"Born Too Late"

It takes two to Tango.

"Born Too Late"
January 27, 1981
C+

Roger Garrett wrote this episode that's mostly composed of Lenny & Squiggy imagining themselves into silent-movie vignettes, most of them on the existing California sets.  The episode isn't bad but it feels off to be so different even from the other California episodes.  Note that the boys wear their old jackets (Lone Wolf and leather) I think for the first time this season, maybe to contrast more with their movie costumes.

"The Festival: Parts 1 and 2"

"The Festival: Parts 1 and 2"
September 5, 1978
B

For the 1978-79 season, the Tuesday ABC line-up stayed intact, and although I still preferred Thursdays (soon with Mork & Mindy before What's Happening!!, with poor on-its-last-legs Welcome Back, Kotter shuttled all over the week as it staggered on, usually Barbarino-less), this was my second favorite night of television in 5th grade.

That said, I definitely remember all the third season Three's Company a lot better than I remember this particular episode of L & S, and not just because 3'sC would be much more heavily syndicated.  I even remember the next week's hour-long Happy Days visit to a dude ranch more clearly and I'm sure I haven't seen that in over thirty years.  That's no reflection on this Roth-and-Sotkin-penned story, which, especially the first half, is a lot of fun.  But I do want to say that my initial reaction was Wow, I didn't know they did an episode set in New York!

I'm treating the two-parter as one episode, because that's how it aired, and there is no "Next week" or "Previously" on the DVD version.  Plus, although it feels like the split probably came with Frank's determination to enter the greasy-pole contest (no, they don't make the obvious joke about Lenny, although there is of course a "hello" entrance for him and Squiggy when Shirley reacts in disgust to the grease), I feel like the two parts hang together better than the halves of "The Cruise" did.

So Laverne and her father invite Shirley and Edna to a street festival in the old neighborhood, and to stay with Frank's mother.  Grandma DeFazio is played by Penny Santon, who was only 62 (three years younger than Phil Foster) but would have a very long career in television, spanning from Mr. Peepers to Friends.  Frank is reluctant to go because his mama is very critical of him, and he knows she isn't going to like his new mustache.  (I remember Foster with the mustache more than without, but I don't know if he keeps it through the next five seasons.)  Carmine is staying behind to look after the Pizza Bowl, so he and Shirley make out in a phone booth at the bus station.  He also gives Edna, Laverne, and almost Frank quick kisses.  Then Lenny asks, "Hey, Laverne, aren't you going to say goodbye to us?"  And he and Squiggy both grab and kiss her!  Good luck charting the shipping on this episode!  (But I'll try.)

It gets even more complicated when Laverne sees a cute guy, who turns out to be her cousin Anthony DeFazio (John Lansing, who would be a nameless Director in the final season).  They're very affectionate, although he flirts with Shirley, and Laverne reveals that Anthony was pretty cute when they used to play doctor as little kids.  Shirley says, "Smut with relatives, Laverne?"

Then Lenny & Squiggy show up, since, as Lenny puts it, there was nothing keeping them in Milwaukee but their job and their apartment.  They're actually there to spy on Shirley for Carmine, which Lenny takes a lot more seriously (and humorously) than Squiggy does.  I got the impression during the first three seasons that Carmine and Shirley weren't that serious and they were free to see other people, especially during their "breakup" and the whole thing with Lucille Lockwash.  Carmine was more protective than jealous or possessive.  Now she can't even go to New York for a few days without him worrying she's going to cheat on him?  Of course Lenny makes things worse in his phone updates, while still managing to cockblock Anthony (including with, if I caught it correctly, a story that ends, "...And that's how Shirley met Carmine."  And he keeps blinding Shirley and Anthony, who don't seem to do more than a little cuddling, with his flash camera.

