)

Here.  Take this and call me in the morning.

THE GUY LOOKS AT IT AND HANDS IT BACK TO HER.

CHUCK

But this is a phone number.

LAVERNE

(HANDING IT BACK) I know.  Take it and call me in the morning.

LAVERNE CROSSES TO HER TABLE AND SITS DOWN.  SHE PULLS A HAIR AND PUTS A FEW ENDS OF HER HAIR [sic] UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.  AS SHE LOOKS INTO IT, G. "BULLETS" KLEIN ENTERS, CARRYING A BOX OF PARTS, AND CROSSES TO HER.  SHE DOES NOT LOOK UP TO SEE WHO SHE'S TALKING TO.

KLEIN

See anything interesting?

LAVERNE

(STILL LOOKING AT MICROSCOPE) Yeah.  This is terrible.  I got a bad case of split ends.  Think I should try a different cream rinse?

KLEIN

Maybe you should try a different job.

LAVERNE LOOKS UP AND SEES MR. KLEIN.

LAVERNE

No, please.  I love this job.  Really, I do.  I love my job, I love my lab coat, I love my microscope.  Inspecting is my life.

KLEIN

Good.  Then why don't you inspect these parts for our astronauts.

KLEIN PUTS THE BOX OF PARTS ON THE TABLE.

LAVERNE

Believe me, there's nothing I like more than inspecting an astronaut's parts.

KLEIN

I'd fire you, DeFazio, but you drive my nervous system to the edge.  I like that.  Where's that Meeney woman?  Do you know what I like to do to employees who are late?

LAVERNE

Well, I have seen a couple of people walking around here without eyebrows.

KLEIN

That's only if they're late the second time.  I treat employees strictly in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1952.

LAVERNE

That's good.  For a minute, I thought you tortured them.

KLEIN

Tortured?  One man's torture is another man's discipline.

KLEIN PUTS HIS FINGER IN A BUNSEN BURNER.  IT COMES OUT BLAZING.  HE BLOWS IT OUT WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST SIGN OF PAIN.

KLEIN (CONT'D)

(LOOKING AT HIS WATCH) Let's see, I've got 08:59:45.  Fifteen more seconds and Meaney's [sic] all mine.

LAVERNE

You're not gonna pull out her eyebrows are you?

KLEIN

No, there's some special "discipline" that I've been saving for just such an occasion.

LAVERNE

What are you gonna do, give her the water torture?  Bamboo splinters under her fingernails?

KLEIN

Two of my favorites, but no.  For Meeney, it's a nice big lunch and then the Teacup Ride at Disneyland.

LAVERNE

You're mad.  You can't do that to her.

KLEIN

(LOOKING AT HIS WATCH) Ten seconds.  [I read the dialogue out loud and it takes at least twenty seconds.]

LAVERNE

Please, anything but the Teacups.  [In contrast, this line takes me two seconds.]

KLEIN

Five seconds...  Four...  Three...  Two...

SHIRLEY ENTERS.

SHIRLEY

Good morning, Mr. Klein.

KLEIN

One more second and it would have been.  Okay...  Ears at attention.  This is Employee Directive XP307.  (READING) "All time that employees spend in the restrooms will be deducted from their lunch hours," Signed, Leopold Gruber, Director of Employee Relations.  The man is a genius and a credit to the phrase, "Naturalized American"!

KLEIN EXITS.

LAVERNE

(TO SHIRLEY) We'll fool 'em.  we'll go to the bathroom after lunch.

SHIRLEY

Forget about that, Laverne.  The darndedest thing happened when we entered the "Mother-To-Be-Contest".  [Their typist got a little hyphen-happy there.]

LAVERNE

Wait a minute.  Is that 'we' as in you and the baby, or do I detect a 'we' as in you and somebody other than me since I couldn't 'cause I'm not.

SHIRLEY

You can do it, Laverne.

LAVERNE

I don't know, Shirl.  The contest is tomorrow night.  That doesn't give me much time to...

SHIRLEY SMACKS LAVERNE ON THE HEAD DURING THE FOLLOWING.

SHIRLEY

No, no, no.  Where are your brains?  Where are your brains?

LAVERNE

Keep hittin', they'll be right out here.  Alright, then say it.  You want me to lie.  Go on, say it.

SHIRLEY

It's not a lie.  Laverne, are you going to have children someday?

LAVERNE

Well, yeah.

SHIRLEY

Then you're a mother-to-be.  So the way I see it, you get to enter the contest and I double my chances at winning.

LAVERNE

Well, wait a second.  If I'm gonna be a mother someday, I should keep the prizes if I win.

SHIRLEY

(TURNING ON HER) Please, when are you gonna have a baby?  (THEN SWEETLY) Come on, Aunt Laverne, please?  Look at it this way.  If you win and give me the prizes, then you won't have to spend a penny on a baby gift.

LAVERNE

And you'll tell the baby that Aunt Laverne won all the furniture?

SHIRLEY

I'll put a dedication plaque on the side of the crib.

LAVERNE

Deal.

SHIRLEY STARTS JUMPING UP AND DOWN.

SHIRLEY

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

LAVERNE

Don't jump, Shirl, or you'll go from 'Mother-To-Be' to 'Mother Right Now.'

The girls "go back to work" (as if either of them has been doing any actual work that morning), and Act One ends.

Before I try to unpack all that, let's return to the filmed episode.  Like Shirley, Sgt. Plout would enter Laverne in the contest to double her own chances, but Laverne's main argument is that she has a date with a guy named Steve.  Then Frank says Steve just called and cancelled, leading Laverne to say that thanks to Steve she "just became a mother to be," so Frank runs out to kill Steve.

Back to this script.

1. Where do the girls work?  Is it the same place Laverne would end up in canon, since it involves astronauts?  What exactly are they inspecting?  The descriptions are vague (compared to Bardwell's and Shotz), with "parts" and "things," as if the show hadn't yet decided and wanted to leave things open-ended.
2. Chuck is a cute guy that Laverne flirts with!  He was uncast at this point but this is not canonical Chuck.  (No offense to Charles Fleischer.)
3. Wow, I don't even know what to say about Bullets!  No, he's not in the Mob, but he's one of their scarier bosses.  He's planning to "torture" a pregnant employee and he regularly removes employees' eyebrows.  Also, he's immune to fire.
4. Had they not decided on a spelling for "Meeney"/"Meaney" yet?  To have the spelling change even within one page is sloppy, although, yeah, the typist is idiosyncratic.  Oh, and, yes, Shirley still has her maiden name on the cast page.
5. Pioli slips in a couple slutty-Laverne lines, like about the "astronaut's parts" and her offer to get pregnant by tomorrow night.
6. Teacup Ride call-back.  Oh, and clearly Shirley did get to go to Disneyland at some point after the boys and Laverne went without her shortly after arriving in California.
7. I'm not sure what Pioli was going for with the "naturalized American" joke, but it adds to the weirdness of this scene.
8. It feels different for Shirley to get Laverne involved in the scam than for Sgt. Plout to, although I'd argue it's more in character for Shirley.
9. Shirley again plays the "Aunt Laverne" card.
10. I'm guessing they would've filmed this episode before Cindy actually was in her eighth month, since I hate to think of her doing the jumping part that far along.

Act Two would be less changed than Act One, but there are still surprises ahead....