"Please Don't Feed the Buzzards"

"Please Don't Feed the Buzzards"
February 22, 1983
B-

 “Hey everybody, I found a new script! And this one’s funny!”— Tom Servo talking about a treasure map on the Catalina Caper episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000

Lenny is back and we can laugh again!  (Then we can cry because it's McKean's last appearance as Lenny until reunion shows and such.)  In Andy Goldberg's only and Cheryl Alu's second of two L & S scripts, Lenny and Squiggy find a treasure map and soon they and Carmine and Frank are wandering aimlessly in the desert, fighting, drinking, and bonding.  The episode doesn't make a lot of sense, although by Season Eight standards this is icily logical, and the chemistry is good.  I laughed a few times and smiled a lot, and that heavy weight lifted off my chest for twenty minutes.

Shipping notes, a mirage of Rhonda as a harem girl makes Lenny drool, but he does say goodbye to Laverne before returning to the desert, presumably for the next forty days and nights.  Also, it felt completely in character for Squiggy to use Lenny as a pack-mule and drink all the water when he lets Lenny have all the peanut butter.  Family notes, a drunk Frank says Squiggy is the son he never wanted, which Squiggy says is what his own father said, while Carmine's anecdote about his dad makes him sound poor but joking.

Wayne Powers has his third of four L & S roles as Gus.

"The Note"

I'd bet $100 that this was part of the one of the school sets for The Brady Bunch.

"The Note"
October 19, 1982
B-

I like this episode, too, the penultimate one written by Judy Ervin Pioli.  It offers a nice blend of humor and sentiment, with a sense of history that a writer less familiar with these characters probably couldn't have managed.  That said, it is the first episode without Shirley, so it's got a bittersweet feeling.

I literally got chills watching the opening credits, like I'd been slapped across the face with a time machine.  When the multi-ethnic group of children marched across the screen chanting the girls' rhyme, it all came back to me, that initial jolt of What??? in October of '82.  Then Laverne was dancing by herself, doing a bunch of stuff from earlier seasons by herself, while the lyrics were still in the plural, while Shirley was still in the title.  The rest of the cast do appear later, with and without her, but it was a shock to the system, then and now.

And there were lines I remembered, like Squiggy's tasteless one about "incense."  I vaguely remember the plot that Shirley's left, with a short, impersonal goodbye note.  Laverne is hurt and angry.  Her friends, who are apparently of the "if your dog dies, get a puppy" school of mourning, send over potential roommates.  But only when Laverne finds the rest of the note, a couple pages' worth, can she move on, honoring nineteen years of best-friendship, ten years of living together.

And the episode sends out random romantic signals like ships that are lost at sea.  Squiggy pursues Rhonda (of course), Lenny pursues Rhonda (more surprising, but not totally new), Frank doesn't pursue Rhonda (thank God).  Lenny wants to dance with Laverne but she chooses Carmine.  Squiggy suggests (with Lenny's full approval naturally) that Laverne move in across the hall.  And the Lavmine ship is teased but more subtly than when Shirley was actually around.  Yet, Shirley wrote about Carmine in her P.S., something Laverne couldn't share with her father, the boys, or Rhonda.

Not shippy per se, but the reveal that Lenny has been telling Squiggy an installment of a bedtime story every night for eight years certainly shows some devotion.  (Note that Lenny has broken out the Bullwinkle pajamas from "Road to Burbank," so he does actually own them and they weren't just a product of Squiggy's imagination.)

The casting of Laverne's potential roommates is interesting.  Julie Brown returns, this time as Patti.  Penny's sister, Ronny Hallin, plays the Laverne-like Maxine.  (Yes, there's an Andrews Sisters joke.)  Bag Lady Kathryn Fuller was Ernestine at the Vegas wedding chapel.  And frequent director Tom Trbovich plays Tom.  (This episode's director, Gabrielle Alice James, wouldn't do any other directing.)

"The Mummy's Bride"

"The Mummy's Bride"
September 28, 1982
B-

By the Fall of 1982, my loyalties to ABC sitcoms were wavering.  The network had sent Mork & Mindy off into the ether and killed off Bosom Buddies far too soon.  (Although not before we got the irony-rich moment of Tom Hanks as Kip asking guest star Penny Marshall, as herself, if it's true that "she and Shirley hate each other.")  There was still the ol' Tuesday night line-up, but I wasn't nearly as invested in Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, or Three's Company as I'd been five years earlier.  I was actually equally into other long-running sitcoms over on CBS: The Jeffersons, Alice, and M*A*S*H.  

And there were some promising new sitcoms on both CBS and NBC: Cheers, Newhart, and a little show called Square Pegs.  I was a high school freshman and it was about high school freshmen.  The main "pegs" were Lauren, who was socially ambitious and wanted to befriend "the cool kids," and Patty (a young Sarah Jessica Parker), her taller friend who had lower, more realistic expectations.  The girls were followed around by two weird new friends, Marshall, an aspiring stand-up comic who had a huge crush on Lauren, and Johnny.  Ah, yes, Johnny.  He was tall, blond, musical, Polish, sentimental, and probably from a broken home.  (He was raised by his grandparents.)  I was a Lauren/Johnny shipper of course.  And the parallels to Laverne & Shirley may've been accidental, but considering how deeply pop-cultural SP was, I have to wonder.