As for Squiggy, he wins over "Mrs. Grandma" by eating a lot of her home-cooking, so she's thrilled when Frank lies and says Laverne is engaged to Squiggy, which leads to them kissing, and Laverne definitely doesn't enjoy it.  (Of the four possible straight pairs from L, L, S, and S, Squigerne has always struck me as the least plausible.)  Mrs. DeFazio dotes on Laverne, including in Italian, with Shirley having a hilarious reaction of "Well, I don't know about Gina Lollobrigida, but she is very proud of those" about Laverne's chest.  When Shirley reveals that she has a distant Italian relative, the series is lampshading the fact that Cindy Williams was in fact part Italian.

Grandma is upset about being lied to, so Frank decides to form a team for the pole-climbing contest and win his mother a trip to Italy.  Laverne has fun looking for muscular guys, until they defect to form their own team.  Since Grandma and Edna aren't climbing, that leaves five of the regulars, plus Cousin Anthony, and I guess three nameless relatives to form the required team of nine.  I knew as soon as Carmine showed up to fight with Shirley-- on the pole!-- that the team would "win" but lose on a technicality, and that's just Sitcom 101 and not anything I remember from the time.

Carmine and Shirley of course make up, and Lenny wants a reward, specifically a makeout with Shirley, or a box of Crackerjack.  Guess which one he gets?  (Lenley-- Shirny?-- was always a little more plausible than Squigerne.  He clearly lusted for her in a secondary way, and she sometimes seemed fond of "Leonard," although she's arguably maternal or auntly with him, while Laverne treats Squiggy as at best an annoying kid brother.)

Laverne has to make peace between her father and grandmother, which she does, and they have a tearful group-hug, which Shirley joins without knowing what it's about, because that's how sensitive she is.  The regulars wrap up the festival with a group dance and we never see any of Laverne's Brooklyn relatives, friends, or acquaintances ever again.

Cabbie Ogden Talbot previously was Wilbur and a Delivery Man.  Concessionaire William Sumper would play four other roles on this show

"Haunted House"

"Haunted House"
March 22, 1977
C+

This is another cartoony episode (the only L & S story written by Andrew Johnson, although he was story editor on "Guinea Pigs"), but just not as funny as the previous one, despite the comic potential of Laverne, Shirley, Lenny, and Squiggy trapped in the title location.  In fact, the best part is Rosie and Laverne's dance-off.

Dan Barrows, Bill here, would show up as Carlisle four years later.

"Call Me a Taxi"

Supplemental income

"Call Me a Taxi"
February 1, 1977
B-

Deborah Leschin and Paula A. Roth wrote this episode that, while not feminist per se, does inadvertently address the pay gap and the double standard.  And it's another episode I sort of remember from the time, both the "taxi dancing" and Shirley's bosom-stuffing.

In 1960 (the year this episode might be set), women who worked full-time made 61 cents for every dollar men made, while in '77 it had dropped to 59 cents.  (It reached 78 cents in 2013, with no more recent stats at this website: https://www.infoplease.com/womens-earnings-percentage-mens-1951-2013).  Now admittedly, Laverne and Shirley aren't doing the same job as Lenny and Squiggy, but when the girls are laid off for three weeks and the guys start making overtime, there is a feeling that it's unfair, especially since the girls are good at their job and the guys possibly aren't.

And when the girls decide to make some money during the three weeks away from the brewery, they get the humiliating work of a-dime-a-dance.  Lenny and Squiggy (who must by the laws of sitcoms show up) think it's normal for guys to be there but shameful for women.  And yet, it's clear that most (maybe all) the customers are "vermin," while our girls are "nice."  Also, Laverne refuses Rosie's pity money but agrees to work minimum wage for her father.  So the gender dynamics here are not that simple.

I will say that I was leaning towards a C+ but Lenny and Squiggy are genuinely funny in their guises as respectively a big-game hunter and a novelist, and I like the irony that they feel they are supplying fantasy to the humdrum lives of the dancers, rather than the other way around.  We know that when they give their tickets to Laverne and Shirley, they will pair off L & L and S & S, but there's also a bit of them accidentally dancing together.  (Not the last time LenSquig will be teased for humorous purposes.)

Larry Hankin is Tall Dancer here and would later play Biff.  Peter Elbling is Dancer (presumably the shorter one), doing a vaguely European accent again after being Eric the German before.  Frances Peach is Mary but would have two other roles.  Julie Payne is Charmayne here and would be Colonel Turner in a two-parter a couple years later. 

