"The Fashion Show"

"The Fashion Show"
February 1, 1983
C+

The last L & S episode written by Al Aidekman and Marc Sotkin, and the next to last written by Roger Garrett, has potential it doesn't live up to but, yes, it's not bad for Season Eight.  Laverne's fashion photographer boyfriend, Mike Bailey (Larry Breeding, as presumably the same character he was on "Window on Main Street," although this Mike has been dating Laverne only four weeks), has to flatter and flirt with his models, so Laverne gets very jealous, despite his reassurances.  Inevitably, she has to cover for the model she makes quit, and it goes disastrously, or does it?  Note that Mike likes Laverne because she's "real," and yet she never confesses that the chicken dinner came out of a fast-food bucket.

Speaker Kit McDonough, with her distinctive voice, was Julie the Stewardess in "Airport '59."  Guard Robert Arcaro was a nameless Man the season before.  This time Anjelica Houston plays Miss Paris, although I didn't recognize her.  And Joanna Kerns is unmistakable, if miscast, as spoiled model Monique, a couple years before Growing Pains.

"Window on Main Street"

Reality TV prototype

"Window on Main Street"
October 12, 1982
C+


Al Aidekman wrote this story where the girls' boss, Mr. Hildebrand (Norman Barthold for the last time), makes them "live" in the Bardwell's store window or else they'll get fired.  Unfortunately, Laverne, who seems to have even more phobias than we realized, has claustrophobia.  So she sees a hypnotist, Hal Dawson (Charles Thomas Murphy, bearded and not immediately recognizable as Dr. Mathew Gentry).  He unfortunately hypnotizes both girls into thinking they're chickens when a bell rings.  The result isn't hilarious but it's not painful.  And the episode ends with Shirley finding out that the rabbit died* and she's pregnant.  Laverne is happy for her, but this will be the last we'll see of Shirley, although I don't think they knew that when this was shot.

Larry Breeding, who plays Mike, the man Laverne flirts with through the window, and who would return in the role, was the married man Hank a few months earlier.

Note that in the opening and closing credits, here and on the previous episode, it's New Year's 1967, but Shirley is in the closing but not the opening.  I have not yet spotted that Monday-the-first kitchen calendar yet, but I'll keep an eye out for clues.  And the "home of the future" is designed for the Year 2000, when we will eat red pills and fried chicken.


*The rabbit always died.  The Billy Crystal movie Rabbit Test came out in 1978 but even by then it was an outdated reference.

"Crime Isn't Pretty"

"Crime Isn't Pretty"
May 4, 1982
C+

For a few weeks, Joanie Loves Chachi was the Happy Days spin-off in the 8:30 Tuesday slot.  (It would return to the air for a half season in the Fall.)  When Laverne & Shirley came back, we got this episode that feels like an unconscious preview of the cast of much of Season Eight, with the girls only at the beginning and end, and Lenny completely absent, although referred to.  It's not a bad episode, and I was amused by Carmine reading Shirley's diary only to find romantic passages about himself, as well as, again, some of Squiggy's lines.  Note that Frank served in Italy in World War II, when Laverne would've been a little girl.  And Squiggy is still lusting after Rhonda, kissing her to the shock of policemen.

One of the Policemen, Bob McClurg, had an unknown role on "The Horse Show."  Alan Aidekman wrote this episode with newbie Nick LeRose, who'd do three scripts for the final season.

"It Only Hurts When I Breathe"

"It Only Hurts When I Breathe"
October 27, 1981
B

OK, the writing improved.  In fact, Al Aidekman's script turns out to be both funny and touching.

The girls are eating breakfast together, at 10 a.m. we later learn, so presumably it's the weekend.  (They still at work at Bardwell's by the way.)  They bicker good-naturedly but things escalate when they get an invitation to their tenth-year high school reunion on July 15th*.  Shirley, who wanted to hold a reunion a week after they graduated, and who did hold three reunions in quick succession (as we learned in Season One), is not so sure about going to this one.  It seems to be tied up with both girls feeling like they're showing their age.  (Marshall was 37 at the time this was shot, Williams probably recently turned 34, while their characters are 28 or nearly.)

And they start punching each other, harmlessly at first, until Shirley coldcocks Laverne.  Since she's always shown as the weaker, more peaceful one, this comes as a shock to everyone, although a pre-series Shirley did accidentally punch out Richie Cunningham on their first date.  Laverne has to get her jaw wired and it's a tribute to Marshall's comedic skills that she can convey Laverne's various moods without being able to speak for much of the episode.

