Sunday, October 24, 2021

"The Bully Show," Scenes E and H, and the invisible tag


So, "continuous action" means right after the previous scene.  That means we don't know what's happening at the girls' apartment, but not much time passes.

Squiggy's admission that they sleep in the bathroom "twice a week" isn't in the script and was probably Lander's addition.  In the script, Frank's immediate advice to the boys is "Brush your teeth after every meal," rather than the more characteristic advice that they should go home and stay there.

In the script, Lenny says "hypodermical situation" rather than "hypothetical situation."  On the other hand, the Squiggism of "candy-lopes" wasn't originally there.  Neither was Edna scolding Frank for breaking another mop.

Otherwise, the scene ended up onscreen as is.  

The next scene is in the living room, again with continuous action, so only a few minutes have passed since the end of Scene D.  In the script, while Laverne is trying to unlock the door, Biff "has the wastebasket off, sees Laverne is about to escape and puts it back on his head."  Unless this was filmed and not shown, it would've revealed to the audience before Laverne that he was definitely faking being more hurt than he was.

Laverne's line "Maybe I killed him" isn't in the script and neither was "I have a headache."  However, they did drop Laverne saying, between Biff jumping up behind her and throwing her on the couch, "What a dumb bimbo," a line that hurts in its victim-blaming, although less than what we'd get in "Monastery."

Laverne kissing Squiggy in gratitude was added, perhaps by Penny M.  And Laverne holding Boo Boo Kitty for comfort as the boys apologize is a nice little touch onscreen.

The rest of the scene is unchanged, except that the scene, the act, and the script originally ended with Laverne saying, "What am I gonna do.  Get naked and watch 'Sea Hunt'."

Onscreen, we would get a tag with Shirley coming home, Laverne claiming nothing happened in her absence, and Shirley discovering the change in BBK.

My main thought is that that has to rank as one of the worst ending lines to any of the scripts, with Laverne joking about one of the lies she told Biff for her own protection.  Although I'm not crazy about the added tag, at least it gives us a little closure on BBK.  Still, maybe it's worse that we learn onscreen that Laverne doesn't tell Shirley about the attempted rape.  At least in this version, we can believe that Shirley was there to rage at Biff and comfort Laverne.

2 comments:

  1. Is Lenny depicted as being more determined to save Laverne in this, or are there no stage directions to encourage this.

    Whew, bad script is bad.

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  2. I wish I could tell you that the boys are better in one version or the other, but honestly that's not where the changes are. I mean, there are some Squiggy adlibs, but as far as characterization goes, no.

    ReplyDelete

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