"Call Me a Taxi," Scene A

On January 10, 1977, a mere three weeks before "Call Me a Taxi" aired, its Rev. Shooting Script was submitted.  ("Playing Hookey" would air on Jan. 11th.)  There won't be any major changes here, but there will definitely be some changes.

We start in the "girls' apartment - early evening."  

The references to Big Henry (of "Lonely at the Middle"), Fat Waldo, and Bertha were added, a change from offscreen characters being referred to in the script but not onscreen.  Well, there is the stage direction "ad lib about other employees crying," so maybe we can credit Penny and Cindy for this.

They left out the detail that Mrs. Babish is dating a banker.  Most of this was omitted after Squiggy hands Mrs. Babish money:

MRS. BABISH

Great!  You wrote your names on all these bills.

SHE STARTS OUT.

LENNY

First rule of camp.  Label everything.

SHE EXITS.

SHIRLEY

What'd you guys do?  Stick up a Texaco?

SQUIGGY

How insulting!

LAVERNE

When they laid off the bottlers, they put the truckers on overtime.

SQUIGGY

You girls have been doin' such a banged up job of bottlecapping you aced yourselves right out of work.

LENNY

They got so much beer piled up, the drivers gotta work millions of hours to catch up.

The filmed scene ends on Squiggy's "American Way" line, but this scene goes on for another couple pages:

LENNY

Look, if you girls are really desperate you can move in with us.

LENNY DOES A RONNY.

SHIRLEY

My darling, we can never be that desperate.

SQUIGGY

My darling, that's what they all say.  Come on, Lenny, we got things to do. We're taking the rest of our overtime and buying a grammar school.  We gotta look for desks and audition co-eds.

LENNY

Can I be the hygiene teacher?

THEY EXIT.

LAVERNE

Okay, we better go beg my father for a job.

SHIRLEY

We don't have to do that.

LAVERNE

He'll never give us a job if we don't beg.

SHIRLEY

We don't have to work at the Pizza Bowl.  You're thinking low and I'm thinking high.  We could become temporary office help... O'Reilly Girls.  We'll never have to go back to the Brewery again.

LAVERNE

Do we type?

SHIRLEY

No.

LAVERNE

Do we take shorthand?

SHIRLEY

No.

LAVERNE

And you around paper.

SHIRLEY

Don't.

LAVERNE

What if you get a paper cut.

SHIRLEY REACTS.  THEY EXIT.

Thoughts:

• I can't picture Lenny going to summer camp, although maybe it was a charity thing.
• Shirley automatically assumes the boys have committed armed robbery.
• Of course it's Lenny who suggests the girls move in with them.
• Shirley's use of "my darling" is surprising, even if she means it as sarcastically as Squiggy does in his retort.
• Squiggy would rather audition preteen "co-eds"!
• And Lenny wants to teach Hygiene, which is basically '50s Sex Ed!
• Laverne's default is to ask her father for a job, which would hold true even in the California years.
• Shirley sees a pink-collar job as a step up from blue-collar, but they don't have the training for that.
• There is the bit about papercuts onscreen and in the script earlier, so that is a running joke, one that we'll return to.