"Whatever Happened to the Class of '56?"

"Whatever Happened to the Class of '56?"*

February 16, 1982

C+

Even though this gathers a few of the girls' classmates that we saw in earlier seasons, I don't feel like much is done with the long-awaited reunion.  Paul Willson returns as "Eraserhead" and apparently now has a wife or girlfriend who dresses like him.  Carole White is again Rosie Greenbaum, still brash, redheaded, and over-dressed, but she surprises Laverne by acting nice, at least at first.  Judy (Ervin) Pioli reprises her role as Terry Buttafuco (now with one C), but she's been retconned to have weighed 400 pounds the last time the girls saw her, when it was more that she was tall and a bit butch.

Ervin's sometime writing partner Paula A. Roth apparently had to explain yet another Lenny & Squiggy absence (I'm not sure if McKean was yet filming Spinal Tap, but that may've impacted scheduling), so we're told that the boys aren't going because they didn't go to graduation.  And then it turns out that they lied about the girls and Carmine being "famous," apparently in ways that no one has actually seen.  I can't help thinking that if Lenny and Squiggy were in the episode, there would be a better pay-off, and more complexity to Laverne and Carmine embracing the lie and Shirley wanting to tell the truth.  The message in the end is that everyone wants to look successful at a reunion, but I believe that this was handled much better in "It Only Hurts When I Breathe" at the beginning of the season.

Lynn Marie Stewart's seventh and final role on the show is as Marsha.

*Amusingly, this apparently was the title of a 1980 episode of Little House on the Prairie, as in 1856.  The phrasing I believe is a variation on the popular 1976 book What Really Happened to the Class of '65? by Michael Medved (yes, him) and David Wallechinsky.

"Laverne & Shirley Meet Fabian"

"Laverne & Shirley Meet Fabian"
November 22, 1977
C+

Paula A. Roth wrote this episode that doesn't particularly work but is nonetheless interesting.  As the title suggests, the girls meet Fabian, who plays himself.  The problem is that Fabian at 34, especially with gold chains and hair and wardrobe that don't look particularly '50s, seems unable to play himself at sixteen.  (This incidentally makes Shirley even more of a cradle-robber than she was with Richie Cunningham, particularly since we know that "gaga" Shirley has dreamed about Fabian at least twice.)  Furthermore, the girls stalk Fabian, admittedly at the risk of their own lives, and his reaction is to welcome them in off the ledge, offer them coats, pause for the selfie they need to win a bet with Big Rosie (White is good in her couple scenes), and then, with irony that's supposed to be funny, sing "Turn Me Loose" as they cling to him.

Meanwhile there are a couple things going on with Lenny's recent lust for Shirley (Shirlen ship?), as seen on the "cruise" episodes.  One is that it seems to be, for lack of a better term, tag-teaming with Squiggy, as when they grabbed her on the boat and here where he says that they have the right to see her naked since they saved her life (from frostbite waiting on line for tickets).  The other is that it doesn't mean he's lost interest in Laverne, as when he snaps her bra while she's on the phone and when he roots her on in her catfight with Rosie at the Pizza Bowl.  I prefer the moment in the tag, when L, L, S, and S are sitting around playing Monopoly (a scene that should've been longer and less of a throwaway), and Laverne wants Lenny to tell them more about the "midget luau" he and Squiggy went to, but Shirley says, "Don't encourage him" (or maybe it's "Don't encourage them").

Fred Fox, Jr., who wrote "Excuse Me, May I Cut In?" last season, here plays Freddie the Bellhop.

"Citizen Krane"

"Da Doo Ron Ron" came out in 1963 by the way.

"Citizen Krane"
April 5, 1977
B-

I was leaning towards a C+ for Raymond Siller's only L & S story, but I like the admittedly predictable "twist" that impresario Charles Pfister Krane (a parody of then modern-day Orson Welles more than '40s Welles) only wants to continue to mentor Laverne.  Miss DeFazio of course chooses loyalty and friendship over being "molded" into a star.  Note that this episode has a surprising amount of innuendo centered around Mrs. Babish, including a song that refers to her "birthday suit."  Also, this episode arguably gives Boo Boo Kitty her (?) biggest role yet, impacting the plot a little.