And Rose Michtom is uncredited as the elderly Ticket Lady, but she'd later appear a few times as Mrs. Kolcheck/Kolchek.  (I instantly recognized her today from a taping of Too Close for Comfort, where she kept screwing up the line "I'm a drowning victim" by emphasizing "victim" rather than "drowning."  She has no lines here but she was then pushing eighty, and I'm curious to see how she does with L & S dialogue.)

"The Bridal Shower"

"The Bridal Shower"
November 9, 1976
B-

This story, written by two women— Paula A. Roth (her first of thirteen) and Judy Skelton (her first of two)— is about Laverne and Shirley going to the title event, even though it's being hosted by their frenemy Rosie Greenbaum.  White gives a swaggering, memorable performance as Rosie and understandably became a recurring character.  The script isn't hilarious but it has its moments.  Note that their friend Anne Marie being a nun is mentioned, when the girls try to think of who else in their high school social club, the Angora Debs, is still single.

Although the show is set in the '50s, when "the girls" can be seen as old maids at 21ish, it was made in the '70s, so L & S get revenge by making their single life sound more exciting than their friends' married life.  (I kept expecting Rosie being married to a proctologist to lead to tasteless or at least censor-baiting jokes, but it's just thrown in there a couple times, and this isn't M*A*S*H.)  Their friend Elinor, whose shower it is, says that neither married nor single life is perfect.

I can't think of any shipping notes, other than Squiggy suggesting that Laverne and Shirley pretend to be on a double date with him and Lenny for Couples' Night at the Pizza Bowl to get half-price pizza.  It is notable that Mrs. Babish is more clearly the landlady here and even has a line that sounds looped in later about not understanding her tenants.

Valorie Armstrong, who plays Cookie here, would be Bernice later.

"Mother Knows Worst"

"Mother Knows Worst"
May 18, 1976
B-


Pat Carroll makes her first and only appearance as Shirley's mother Lily in this episode written by Arthur Silver.  We can see where both Shirley's insecurities and her dreams come from, as Mrs. Feeney criticizes Shirley yet wants her to marry a successful man and move to the suburbs.  We also discover that Shirley's parents are divorced and she has a brother named Michael.  And Mrs. Feeney remembers Lenny as the boy who shaved their dog years ago, and yet she refers to Squiggy and Lenny as "Squiggly and Wiggly."  (A detail that I do remember from the time, probably because it would've amused an eight-year-old who loved words and silliness.)

Not exactly a shipping note, but Lenny bites his palm at the idea of him and Squiggy as the girls' "bosom buddies."

Helen Page Camp makes her second and last appearance as Mrs. Havenwurst, who here claims to be psychic.

The first season of Laverne & Shirley ranges from C to B, averaging out to a B-.  It is not quite the show I remember, not yet, but the elements are there and just need to be developed.  (I didn't mention it, but we see Laverne pouring milk & Pepsi in one episode and it isn't addressed, just thrown in there, which says something about the approach to comedy the first year, including not knowing how to do running jokes.)  Season One ranked #3 in the ratings for that year (after All in the Family, with Marshall's husband Rob Reiner as Michael "Meathead" Stivic, and the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man) impressive for a mid-season entry, even one boosted by the Fonz.  The still-running Mary Tyler Moore Show (then in its penultimate season and coming in at #19) asked, "How will you make it on your own?"  But Laverne & Shirley were going to do it their way, yes, their way and make all their dreams come true.  (Well, some of them.)

"Hi, Neighbor"

"Hi, Neighbor"
April 27, 1976
B-

Lander, McKean, and Shearer co-wrote this episode which has Lenny and Squiggy move in upstairs (four flights up).  It's not as funny as I hoped with that team but obviously of interest on several points.