Williams rises to the challenge of showing Shirley's guilt, irritation, and fear.  It turns out she's mostly worried that she'll seem like a failure at the reunion.  When Laverne is able to speak, she says she's proud of both of them.  (This resembles a bit the movie Romy & Michele's High School Reunion [1997].)

Before the fight, Laverne and Shirley danced together, and in the end they sing together, "High Hopes" of course.  And Laverne's reference to Shirley's "balloon" of optimism also takes us back to the first season or two.  The episode is very much about the girls' friendship and history, with Carmine, Lenny, Squiggy, and even Rhonda just popping in and out of the apartment to comment on things.  (The boys guess that Laverne broke her own jaw.)  If Season Seven has more episodes like this, I'm actually looking forward to the rest.


*The actual reunion episode is much later in the season, so all we know is that it is now between January and June of 1966.

"To Tell the Truth"

"To Tell the Truth"
February 17, 1981
B

The writing, by Al Aidekman, is sharper and more insightful than we've had on the show for awhile, ironically because the gang agrees to play Rhonda's version of Truth (with cards she's either hand-written or got from her theater group).  The character is finally used well here, including taking in the criticism that she refers to herself in the third person too much.  The game moves from Stage Left to Stage Right, each player drawing a card and trying to answer honestly.  Everyone enjoys seeing the others insulted but no one wants to be insulted themselves.  Even the compliments hurt other people, and I don't think Rhonda bargained for the big kiss Squiggy gives the person in the room he finds most attractive.

The most hurt are Laverne and Shirley, whose friendship is the deepest.  (Well, OK, Lenny and Squiggy go back just as far, but they don't really attack each other in the game, and it's other people who insult them.)  Laverne storms upstairs and packs up Shirley's clothes.  There's a very nice scene with Carmine going up and talking to her, and them both realizing things about themselves.  Meanwhile, Lenny and Shirley are the only ones left downstairs.  (An offscreen moment, arguably Lenley, has Lenny licking pudding, which Laverne flung, off of Shirley's face!)  They also realize things about themselves by talking, and it's a rare, sweet exchange between them, her helping him to recognize his emotional intelligence, and him letting her know that they all rely on her to tell them what to do.  And, yes, the girls make up, although Laverne thinks this was all easier in high school.

Jack Winter had written three early L & S episodes, but this is his first of five directorial turns.  This is the last episode with Ed Marinaro, who'd debut on Hill Street Blues three months later.  I don't feel like we get to know Sonny very well, or much about his relationship with Laverne, but I don't mind him on the show, then or now.  I do remember this episode from the time, not in detail but the general plot.  It marks the beginning of the second half of Season Six, but of course I didn't then know that it would be a relatively short season (not as short as Season One obviously).

"The Dating Game"

"The Dating Game"
December 30, 1980
B

OK, technically The Dating Game didn't start until December 20, 1965 and I'm pretty sure it didn't air live, but in this universe it apparently has been on long enough for the girls to want to audition, and to watch it with tin foil as those two "edible bachelors" Lenny and Squiggy appear.  I think even at the time I knew that this, written by Al Aidekman, was one of the highlights of Season Six and it holds up well, although Rhonda and sadly Frank and Edna are kind of pointless in their scenes.

Luckily, the guest cast delivers and works well with McKean & Lander, who are definitely in the zone.  Frank Ashmore, a couple years after he played an idealized version of Dr. Bob Hartley, here is the smooth, handsome Bachelor #1, Bob Gatenby, who can't believe who the competition is.  Ilene Graff, when she was still playing bubbly, not-that-dumb-blondes on shows like Mork & Mindy and Three's Company, before she got mom-ized on Mr. Belvedere (something similar happened to Joanna Kerns), is Monique.  And a game-to-parody-himself Jim Lange has to manage the chaos without succumbing to it too much, as he does when Squiggy gives him dance lessons.  (Meanwhile Lenny is doing everything from the Charleston to something out of a Charlie Brown Christmas.)