Which brings us to the Final Season of L & S.  This is the season that wasn't supposed to happen, that many people wish hadn't happened.  But Cindy Williams wanted to come back, and she did, and so did everyone else, except that she married Bill Hudson and got pregnant.  And this is a very physical show, and Mr. Hudson didn't want his wife doing stunts, or even working a full schedule.  Which maybe was chivalry, but check out the Youtube interviews with Penny and Cindy for a take on the impact of a marriage that broke up after eighteen years, and two children.  (And, yes, he was already the ex-husband of Goldie Hawn by '82, father of two children by Goldie, including the lovely Kate.)

But that last week of September, I didn't know how high school would go for me or the pegs, or how much television would change by the time I'd graduate in 1986.  (Surprise, in '84 I had a boyfriend/future-ex-husband who'd make Laverne & Shirley references, and my new favorite ABC sitcom was Who's the Boss?, which was all about the central ship.)  I was just tuning in to see one of the Milwaukee girls yet again almost get married, but surely Shirley wouldn't go through with this, right?  (I would be more heartbroken over Janet's marriage on Three's Company in 1984, even though we did in fact see her bland fiance's face and hear his voice.  Vive le Jack/Janet!)

This is, perhaps even more than the California move, which I still have mixed feelings about, seen as the Universal Shark Jump, Shirley becoming "the mummy's bride."  Perhaps if they had carried through with their plan, hinted at here, that Shirley would still live with Laverne while Army medic Walter Meeney is away for a year, there wouldn't be such resentment in the fandom.  But Cindy W. and the producers quarreled, leaving a bad taste for decades, including for Cindy & Penny's rocky but close friendship.  (Not on the level of Suzanne Somers vs. Joyce DeWitt, but still notorious.)

Would it have helped if we actually got to know Walter, or even heard about him before this episode?  I mean, Laverne's live-in (for a few hours) boyfriend David at least got lines, a job, and a hobby, and he was played by a then very recognizable actor.  Walter, due to a skin rash, is bandaged from head to toe at the rushed hospital wedding, but he appears to be short and thin.

(When Margaret married Lt. Colonel Donald Penobscott on M*A*S*H, we'd been hearing about him for months, and we did actually see him in two episodes, although played by two different actors.  He was in a half-body cast at the wedding, but due to Hawkeye and BJ's prank.  In both cases, you've got to wonder why the brides are looking forward to the honeymoon.)

As with David, Sabrina, and others, Shirley's husband (and, yes, she goes through with it) turns out to be yet another McGuffin of Romance.  No one cares about him (not even Shirley it feels like at times), and he's just there to throw light onto Shirley & Laverne, Shirley & Carmine, and Laverne's fears, exacerbated by Lenny & Squiggy (who have funny reactions throughout the episode, like to "Shirley Feeney Meeney"), that she is or will be an old maid.

I have to note that this episode is supposed to have Lenny proposing to Laverne to try to win a bet from 17 years ago (when the girls were 12 I think) about who would get married first, but either it flew right by me or it got edited out of the DVD copy for some reason.

Shirley doesn't want to tell Carmine she's getting married, and she tries to get Laverne to do it, but Carmine takes it very well, since he's conveniently also fallen in love offscreen.  (He half-jokes that he and Shirley can still make out.)  They promise to always be there for each other, which would be sweet if she weren't going to vanish in a couple episodes.

As for Shirley and Laverne, Laverne is happy for Shirley and very supportive of the wedding, although she faints at least three times over it.  Laverne always seems to take Shirley's engagements better than Shirley takes hers, for whatever reason.  The wedding teases Lavley, with Laverne helping Walter give Shirley the ring and all.

Everyone is at this wedding, including, yes, Boo Boo Kitty.  Mr. DeFazio gives Shirley away and her friends and the other patients do the wedding march on kazoos.  It's not Shirley's dream wedding, but at least she's marrying a doctor.

I like this episode, the penultimate one written by Roger Garrett.  I've seen worse season-openers (like for Season Seven).  By itself, it's perfectly fine.  But if you want to call it a shark jump in hindsight, I understand.

Chaplain Richard Stahl had two earlier roles on this series, including the premiere.

"Helmut Weekend"

"Helmut Weekend"
March 2, 1982
B-

This Roger-Garrett-written story is better than the Joey Heatherton episode, although similar in that much of it is set in the boys' apartment and focuses on them.  It is also more serious than usual, especially for Season Seven, and gives Lander more to work with than usual.  However, I don't think Laverne and Shirley, or for that matter Rhonda, are integrated well into the episode, although we do get Rhonda giving Lenny a huge kiss (Lenda?) to prove she's not "cold."

Squiggy's father, Helmut, shows up after abandoning him twenty years ago, when Squiggy was nine.  I don't know if this has been addressed before (in the way that we've heard more than once about Lenny's mother's abandonment), but I do recall that Squiggy was living with his mother and stepfather in the early episodes, before getting a place with Lenny.  I think I had assumed that Squiggy's dad was dead.  It turns out that he looks, and dresses, much like Squiggy, but he's a con artist, without Squiggy's conscience.  Lenny tells us that Squiggy's grandfather was a bootlegger and his great-grandfather a pirate, so I guess each generation of Squigman is an improvement.

Squiggy hopes to finally do something with his father, but he's torn when his father wants to kick Lenny out of the talent agency and team up with him instead.  It turns out that his dad just wants to "borrow" money from the latest client.  Squiggy, as painful as it is, says goodbye to his father.  McKean, by the way, has less to do, but he has some dramatic moments as well.  I don't think the tonal mix is as good as it is on some of the more serious episodes, like "Why Did the Fireman?", but this is certainly one of the better episodes of Season Seven.