First of all, we learn that Squiggy still lives with his mother, and stepfather, while Lenny lives with his sister and brother-in-law.  It apparently never occurred to them to get an apartment together until the girls suggest it.  Then poor Shirley is pressured into vouching for them, as one of their oldest friends.  (Helen Page Camp is perfectly adequate as landlady Mrs. Havenwurst and would return once more that season, but she just doesn't have the zest or depth of Betty Garrett's Mrs. Babish.)  Laverne seems more upset about the idea of them as neighbors than Shirley, although she's the one who does more to reconcile them when the guys quarrel and Lenny kicks Squiggy out, causing Squiggy to couch-surf at the girls' place. 

This episode has more physical comedy than we've seen on the series so far, another thing that's surprising in this first season, as things fall slowly into place, the place where the images of the show would reign.  We get three hellos from Squiggy but none is in what would be the template, and in fact one of them is preceded by Lenny's "Hi, Laverne."

Ah, yes, the Lavenny, very one-sided here but nonetheless strong.  It is Lenny who also utters the title phrase, aimed very specifically at Laverne.  Laverne actually pays him two visits, the first to convince him to let Squiggy move back in (and note that it is Shirley who sends her, as if she knows that Lenny will listen to Laverne), the second to return his jacket that she "stole" in order to sew one of her cursive L's to fix the "ONE WOLF" he got in Chinatown.  If I remember correctly, Lenny would wear this jacket for the next few seasons, probably until the Hawaiian-shirt era of the California episodes.  It would be a symbol of not just his illusion that he's a loner but also of his devotion to Laverne, although, like so much on the show, it is subliminal.

It's on that second visit, when she says she wanted to talk to him rather than Shirley (who is, Squigley shippers take note, teaching Squiggy to do laundry), that he asks, "Should I take a shower?", implying that he's willing and almost ready to have sex with her.  And when he sees what she's done to his jacket, he plants a big smooch on her.

Which she is shocked and disgusted by, although he doesn't notice.  And here we come to the one-sided part, although I can say now that it would not always be this unrequited.  Arguably, it could simply be the shock of being kissed when she's not expecting it.  She does like Lenny as a friend, even when she tells him that Squiggy is his only friend.  When Lenny jokingly proposes marriage to Squiggy (is their ship Squigney?  Lengy?), she's very amused.  But Lavenny has a long way to go before it's a plausible ship.

Still no Shirmine by the way.

"Fakeout at the Stakeout"

"Fakeout at the Stakeout"

April 13, 1976

B

This is arguably the funniest episode of the first season, especially the stuff with Lenny & Squiggy.  I laughed heartily when Lenny said they were wearing their "detective" outfits because they didn't want to attract any attention, since it made me think of even nuttier schemes and crazier clothes they would come up with over the years.

Also, I thought the romance between Laverne and Officer Norman Hughes was sweet.  Bo Kaprall is credited as Cop here but his full name (including middle) is given in the episode and it's nice that he'd back six more times.  He's not a hunk, by '70s standards or now, but he's cute and nice, and he likes Laverne's sense of humor.  She could and would do worse.

There aren't any other shipping notes I can make, as this seems to be set after the Carmine & Shirley breakup, as he's now working at the dance studio, and the only thing I can say about L & L or S & S is that Lenny is amused by Laverne's mild put-down of Squiggy, which isn't exactly romantic.

More memorable are Shirley's "pets."  The two birds, Duane and Eddy, had appeared in the episode after their introduction, while here there's at least one of them, whichever one is chirping as the girls discover the break-in.  Also, Boo Boo Kitty makes a debut, in what apparently was just an improvised bit in rehearsal but would go on to be one of the props most associated with this show.

Neil Thompson's first of four roles on the show is as a nameless Man.  I'm glad that Deborah Leschin would write five more episodes.

"Dating Slump"

"Dating Slump"

March 30, 1976

C+

This Arthur Silver story is unfocused and doesn't live up to its potential.  It does, however, manage to feature both Mark Harmon and Robert Hays, as Victor and Tom respectively.  More notably for the history of the show, Carole White is Girl "A" here but is recognizable, despite the hair, makeup, and costume as the girls' future frenemy Rosie Greenbaum.

