"How Do You Say 'Are You Dead?' in German," Scenes D and E

The first scene of Act Two is allegedly also set in the living room, "day," although the stage directions say the girls and Eric are seated at the kitchen table.

In the script, after Shirley wonders how to tell Eric he's been fired, she says, "Help me, Vernie," so this happens:

LAVERNE TAKES A PIECE OF PAPER AND LIGHTS IT ON FIRE IN FRONT OF ERIC.

LAVERNE

You fire.  You fire.

ERIC JUMPS BACK IN FRIGHT.  SHIRLEY BLOWS OUT PAPER.

SHIRLEY

Laverne, don't be a nut.  Maybe we should get Hildie over here again and have her tell him that Jiffy's fired him.

(NOTE: IN ERIC'S FOLLOWING DIALOGUE, THE WORD "FIRED" IS SAID IN ENGLISH.)

ERIC SLUMPS WHERE HE SITS.

ERIC

(SADLY) Fired... ich bin fired...  Jiffy kaput.

Onscreen, Eric jumps to his feet rather than slumping in his chair.  Shirley's line, "Yeah, the poor man knows the word 'fired'.  Probably learned it from experience.  Look how sad he is," was split up, so that Carmine got the last two sentences, a nice softening for him.  They left out Laverne saying, "Aw, he stopped eating.  Come on, open your mouth, you be the hangar, I'll be the Luftwaffe."

In case you're curious, Eric has the line "(IN GERMAN) I'm going now.  Goodbye, thank you."

Laverne's thing about Eric's "little hattie" was added, as was Squiggy's "Don't I know it," after Shirley's observation that "you can't send a man out into the world with just a bag of sauerkraut."

Almost a page of dialogue was omitted after the sauerkraut:

SHIRLEY

...Everybody into the bedroom.  I want to talk to you.

LENNY

Into the bedroom.  (LECHEROUS LAUGH)

SQUIGGY

Sure you just want to talk.  Hey, Lenny, you got any Sen-Sen?

SHIRLEY

We're going into the bedroom to talk about Eric.

CARMINE

Why don't we talk here?  He won't understand what we're saying.

SHIRLEY

He understood "fired", didn't he?

ERIC UNDERSTOOD AGAIN.

(IN FOLLOWING DIALOGUE, ERIC SAYS "FIRED" IN ENGLISH.)

ERIC

Fired.  Fired.  What am I going to do?  I've been fired.

LAVERNE

Let's go into the bedroom.

THEY EXIT INTO THE BEDROOM.

There's a little time-skip onscreen but Scene E was originally set in the bedroom with "continuous action," so here's how that looked with it right after Scene D:

THEY ALL ENTER THE BEDROOM.

SQUIGGY

So, this is madame's boudoir?

LENNY BOUNCES ON THE MATTRESSES.  SQUIGGY JOINS HIM.

LENNY

Good mattresses.

SHIRLEY

Will you guys settle down.  We're here for a meeting.

CARMINE

Yeah, knock it off.  What's up, Shirley?

SHIRLEY

Well, Eric's come on hard times.  He's got no job... no place to sleep, and I think it would be a nice gesture if we took up a collection and gave him a few dollars to help.

CARMINE

Good idea, Shirl.

SQUIGGY

Not so fast.

SHIRLEY

Come on, you guys.  People have done the same for you.

LENNY

When?

SHIRLEY

How about all those times in high school when you blew your lunch money pitching dimes?  We saved you from starvation.

LENNY

(TO SQUIGGY) She's right, Squig.

SQUIGGY

All right, we'll kick in for the guy.

SHIRLEY TAKES OUT AN OLD COOKIE TIN WHICH SHE NOW USES AS A SEWING BOX.  SHE EMPTIES THE SEWING MATERIAL. SQUIGGY PICKS UP A BUTTON.

SQUIGGY (CONT'D)

Hey, look, Raggedy Ann's eyeball.

SHIRLEY

I'll tell you what.  So nobody is embarrassed by their donation, we'll have a secret collection.

LENNY

Yeah, we'll all wear masks.

SHIRLEY

That won't be necessary.

CARMINE

Hey... uh...  I can't give much.  I got to buy a pair of patent leather dancing shoes.  Everybody at the dance studio has them.

SQUIGGY

Patent leather shoes.  (GIGGLES)

LENNY

La-dee-da!

CARMINE

How would you like a la-dee-da up your nostril?

LENNY

Cancel my la-dee-da.

SHIRLEY

Do you want to start it off, Laverne?

Onscreen, we don't know how the boys initially react to what I assume is their first visit to the girls' bedroom.  (It would still be a big deal to them in later seasons though.)  The contributions are not secret, and Shirley ends up giving specific amounts as loans for Squiggy and Lenny.

Laverne's boo boo face was added, since in the script she just runs out of the room, but we don't know with what specific emotion(s).  It's a dramatic ending to the scene, but the script goes into more detail on the contributions in the last page or so of the scene:

SHIRLEY

I'm sorry you all had to see that.

SQUIGGY

Me, too.

SHIRLEY

Let's get on with the collection.

CARMINE

I'm with you.

LENNY AND SQUIGGY NOD THEIR AGREEMENT.  SHIRLEY GOES OVER TO THE TIN, SHE COVERS IT WITH HER BODY AND MAKES HER DONATION.  CARMINE AND LENNY DO LIKEWISE.  SINCE THERE'S NO NOISE, IT'S OBVIOUS THAT THEY DONATED PAPER MONEY.  SQUIGGY GOES UP AND MAKES HIS DONATION.  WE HEAR THE CLINK OF A COIN.

CARMINE (CONT'D)

Talk about cheapo.

SQUIGGY

Yeah, well I gave till it hurt.

CARMINE

Come on, Squiggy, dig down.

SQUIGGY REACHES INTO HIS POCKETS.

SQUIGGY

Hey, wait a minute... these aren't my pants.  (TO LENNY) You brought me the wrong pants from the hospital.

LENNY

Who says?

SQUIGGY

Look, five bucks.  I didn't have five bucks.

LENNY

So you came out ahead.

SQUIGGY

But I'm out a buck from the other pants.

Thoughts:

• Laverne lighting paper on fire is on the one hand ridiculously literal, and on the other hand kind of in character.
• Yes, please get Hildie back here.
• Interestingly, it's Laverne that's maternal with Eric, while Shirley is the one who's patronizing.
• Although the girls (or at least Shirley) turned down the orgy, the boys get hopeful when they're invited (along with Carmine) into the bedroom.  And I can picture David Lander trying to sound smooth with the "madame's boudoir" line.
• But the boys are still boyish, and bouncing on mattresses like little kids is also appealing.
• I can see why Shirley's exposition, which we just got in the previous scene, was chopped out, but I like getting another glimpse of the girls helping the boys in high school.
• The "Raggedy Ann's eyeball" line feels dark, albeit not as dark as the boys' fake suicides.
• This is an early example of the boys mocking Carmine for his supposedly effeminate job, until he threatens them.
• Squiggy's "Me, too," made me laugh out loud.
• Instead of ending dramatically, the script ends the scene on a joke about Squiggy's pants.  Overall, the script is more comedic so far than what aired, with some of that humor being, yes, suggestive.