Mailman Paul Barselou would be a Eulogist later in the season.

"An Affair to Forget"

"An Affair to Forget"
February 9, 1982
B-

I thought from the title and the return of Jim Greenleaf as Lyle Nowicki, especially since he gives Laverne a big horizontal kiss of thanks for getting him a job at Bardwell's, that Lyle would start a rumor that he's having an affair with Laverne, but, no, he shows up in the first scene and is never mentioned again.  Instead, a man named Hank (Larry Breeding, who would return in a different role) shows up and flirts heavily with Laverne, while dropping hints that he's married.  She fails to pick up on these hints and goes out with him.  Unfortunately, his wife, Geraldine (30-year-old Anjelica Huston, who would also return in another role), shows up at the restaurant and Laverne ends up in the fish tank, repeatedly.  Again, I failed to predict what would happen, since there were cutaways to the cute waiter, so I thought he would defend Laverne and she'd end up with him.

Laverne makes her soggy way home, after pushing Hank in the tank.  Earlier, Carmine told Frank he felt like a son by being asked to a Dodgers game, and he and Laverne argued like siblings.  He's sort of like a big brother when they talk after her date, although still borderline flirty.  He's surprised to find out that the reason why she doesn't want to go around expecting guys to lie and cheat is because she's actually a romantic who's waiting for that one guy she can believe in.  And he lets Laverne cry on his shoulder, after he first takes off his Dodgers jacket.

There is also Shirmine, with a horizontal smooch on the couch when she comes home from a short visit to a friend (or maybe it was a relative) who's having a baby shower.  I believe this is the first episode where she refers to him as Pookie Bear, although I could be wrong.

Steve Granat and Mel Sherer wouldn't write any more for L & S.

"Star Peepers"

"Star Peepers"
February 2, 1982
B-

In contrast to the episodes where the girls fall down at the feet of celebrities (sometimes literally), here they are disillusioned when crooner Johnny Velvet (Harry Dean Stanton) turns out to be a jerk.  They swear revenge, so they go to the publishing office of Rhonda's favorite tabloid, The Peeper, conveniently located in Los Angeles and open 24/7.  The publisher, Tidmore (Harry Shearer, making his last appearance on the show, and doing a British accent, because, hey, why not?), encourages them to gather more evidence, which they do, but he wants to sensationalize the story beyond what they imagine.  The girls refuse to take his money, and they threaten a little blackmail of their own against Tidmore.  This is better than much of Season Seven, because I like the sight gag of "the Hanger sisters," as well as the different view of celebrity offered here.  As in the "furrier" episode, the girls are dealing with moral dilemmas that they haven't in the past, or at least not in this way.  (Larry Levinson and Barry O'Brien wouldn't write any more for L & S, so perhaps that explains it.)

Annoyed Customer Leoda Richards had two earlier roles on the show. 

"Watch the Fur Fly"

"Watch the Fur Fly"
January 19, 1982
B-

Bob Howard's only L & S script, while not a classic, is entertaining and surprisingly thought-provoking.  Laverne's new boyfriend, Jeffrey (29-year-old Jeff Goldblum, looking gorgeous of course), hosts tours of international visitors, so she tells him she speaks seven languages.  Shirley disapproves but then finds she is herself a phony when the cute man that Jeffrey fixes her up with turns out to be a furrier.  The girls discuss how they lie about themselves for men and, while not exactly a feminist conversation, it does throw new light on the scheming they've done to get guys.  (Although obviously Laverne lying about Shirley's impending death was a lot worse.)  Note that Goldblum, as always, puts more into an ordinary role than is required, including a very long smooch with Penny M.  (About thirty seconds according to Youtube.)

"Love Is the Tar Pits"

"Love Is the Tar Pits"
January 12, 1982
B-

This episode, written by Roger Garrett, is better than most of Season Seven so far, although it's another one focused on Lenny and Squiggy.  Lenny meets and quickly falls in love with a graduate student named Karen.  She finds him sweet, funny, and special.  However, Squiggy is jealous and wishes Karen would go away.  She does, to Columbia University.  There are some more nice insights into Lenny & Squiggy's friendship.  And I feel like Lenny's relationship with Karen is better defined than, for instance, Laverne's was with David.  The rest of the cast is used fairly well, although the balance still isn't quite right.  But, yeah, not at all bad for Season Seven.

Robert Arcaro, who plays the Man (presumably the one that Lenny sends to Laverne's apartment), would play a Guard the next season.

"Young at Heart"/ "Teenage Lust"

Oddly enough, Tracy looks more like Cindy Williams.  Maybe they
could've had her do guest shots as Shirley's cousin or something.

"Young at Heart"/ "Teenage Lust"
November 10, 1981
B-

Dana Olsen wrote this story that continues Season Seven's theme of the girls dealing with the passage of time.  (The double title is the contrast between IMDB and the DVD listings.  Wikipedia offers both titles.)  Twenty-eight-year-old Shirley goes out with a 19-year-old, to a frat party, and she sets up Laverne with the guy's friend, "The Stallion," who turns out to be a fat, eager guy named Lyle (Jim Greenleaf, who would return in the role the following year).  The episode is better than I expected, helped along by the girls frantically dancing with all the frat brothers (I'm pretty sure I saw the Freddie in there towards the end), and by the way the last L & S appearance of Penny's daughter Tracy, then 17, playing Tracy, who has a crush on Lyle.  (This is lampshaded when Lyle says that Tracy reminds him of Laverne.)  The "girls" have to face that while they are still "young at heart," they are now grown women.  That doesn't mean Shirley is going to give away Boo Boo Kitty of course.

