"The Beatnik Show," Scene C

Act Two opens at the apartment, still "night," but definitely a different night.  In the script, Laverne tells Barbara Korder on the phone, "Every night for the last two weeks she's been goin' down to that beatnik place... No, no, not The Stupid Baboon, The Buttered Cocoon."

They skipped Laverne saying of the Mighty Oak, "I thought I saw him eyein' my bongos," which would've had a different connotation with Art G. in the role.  

This was omitted after Laverne says Ferlinghetti's "Coney Island of the Mind" was wrong:

SHIRLEY

What do you mean, it was wrong?  It's poetry.  It can't be wrong.

LAVERNE

Hey, I been to Coney Island.  And everybody goes there for the rides.  I read that book twice and not once did he mention the rides.  He left out the whole roller coaster, and it's the biggest one in the world.

SHIRLEY

Laverne, the rides aren't important!

LAVERNE

How about the hot dogs then?

SHIRLEY

He's not concerned about that.  It's about deeper things like man's inhumanity about the alienation of modern existence to man, about the great void in the center of our lives.

LAVERNE

Then why don't he just say... what you said.

Shirley calling Ferlinghetti brilliant was kept, but they dropped part of the girls' argument about the leaf:

SHIRLEY

Look again.  This time tell me what you really see.

LAVERNE

A green leaf?

SHIRLEY SNATCHES THE LEAF AWAY FROM LAVERNE.

SHIRLEY

No, no, no!  This is the sky and the earth, the wind and the rain.

LAVERNE

It can't be!  If it was all that, you couldn't fit it in the apartment!

In the script, Laverne again crumples the leaf after Shirley leaves and she says, "And now it's just something that should be raked into a pile and burned."  This Hello Cue turned into the slightly less insulting "every jerk and his mother" knowing it's a leaf.  The boys' cooking outfits are not in the script.

Onscreen, we'd learn that the issue of Tales of Suspense is #49, but in the script Lenny informs us, "He's had it for years.  I think he's close to finishing it."  Squiggy's inability to read and hear at the same time was a neat addition.

Squiggy's line "Oh, so he's the black scorpion" became an observation that the black scorpion has evil powers because he's the bad guy.  And later Squiggy's observation about "the fat guy" was added, I assume by Lander.  On the other hand, we lost his line, "Oh, what a twist.  The black scorpion is really three nuns with a thirst for vengeance."

Lenny's aside that he wouldn't say he loves Squiggy if "he were here," was simply "You see, I love this little guy."

Lenny falling off the couch arm and onto Laverne was not in the script, and his remark that she should have the couch fixed sounds like an adlib.

In the script, Laverne and Lenny hug after he says she loves Shirley like he loves Squiggy, but onscreen the hug is just on his side, although she's been lightly touching him unscripted.  Then in the filmed version, she asks him to identify the leaf, and they have some more funny cuteness.  Here's the printed version of the end of this scene, after the hug:

LENNY

Could we have our cup of pork now?

LAVERNE

Gee, sorry, we're fresh out of pork.

LENNY

That's okay.  Any animal tissue will do.

LAVERNE GOES INTO THE KITCHEN.

LENNY

(TO SQUIGGY) How'd the comic book come out?

SQUIGGY

Somebody stole the last page, so I have to start over.

Thoughts:

• Other than Shirley's "inhumanity" line, I don't feel like we needed any more of their arguments in this scene.
• Poor Squiggy, that must be frustrating reading, although he's certainly persistent.
• I like all the lines about his comic, both onscreen and scripted, especially the "nuns" one.
• While I like Lenny not forgetting why the boys came downstairs, I do prefer the version onscreen for its Lavenny-ness.