Carmine returns from a boxing championship in New York City with a new girlfriend, who also lives in Milwaukee.  Shirley has never been in "I love you" love with him, but she always thought that she'd find someone before he did.  Now she enters the slump of the title, partly because her standards are higher than Laverne's, and partly because she's always had Carmine.  So Laverne gets them a double date, not having learned her lesson from the bank robbers.  This leads to an offscreen fight with tough chicks (Girls A and B), in which Laverne almost loses her L.  In the last scene, Carmine offers to be a big brother to the girls and still protect them.

I would've rather have seen an episode with Shirley really dealing with the loss of Carmine as back-up boyfriend.  Still, there are moments I like here, including of course Lenny and Squiggy's persistence in buying the girls' nonexistent Jeep.  (They show up at the door with flowers, but it's not shippy.)

Michael L. McManus, who's Moose here, would be Herb Prange the next year.

"A Nun's Story"

"A Nun's Story"
February 24, 1976
B

I vaguely remember this episode more than the others so far, suggesting it struck a chord with me either in first run or in reruns.  The script by Michael Warren and William Bickley (their first of three as a team, compared to fourteen and seventeen respectively for Happy Days) offers a farcical flashback, something I was a sucker for then and, OK, now.  But it's overall solid, sweet and funny.

Shirley is holding her fourth high school reunion in three years, for the class of '56, so we know that this is 1959 and they're about 21.  Obviously, there are going to be timeline errors, but this is the first real information we've gotten on that.  We also get some background details to not only the girls but also Lenny, who makes a confession to their old friend Anne Marie (Rochelle Richelieu, who wouldn't act on film again until Gran Torino more than 30 years later), who has become the nun of the title.  The three girls were "the three Musketeers" in high school, known as Gutsy (Laverne), Nutsy (Anne Marie), and Klutzy (Shirley).  AM got revenge on Lenny and Squiggy's friend Hector (Greg Antonacci, a role he'd return to later that year), and there's a good payoff to this later, helped by Foster bringing out the protective Italian father in Mr. DeFazio.

Note that not only Lenny and Squiggy went to high school with the girls but so did Carmine.  He gets the two of them to sing the alma mater, which starts with Shirley (I played this back a couple times) calling their h.s. "Fillmore Millard" or some or other error, not necessarily scripted.  And after the song, Carmine kisses Shirley's hand.

I don't remember if it started in this episode or the previous one, but we get the girls locking the door and arming themselves, sometimes with baseball bats, when someone knocks.  I'd forgotten this detail, that there wasn't always an open door policy.  So far Squiggy's hellos are either at work or the Pizza Bowl, so that image of his (and usually Lenny's) comedic entrances through the girls' front door doesn't yet match the show.

However, this is very early days and things haven't quite fallen into place.  Still, I felt like this was the first episode to really show the potential of the series.

"Bowling for Razzberries"

"Bowling for Razzberries" [sic]
February 10, 1976
C+

I couldn't help feeling like this episode might've been better done in Season Two or Three.  There's nothing terribly wrong but it's not that funny and the guest stars don't do that much with their roles.  Randy Powell is a partial exception as the nameless Doctor, yet I felt like the sequence with him was missing something, either to editing for syndication or just something in the original script by Marty Nadler, who didn't do any others for this show, although he did five for Happy Days.

The liveliest scene is actually the bowling montage, although I have to wonder if Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin' " will be the only '50s song that will survive the music rights problem.  I do like that Laverne thinks she's outsmarting Shirley but, as in the previous episode, Shirley is on to her.

Note that Carmine, who again sings the "Rags to Riches" line, had called Laverne "Vernie" once in the previous episode, while Shirley uses the nickname a few times.  She also refers to Lenny as "Leonard," and he elongates "Shirley" as if he can't think of how else to respond.  A minor Lavenny moment is when he asks Laverne but not Shirley for butter to get a bowling ball off his hand.  And, yes, although the previous episode was hello-less, here Squiggy says it while dragging Lenny in.

Ruth Silveira plays Karen and would be part of the "Blue Team" in one of the Army episodes.  Alan Myerson would direct eleven more episodes.