Bachelor #2, Lenny, either has stagefright or he's suffering his occasional shyness with girls, because at first he has trouble even saying hello.  Bachelor #3 has no trouble with that.  In fact, he comes up with all kinds of answers, some of which get "bleeped out" with cuckoo noises.  Lenny, who his introduction tells us "enjoys Squiggy," praises his best friend when asked to describe him, something like "some women say that in a dark alley with no clothes on, he resembles a young Jack LaLanne."  Lenny's "best" answer is to the question about what the most romantic word is, "Lint," and when Monique questions it, he asks, "Have you never been in love?"

She of course chooses Bachelor #3, to #1's baffled disgust and #2's devastation.  Good friend that Squiggy is, he calls Monique a harlot and a trollop.  She threatens to sue if she has to go out with him.  So he chooses Lenny as his date to Acapulco and they're both excited about going to France.  Meanwhile, the poor girls are getting obscene phone calls because Squiggy gave their full names when making up a hot double date with them and Lenny in the Tunnel of Love.  And they find out that they could've watched the show on Sonny & Carmine's TV, which works fine.  Then again, the girls' way of watching television looks like more fun.

Sonverne shipping note, when Laverne accuses Sonny of only watching Monique on the show, he says Laverne is the only woman he looks at.  She seems a little possessive considering they just started going out, but then again, who knows how much time has passed in California?

Penny Marshall directed again and, yes, she's good with the more Squiggish episodes.

"The Survival Test"

"The Survival Test"
March 11, 1980
C

Richard Gurman's only L & S story, which inspired the Aidekman & Garrett teleplay, has Sgt. Plout return from Greenland and get the girls to agree to help her prove that WACs are capable soldiers, by dropping them into the snowy wilderness.  There were moments when I thought this was a shade better than the first Plout episode, including Lawrence's material (like her tale of a "brief and brutal affair"), but it was hard for me to get past the fact that L & S were in this situation only because of Plout, including her dropping the bag with their food into a river! 

Note that the rest of the regular cast doesn't appear in this episode, except for Laverne's hallucination of Lenny and Squiggy in shorts and offering her a fifteen-pound turkey.  Also, this is at least the fourth episode this season where Laverne refers to "monkey nerves," although this time Shirley cures them with a banana.  Freud would probably have more fun analyzing this episode than I did.

"The Beatnik Show"

"The Beatnik Show"
January 21, 1980
B-

Al Aidekman wrote this story where Shirley dabbles in the beat lifestyle, well, to the extent of performing at a coffeehouse and reading books on philosophy.  Laverne feels left out and she decides to confide in Lenny, perhaps because she's by now learned that he can be surprisingly insightful about people.  While Squiggy sits at the other end of the couch, unable to read a comic book and listen at the same time, Lenny recalls a time when Squiggy had new friends and Lenny felt left out.  He reassures Laverne about her friendship with Shirley, and says that, although he wouldn't admit this if Squiggy was there, he "loves that little guy," and he knows she feels the same about Shirley.  It's a sweet little Lavenny scene and of course Marshall and McKean play it well, with Lander interjecting about the comic book to keep it from getting too sentimental.  In fact, this is one of those episodes that is good enough that I wish it was better, but I'm just not sure how well it all gels.

Carmine is absent, although it would've been interesting to get his take on Shirley's personality change.  Shelly Lipkin is a nameless Poet here and would later be the Dead Man.  Doug Cox, here the Birthday Boy, would be Zwick.  Paul Kreppel, who plays Rafael, would spend much of the '80s as Sonny Mann on the sitcom It's a Living/ Making a Living.  And, yep, that's Art Garfunkel as the Mighty Oak (a few years before his romance with Penny).

"Upstairs, Downstairs"

"Upstairs, Downstairs"
October 4, 1979
B-

Alan Aidekman's story of the girls dreaming about the results in the afterlife if they return or keep a $56 check for a mistaken refund from the phone company is pretty well done, with Shirley's dream of Heaven followed by Laverne's nightmare of Hell.  But the two things that most amused me have little to do with the moral dilemma.  When Laverne finds out she's going to be the Heaven bus driver but with no bus, she doesn't mind when she sees her hunky passengers.  Watching it today, I burst out into raucous laughter, because they look like two-thirds of the Village People!  I'm not sure if it would've had that association in '79, or how much the mainstream knew that the VP were very gay, but the subtext is glaring now, like the "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?" number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

And this is the episode that my then-future-ex-husband would quote for years out of context.  We got together in '84 and I assume we later saw L & S on cable a bit (I do have Lenny's "In Love with Laverne" song on videotape), but even if we hadn't, I'd probably have been able to place "You bought a Hubba-Hubba Heiny??" back in context.  Remember, a big butt was not yet bad in American white culture (that came in during the '80s), and it's plausible, if ridiculous, that Shirley would order such an "enhancement" in the '50s.  Laverne and the studio audience were very amused, and I still am.