Several other Marshall relatives appear in this episode: nieces 22-year-old Penny Lee, Judy (age unknown), and Wendy (age also unknown) Hallin, by Garry and Penny's sister Ronny, and Garry's 13-year-old daughter Kathleen, all of the girls playing characters who are Danzaly named.  Again, Lenny and Squiggy are absent, as is Carmine, and again it would be interesting to get their reaction to this plot.

"I Wonder What Became of Sal?"

"I Wonder What Became of Sal?"
November 3, 1981
B-

In the only episode written by co-creator Mark Rothman after Season One's "The Bachelor Party," after ten [sic] years, Sal Molina returns (and is again played by Paul Sylvan).  As in the previous episode, the girls are dealing with the past, and there are in fact three flashbacks to "Falter at the Altar."  (The DVD copy is missing four or five minutes though, I think due to music rights, since there's a line referencing Laverne playing oldies trivia.)  Sal is still handsome, kind, and single, as well as now rich.  He's also still in love with Laverne, but she has to face that he still doesn't "give her goosebumps."  (Nothing against Sylvan but he's a little bland, without the sexiness of a young Ted Danson or even Ed Marinaro.)  To a lesser degree than the previous episode, this episode is about the girls' friendship, as Laverne wonders if she was wrong to take Shirley's advice.  Note that Frank regrets the loss of his "nine-year-old grandson."

Dan Barrows, who plays Carlisle, was Bill on the "Haunted House" episode.  Lenny and Squiggy are absent, but it would've been interesting to get their take on all this.

"Laverne's Broken Leg"

"Laverne's Broken Leg"
May 12, 1981
B-

This Ketchum & DiMarco story takes awhile to get going and, yes, the It's a Wonderful Life trope has been done on other shows.*  And yet, yes, there is a certain poignancy to Cindy W's performance of Shirley as a reclusive, dog-owning old maid, and even more to Foster's version of a homeless, daughter-less Frank DeFazio, ably assisted by Penny M's pained reaction.  Oddly enough, both Frank and Shirley are living in California, but it's unclear where Edna and Carmine are in this alternative universe.  (Lenny & Squiggy are escaped convicts.)  Even more surprising, Rhonda is kind and giving.  So if Laverne was never born, Rhonda's life would be better?  Or just nicer?

My main shipping note is that both Carmine and Laverne seem very pleased by Shirley's suggestion that Carmine undress Laverne and put her to bed, although Shirley soon realizes this is a bad idea.

The Angel is portrayed by Jeffrey Kramer, who played Jeff three years before.


*That same November 1965 calendar stubbornly clings to the kitchen wall, so I have no idea if a local LA station is supposed to be showing IaWL in December like usual, or unseasonally.

"Fifth Anniversary"

Sugar Frosted Happy Nuts

"Fifth Anniversary"
April 14, 1981
C+

Cheryl Alu's first of two L & S stories, and Winifred Hervey's only, doesn't give a crap about continuity, and I'm not sure how well the whole set-up of throwing a party in a trailer with a broken jack works (couldn't they just move it outside?), but hey, at least there's Lavenny.  (See below.)  Note that not only is it somehow Frank & Edna's fifth wedding anniversary, but they met on August 8, 1958.

After Lenny and Squiggy show up with a piñata, the trailer really needs rebalancing.  Most people touch each other lightly, but Laverne grabs Lenny by the arm.  Not only that, they sit on the floor together and exchange smiles after Frank tells the viewing audience of the show within a show how much he loves Edna.  Then Edna goes to hug Frank and the trailer gets off balance again, so Laverne rolls onto Lenny and they roll Stage Right.  You can look at Fredna and Squigley for comparison.  (Poor Carmine is the odd man out.)

Frank's Fan Leoda Richards played a Volunteer four years earlier, while Mitchell Laurence, who's the Director here, was Ray (the guy Laverne makes out with and then abandons in Milwaukee on the season premiere).  Timothy Blake was Veronica on a previous episode and is Hillary Hinkle on this one.  Lady #1 Merie Earle might've then been recognizable from her recurring role as Mrs. Loomis on The Bob Newhart Show.

"High Priced Dates"

"High Priced Dates"
April 7, 1981
B-

Charlotte Dobbs's second of two L & S stories has the girls going out with two roughly forty-year-old men that Rhonda fixes them up with.  The men spend a lot of money on them and Shirley in particular worries that the men will, as Rhonda puts it, expect music for the dimes they put in the jukebox.  The first date is interrupted by Lenny and Squiggy (more on that in a moment), but the girls wonder what Ryan (Jack Lukes in his fourth and final role on the show) and Steve (Neil Thompson in his third of four) will expect on the second.  They have a good talk with Edna, who tells them they should never feel obligated to do more on a date than they're comfortable with.  And surprisingly, when Laverne is honest with the men, things actually work out OK, and the two couples kiss.

When Lenny and Squiggy walk in on the girls trying to dry spilled coffee off their dates, Lenny calls it "a mirage a trois," getting his French, his math, and the situation wrong.  Squiggy is at first shocked speechless, because he says, when he regains his words, he'd always thought of Shirley as "pure as the driven Ivory soap."  Lenny tells the girls to go back to their "free-for-all," he just wants to borrow their cookie cutters for his meat cookies.

Laverne grabs his arm to get his attention, but she keeps touching him and standing very close, until he goes in the kitchen.  And then, after the dates leave, she gets closer than necessary to see his cookies, and continues standing there even during Squiggy's rant.  Even when Lenny goes to take a distraught Squiggy home, Laverne reaches out for Lenny.  (Hey, Everybody, it's Pic Spam Time!)

As in "I Do, I Do," the Lavenny (and to a lesser extent the Squigley) overshadows the girls' romances with the two strangers.  Note that Laverne thinks, before Ryan and Steve make themselves more comfortable, that they might be gay, although it isn't said in so many words, and Shirley says, in not so many words, that she and Laverne aren't lesbians.

"The Bardwell Caper: Part 1"

"The Bardwell Caper: Part 1"
March 10, 1981
B-

Laverne finds out that they haven't received the traditional $5 raise for three months at Bardwell's.*  Shirley writes a polite note, which Laverne changes into a ruder one, without telling her friend until Shirley sends it up the pneumatic tube.  Of course their boss Mr. Hildebrand (Norman Barthold again) gives them an $8 raise without reading the note.  So the girls have to retrieve the note from his office.

The plot, written by DiMarco & Ketchum, isn't terribly original (Three's Company would do something similar a couple years later), but it's done with panache, and I did like seeing Lenny and Squiggy as trees.  Also, I like that Edna gives the girls sensible advice and jokes about her frequent divorces.  Of course, since things go without a hitch, it must be the plan rather than the actual practice, so I suspect they won't go as smoothly in Part 2.

Susan Barnes, who previously had the unsympathetic roles of Adele Harrison, a member of the Blue Team, and a nameless girl who rejects Squiggy, would return in her mousy role of Miss Peters.  Tom Trbovich would direct an impressive (for this series) thirty-five more episodes.


*It has actually been about three months since "Candy Is Dandy" aired.  I didn't see the kitchen calendar but I'm willing to bet it's the same one it's been lately.  Interestingly, the calendar at work, which presumably would have to be up to date, shows a 28-day month where the 1st is on a Thursday.  This would match February 1962 or February 1973, both obviously wrong.  (Even without the time-skip, it should be at least '63 by now.)  And, no, that would not be accurate for February 1981 either.  One can assume that either Bardwell's doesn't care enough about its gift-wrapping department to send them new calendars every year, or the L & S production crew screwed up.  Then again, the girls have apparently seen "every" episode of Mission Impossible, which premiered in September of 1966.

"I Do, I Do"

"I Do, I Do"
February 24, 1981
B-

Lesa Kite and Cindy Begel wrote this jaw-dropping episode which includes a cocaine joke, lots of "Mary Jane," a Vegas wedding, and of course the word "tadger."*  Either the ABC censors were asleep on the job or they figured the warnings about drug abuse made everything OK.

Things start somewhat normally, with the girls helping out at the restaurant while Frank is away at Cowboy Bill's University.  Laverne recognizes two British rockers, cheekily cast with Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, then still only 33, as London (no last name), and a post-Rutles Eric Idle as Derek DeWoods.  The lads are worried about their tax situation, especially since Derek wants to buy a castle.  They invite the girls to a party launching their next tour.  (Why?  Why not?)

At the party, Shirley warns Laverne to not act like it's a brewery party.  (Did we ever actually see a brewery party?)  But Shirley name-drops people we've seen on other episodes, like Fabian, Julius La Rosa, and Troy Donahue.  Laverne is excited when she thinks Simon & Garfunkel are there, but it turns out to be Lenny & Squiggy.  Laverne, who wants to touch Lenny's curly hair, says she's "so disappointed," which again makes Marshall's future involvement with Garfunkel ironic.

Derek and London are playing at the party with their band, performing their Number One hit, "Your Love Love Love," which is a nifty little British Invasion parody.  (Not on the level of the Rutles, or Spinal Tap for that matter, but not bad.)  One of the other guitarists is Malcolm (singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop, who's actually American but giving his all to the accent), who also made a batch of brownies.  Yes, that kind of brownies.

As for the cocaine joke, Laverne picks a hand-mirror up off a table and flings the powder off it so she can fix her hair, but only a few in the studio audience get it (I certainly didn't at 13), and there's no dialogue in reference to it. 

Lenny and Squiggy want to meet "Mary Jane," who they think is a starlet.  So they go in the very smoky "jolly room."  Malcolm offers Laverne and Shirley a joint.  Laverne is tempted but Shirley can't get over watching Reefer Zombies in high school.  Shirley steers Laverne over to the innocent-looking brownies, "a much better way to enjoy a party."

Lenny and Squiggy emerge from the jolly room, having had smoke blown in their faces.  (It's interesting that both pairs take drugs innocently, with others at fault.)  They stand on a coffee table and the girls help them down.  And then we get one of the oddest Lavenny sequences in the series.  (Yes, I'm going to picspam you again.)

While Shirley is worried about and protective towards Squiggy (and, yes, this is pretty S/S, especially since in the previous episode she reluctantly said he was the least attractive person in the room), Laverne asks Lenny what it's like to be high.  He first tells her he's always liked her, which she and we know, and he's very touchy-feely in an exploratory tactile sense, stroking her face and hair.  But she touches him, too, and she plays with his scarf and looks down at his "pancreas" when he says he can feel it for the first time.