Dick Shawn's tendency to overact serves him well in the triple role of Gatekeeper for both Heaven and Hell and Phone Company Representative.

"Who's Papa?"

"Who's Papa?"
January 16, 1979
C+

I thought at first that this episode would be the one where Shirley's brother (played by Ed Begley, Jr., Cindy Williams's long-time friend who would later write the introduction to Shirley, I Jest) turns out to have a drinking problem, but Bobby doesn't do much other than show up and inadvertently lead to Shirley's crazy fear that she's adopted.  Luckily, that other "Bobby" episode came along later in '79.

In this one, written by Aidekman and Zoey Wilson (her only IMDB credit), Bobby is visiting for the first time in two years.  We find out that he's 14 months older than Shirley and their mother used to dress them like (male) twins.  They have three older brothers-- Michael, Timothy, and Christopher-- so presumably one of them is the one who recently graduated from heavy equipment school.  And nearly everyone is the family is very tall and blonde, while Shirley more resembles Squiggy, who becomes convinced that Shirley is his long-lost sister.* 

Squiggy, continuing Season Four's trend of twisted sexuality, feels unclean for his dreams about Shirley, and then when he finds out that they're not related, he's relieved that their children won't be morons.  Laverne says, "Don't count on it."

And, yes, Lenny & Laverne sit on a cot together, but she later kisses 2000 sailors goodbye!  And, yes, a sexy female nurse flirts with "Dr. Feeney" when Shirley is in drag.

Maurice Bar-David would direct one more episode.  Wendy Cutler is Mrs. Plout here and would be Viviana in the final season, while Reception Nurse Dee Marcus would be Esmerelda that season.  Ron Howard's father Rance plays the sympathetic but nameless Doctor.  And Carmine is absent again.


*We already know that Squiggy has a married sister he used to live with.  Lenny claims not to have a sister, but I thought he did.  We'll see if that's retconned later.

"Dinner for Four"

"Dinner for Four"
December 5, 1978
B-

Alan Aidekman's first of eleven L & S stories has a twist that I saw coming almost immediately, and I don't think that's Sitcom 101; I think it was a vestigial memory of watching the girls think that the two veterinarians who've invited them over want them as dates, rather than "kitchen help."  It isn't said in so many words, but this is a class clash episode, this time the two working-class girls being used for their culinary talents rather than for their bodies.  The girls are impressed by the not-all-that-modern-for-early-1960s-or-upscale apartment.  I mean, this isn't Catcher Block's bachelor pad from Down with Love!  Even the Murphy bed throws them, literally. 

It's sort of surprising that Laverne is the one most interested, to the point of presenting her wifely credentials, in going out with a vet, because that seems more like Shirley's thing, since she loves animals and doctors.  When Laverne says that vets are better than regular doctors, since they won't fool around with their patients, Shirley whispers a story she read about a vet who married some animal, to which Laverne says in delight, "That's disgusting!"  (Along with the "King of Bondage" scene on the "cemetery" episode, as well as much of the "Roxy" episode, the show was definitely getting kinkier in Season Four.)

In order to go out with the vets, the girls break a date with Lenny and Squiggy, who are heartbroken, Lenny in particular, as he was hoping to do the three-legged race with Laverne.  The girls apologize later, after Shirley finds herself quoting Lenny's Merchant-of-Venice-like "Do we not bleed?" speech.  The boys say that no one has ever apologized to them before, but when the girls promise to go anywhere the boys want to take them, Squiggy steers Shirley into the bedroom, and Lenny escorts Laverne.  The girls hit the boys offscreen and then when the boys reemerge, Squiggy asks what Lenny got off them.  Lenny says, "Nothin'," and Squiggy says, "That's progress."  And in a weird sort of way, it is.  The girls definitely seem more tempted to go to the Teamsters' Annual Fish Fry and Moonlight Mud Fight than they did to go to a fancy restaurant on the double date a couple seasons earlier.

The oddly named Timothy Blake has her first of three L & S roles as Veronica, while Jeffrey Kramer, who's Jeff here, would be The Angel later.  Carmine is absent without explanation, but there's not really any need for him in this episode.