It's hard to care as much when Derek and London propose to the girls and sweep them off to Las Vegas.  The girls have been eating more and more brownies and they fortunately pass out in the chapel (after a little Bingo-calling).  The lads are chivalrous enough to leave the girls bus fare before catching their flight out. 

Anyway, it's an odd episode, even by the standards of Season Six, and it doesn't all hang together, but it's definitely got its moments.

Kathryn Fuller is Ernestine here and would be a Bag Lady the next year.  Phil Perez would direct two more episodes.


*In an aside by Idle.

"The Road to Burbank"

"The Road to Burbank"
January 13, 1981
B-

Jeff Franklin wrote this tricky episode.  It's hard to know how to take, and it's hard to write about, but I think it is ultimately entertaining, and it is not the "rape is funny" scenario I was afraid I was going to find it upon revisiting.  I first saw the episode at almost 13 and thought it was strange but I also think I found the girls' outfits sexy, especially Laverne's*.  The boys' version of events certainly stayed with me more than the more problematic yet truer girls' version.  I remember watching at least some of the episode on Youtube in the past few years.**  But this is my first time sitting down and watching it in context, not just the episode as a whole but within the larger run of the show.

We begin at Cowboy Bill's, where Frank and Edna are celebrating the 50th.  Not either of their 50th birthdays, which I'm guessing are long past, especially with the time-skip.  No, it is the 50th day that they've been running this restaurant.  When we switch to the girls' apartment for the rest of the episode (not counting the flashbacks and pseudo-flashbacks), we'll see that that same calendar as in the previous episode is still up.  So is this November 1965, and they opened in September or early October?  Maybe the girls really were 27 when they got fired.

Anyway, toasts are made, gifts given, a singing telegram sung (by Carmine, with unwieldy lyrics), prop bottles broken over heads, and it's a nice little party, even if Laverne is home with a cold.  (Why?  It doesn't add anything to the episode and seems like something behind the scenes impacting onscreen.)

The party is broken up by the entrance of Chuck Malone, representing the Royal Cactus Motel of Royal Cactus, Nevada. (Larry Gelman would probably have been most recognizable for his recurring role of Dr. Bernie Tupperman on The Bob Newhart Show, although he and Penny both worked on The Odd Couple.)  He is looking for Lenny and Laverne Kosnowski, and Andrew and Shirley Squigman.  It turns out that on the road to Burbank, after four days driving from Milwaukee, they ran out of money and had to share one room in a cheap motel, pretending to be married couples.  Mr. Malone says they have to pay $158 in damages or else, and then he breaks a cob of corn.

Now, I want to note that whatever actually happened in the motel, Shirley doesn't seem to currently have any hard feelings against the boys.  She touches Squiggy lightly when the three of them try to sneak away from the table and she even reaches up and tries to get kernels out of Lenny's eyes, although McKean is about eight inches taller than Williams.  And yet, Shirley says that she and Laverne will sue Lenny and Squiggy to pay for the damages, so the boys plan to counter-sue.

I should mention that Becky Gonzalez is given more to do in her second and last appearance as Rosita the waitress in law school, since she takes notes at the "trial" at the girls' apartment the next day, but she's not strictly necessary to the story.  Still, she's not as pointless as Rhonda here, who makes a few self-absorbed comments but really could've easily been left out.  I'll get to this, but I do see the point of Sonny, so if it had been him and the Core Seven, that would've been fine.

Shirley goes first and says it was a "hot, sultry night" when they were in Nevada, which sounds more like it was September than November, lending support to the theory that it is now November rather than January.  (Note, there was no Christmas episode that year.)

She repeats what we already know about why the four of them shared a room and then we see the actual arrival, and I want you to look at the following still, which remember is from Shirley's perspective.  The boys do not look rapey; they look young and eager and, by their standards, innocent.  Lenny is giddy and giggly about the idea of "constipating" his marriage with Laverne, in the Biblical sense.***  She matter-of-factly tells him she's not the Promised Land.  Shirley is even more crushing, telling Squiggy that if they were the last man and woman on Earth, the human race would die out.  He says they could adopt.

The girls go to change in the bathroom and the next scene opens with the boys emerging in what Squiggy calls their "love clothes."  Lenny suggests a little TV and Bosco before they retire (I guess that's the Kosnowski equivalent of "Netflix and chill"), and Squiggy chimes in that the French say that The Tonight Show can be "used as an African-disiac."  Shirley says no TV, no Bosco, no cigar, so Lenny giggles about cigars and babies.  Laverne slaps him.

The girls get into one bed, the boys in the other, and the guys make gleeful sounds of anticipation.  Shirley says they ought to be "horse-thumped," and Squiggy says they'll be "horse-thumped with smiles on their faces."  He puts a coin in the Magic Fingers box so that the girls' bed will vibrate.  The girls get annoyed and Laverne says her lips itch.  Lenny stands up in bed and says, "OK, Laverne, I'm comin' to scratch 'em for ya!"

And that's where, at roughly the eleven-minute mark, the episode gets really problematic.  Up to this point, in the episode and in the series, the guys haven't crossed certain boundaries.  I wouldn't say they've been respectful of Laverne and Shirley but they haven't pushed things too far.  But now, with the girls telling the boys to stop and go away, the boys persist.  Shirley hits Squiggy over the head with a painting (it fails to crack on the first hit, so he says she missed, which I suspect was an ad-lib), and then she tries to call the police, but Squiggy throws the phone through the window.  As Squiggy chases Shirley down the hallway, Laverne and Lenny emerge from the bathroom that he's dragged her into, and he's got a plunger on his forehead.
LAVERNE: Well, I never!
LENNY: You hold still and maybe you'll get the chance, Laverne.
She now suggests they watch TV but he keeps pursuing her and throws the television set to the floor.

Here's another still as evidence.  Notice that the body language is completely different than every other kiss he's given her, even the grab & kisses that he often teams up with Squiggy for.  He is restraining her hand and not giving her any mobility.  It is played for laughs, just as much as the plunger was, but it is disquieting, especially considering he's supposed to be the more sensitive and emotionally-intelligent of him and Squiggy.  He grabs her and throws her over his shoulder, saying, "You're all mine!  You're all mine, Laverne!" and then the comic relief is that he can't find the bed.

S & S run back in and the girls each end up on one bed.  Shirley says the boys have gone mad and Squiggy laughs maniacally and cries that they're mad with passion.  The boys yell, "Double makeout!" as they did when the lights went out after the "Monkey and the Jerk" dance lesson, but it feels creepier here, especially since they jump on the beds and break them.  The girls run into the bathroom and lock it.  The two supposedly (sex-)crazed men calmly tell each other goodnight and go to sleep.

Shirley's version ends and all Laverne has to add is blowing her nose.  The boys act outraged and Lenny suggests they sue for "inflammation of character."  And then Squiggy tells the "ladies and gentlemen of the dairy" his version, where he and Lenny were as innocent as lambs as they prayed before bed.  (Lenny asks God to "bless the host of Death Valley Days," i.e. the man who would be inaugurated as President a week after this episode aired.)

Then Laverne emerges from the bathroom and wants to "rub-a-dub-dub" against her "hub-a-dub-dub," i.e. her "husband" Lenny.  McKean plays this as if Marshall is a wicked temptress trying to lead poor Lenny astray, but note that nowhere in this episode does he look as repulsed as, well, Williams does in Shirley's version.

Williams of course is much more affectionate with Lander in Squiggy's version, snuggling up to him in her Playboy-bunny-like oufit.  Squiggy looks warier than Lenny, as if (at least in his imagination) he is the more wise to the ways of the world one of the two innocent friends.  And it is Lenny who looks more shocked when the girls strip off their robes, while singing the traditional stripper tune and of course doing stripper-like moves.  (Did I mention that the Family Hour had died years before?)

The girls pose sultrily on one bed, so the boys pray again by the other.  Then Lenny suggests the girls put their robes back on, and holding Laverne's wrap, he says, "You could catch a nasty chest cold."  Laverne, who is showing an impressive amount of skin for an early '80s sitcom, thanks him.  Squiggy says his foster mother warned him about women like them.  (I thought Squiggy grew up with his biological mother, but, hey, it's his flashback and we already know he's playing fast and loose with the truth.)  Laverne suggests the two "handsome husbands" slip into bed, but the boys go change "in the laboratory."  Even though it's Squiggy's fantasy, he has Laverne say that it's a dream come true to spend a night with Lenny in "a dark, sleazy motel room," as if even in Squiggy's imagination, he can't have Shirley say something like that about him.  (At this point, Rhonda is probably the only S/S shipper, since she said Shirley did well in marrying Squiggy.)

This time when the boys emerge in their bedclothes, Lenny is wearing Bullwinkle pajamas, a symbol of his innocence.  When they see the bedsheet that the girls hung up on the ceiling fan (present in both versions but with different meanings), it reminds Squiggy of It Happened One Night, not that he says the title but he describes it as "a black-and-white motion picture I once saw where Clark Grable was forced to hang his shorts to protect him from the feminine wiles of Claudine Colberet."****

Shirley says the sheet is up for privacy's sake, but Laverne very suggestively says they should all go to bed, and both girls bite their hands a la Lenny.  He wants to watch the evening news with Walter Brennan (i.e. Cronkite), but the girls would rather kiss goodnight.  Squiggy gives Shirley a pity kiss on the forehead, but Lenny just gently pushes Laverne away.  The boys go to their bed, and the girls paw at the hanging sheet and make animal noises.  Lenny tells them to go to sleep or take a cold shower.

The girls say how hot they are, so Squiggy gives them a quarter for the ice machine.  Shirley instead puts it into the Magic Fingers box.  Laverne calls over to "Lenzoil" (a Penzoil joke?) to come over and help her keep the bed still.  Lenny asks Squiggy if it's another trap.  Squiggy is sure it is, and yet when Shirley comes over to his bed and embraces him, he just sits there, until Lenny pries Shirley away.  Lenny also turns on the fan to cool the girls down.

Laverne comes after Lenny and tells him not to fight it, echoing what he told her in Shirley's version.  She pursues him into the bathroom, while Shirley plants a kiss on Squiggy and then cries, "Love me, Baby!  Love me, Baby!"  He tells her this is no time for loving and he has been "blessed with a headache."  In his version, she hits him with a painting so she can trap him in the frame and her phone call is not to the police but to room service for champagne.  He indignantly calls champagne "the devil's vodka" and throws the phone out the window.

While Shirley chases Squiggy down the hallway, Laverne and Lenny emerge, but this time the plunger on his forehead is how she's caught him.  He keeps telling Laverne no and then says he's saving himself for Walter Brennan.  She says, "He's too old for you, Len, and not your type."  And she throws the TV set to the floor.  She grabs Lenny "by the Bullwinkle" and plants a kiss on him.  Again, the body language is different from any other kiss of theirs in the series.  His arms are free but he's flailing and he can't move easily because she's holding on to his pajamas.  He reacts by...fainting.  So she puts him over her shoulder and cries, "He's mine!  He's mine!"

Squiggy runs back in and says, "Don't do it, Len!  This is just a busman's holiday!"  A busman's holiday is "a vacation or form of recreation that involves doing the same thing that one does at work," and what the boys were doing for a living at this point in the series was truck-driving, and they were indeed driving a truck on their vacation.  Is Squiggy saying that driving the girls cross country was just for the fun of driving and they had no interest in the girls physically?  And is he worried that Lenny is going to give in to Laverne's feminine wiles?

Lenny revives and he and Squiggy go to the beds.  The girls cry, "Double makeout!" and jump on the beds, breaking them.  The boys flee to the bathroom.  We don't know if, in Squiggy's version, the girls calmly say goodnight to each other and go to sleep, but I kind of doubt it.

Back to present-day 1965.  Rosita says it's time to vote.  Squiggy asks Carmine to testify about what it does to him seeing Shirley "prancing around in her bunny-like bathing suit."  Carmine threatens to smack Squiggy in the head.  Shirley thanks Carmine for being a gentleman.  Lenny asks Sonny, as "a strong, rugged, virgile man" to testify about Laverne "paddling around in her Frederick's of Hollywood negligence."  Sonny admits that Laverne is an attractive, desirable woman, and she thanks him for telling the truth.  Nonetheless, he wouldn't chase her around a motel room with a plunger on his head.

Frank asks people to raise their hands if they believe Lenny and Squiggy, but Lenny breaks and admits that they lied.  Squiggy reluctantly says that they fibbed a bit but they were on the road and the girls were the only game in town, and after all a man has needs.  Lenny puts it as they were "starved for affection."

Edna tells the boys that everyone understands they have needs but wrecking a motel room isn't the answer.  "A woman wants to be treated like a lady.  Like a friend, like a human being."  The boys are surprised by this, and Rhonda chimes in, "At least until after dinner."

Frank gets everyone to agree to pitch in to help pay the motel bill.  Lenny swears they'll pay it back.  Frank says they settled all this without expensive lawyers.  Rosita, in her last line, says maybe she should become a doctor.  (Maybe she quit the restaurant to go to med school.)

Frank says that the boys owe the girls an apology.  Squiggy tells Lenny to do it, "You're the one with the honest face."  Lenny quietly and sincerely tells Laverne sorry, but he yells his apology at Shirley, who's sitting right next to where he's standing, and slaps her back.  And cue the closing credits.

So what was this half hour?  It's worth noting that the Happy Days and Three's Company plots that evening were a lot less sexual.  (Joanie, Chachi, and Jenny Piccolo steal Fonzie's money to buy him a new motorcycle; and Jack pretends to be a famous chef.)  The very racy Soap had been moved over to Wednesdays by that point, for its disappointing last season, and the 9:30 slot on Tuesdays was now filled by the first season of Too Close for Comfort, and that night's plot was (and, no, I don't remember this) "Henry and Muriel's table doesn't include a setting for a lion that wanders into their dinner party."  Which sounds like, yes, a Laverne & Shirley plot.  So I think even in that original airing, this episode stood out.

Is it about sex, rape, seduction, fantasy?  What is it?

Here's the description from the "shipper's manifesto" for Lavenny (https://ship-manifesto.livejournal.com/190382.html):

This is "an episode that still causes discomfiture in the fandom.  The girls and the guys are trapped together in a seedy room at the Royal Cactus Motel, where the boys may or may not have tried to forcibly make out with the girls.  A lot of people have trouble accepting this episode canonically; Lenny has always, for instance, understood 'no' with Laverne, and to have him ignore it throws darker shades onto him; Laverne, who's always been able to fight him off before actually being afraid of him also is pretty chilling.  The entire incident is played for burlesque comedy, however, and ends with a whispered 'I'm sorry' from Lenny to Laverne."

I do want to add that, however you take it, we don't have Squiggy apologize to Shirley, not directly.  It is clear that Jeff Franklin knew on some level that the audience was more invested in L & L's relationship/friendship than they were in S & S's.  I don't think Laverne, even in the first season, ever made the equivalent of Shirley's "last people on earth" declaration.  There are stray moments where Shirley seems fond of Squiggy but there is no real ship-tease as there is off and on throughout the series run for L & L.  The episode is indeed discomfiting, but we do need Lenny to revert to the relatively sensitive guy we and Laverne know and love.  Whether you or I can accept it as canon is a different matter, but it is part of the bumpy road of this series, especially of Season Six.


*I was always "out" as bisexual to myself.  Growing up it was more a matter of discovering that the world is mostly monosexual, although probably less so now than in the '70s and '80s.  Penny Marshall was not one of my female crushes in the sense that Suzanne Pleshette or even Goldie Hawn would've been in the Carter era, but I certainly found her attractive, not counting the unflattering clothes and hair they gave her in Season One.  And I thought Cindy Williams was cute and pretty of course, but that was just common sense.

**As recently as 2017, whole episodes were on Youtube, but that no longer seems to be the case.

***The episode is full of Lenny and Squiggy's malapropisms, one reason why it's a B- rather than lower.

****Almost five years later, Tony and Angela would find themselves sharing a motel room in a two-parter called "It Happened One Summer," but on Who's the Boss? the sexual tension was so strong that they had to hang up a sheet so they could resist each other.