Ogden Talbot's second L & S role is as the Delivery Man, while Michael Mann's second is the lackey named Lackey.

Season Two of Laverne and Shirley moved up in the ratings from #3 to #2, just after Happy Days.  (Former king, All in the Family, dropped to #12, just behind newbie Three's Company, but Rob Reiner joked that he wanted his family to continue to rule the airwaves.)  As far as how much I enjoy this season nowadays, well, the grades range from C to B+, averaging out to a B- like Season One, although that didn't have any B+s.  Not every joke or situation works but the show is usually at least a little entertaining and sometimes they do hit those sweet spots.  And I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the best moments, and episodes, involve romance, especially the growing attraction (yes, on both sides) between Laverne and Lenny.  Even the better and funnier Happy Days crossover involves Shirley/Richie.

What doesn't work?  Sometimes the cast is thrown into a situation that is supposed to be automatically funny-- the hospital, the haunted house, etc.-- but no one has worked out what the actual jokes or even ramifications are.  In contrast, the honeymoon suite episode and the one where the gang tries to scare off Frank's girlfriend sound cliched but they work because everyone, including the writers, is giving their all.

I will say, it does feel more like an ensemble this year than last, with Rosie as an honorary regular at times.  Not every episode gets all seven (or eight) onstage at once, and there's not always magic when they do, but the potential is there and (whatever backstage tension was building) the actors and characters do support each well onscreen even in the weaker episodes.  The studio and home audiences knew the characters well enough to anticipate some of the interactions, but it was still fun to see them play out.

From what I recall, Season Three was more of the same, only with, if possible, more slapstick and ridiculous situations.  We'll see if my memories are correct, or if there will be more surprises like this season's "Wait, Laverne and Shirley owned a car?"

"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.

"Honeymoon Hotel"

"Honeymoon Hotel"
February 22, 1977
B+

There's no depth to this Johnson & Cohen story, like there was in "Look Before You Leap," but it is an utter delight, from the opening scene rich with Lavenny fodder to the girls getting away with a scam, OK, thanks to Rosie.

Laverne is letting the guys watch From Here to Eternity with her, since their TV isn't working and hers is.  (Presumably the one she won dancing with Richie.)  She is sitting very close to Lenny on the couch and keeps reaching for the popcorn on his lap, and, yes, you could fit four people on that couch, as on "Playing Hooky."  Squiggy is in the room but upset about a relationship that soured.  Laverne complains that the popcorn is unbuttered, so Lenny mocks her but he nonetheless goes and gets a stick of butter and a knife.  And he proceeds to butter every single kernel that he hands her, while she's oblivious!  This is funny and in a weird way romantic.  (Well, Lavenny is by definition almost always weirdly romantic.)  Not only that, but when Laverne reacts to the famous lovemaking-on-the-beach scene, Lenny says, "He ain't such a much.  He didn't even remember to bring a blanket to the beach."  And yet when Squiggy says that the whole world is out on a date and Lenny gives her a look, she reminds him that he and Squiggy are only there because of the TV.

There's also a moment that is inadvertently Lenny/Squiggy, when they both try to put an arm around Laverne and instead touch each other.  Laverne notices, they don't.

The TV announcer draws a name to win a honeymoon weekend at the Hotel Pfister (a hotel mentioned in previous episodes) in beautiful downtown Milwaukee.  The winner is Miss Shirley Feeney, who is out on a date with someone we never see.  The announcer calls the apartment and Laverne answers and has to pretend to be Shirley, with the guys rooting her on.  Shirley comes home towards the end and Laverne and the guys race out of there without seeing her.

This is not an episode where there's a voice of reason saying, "You can't cheat the hotel out of a weekend's stay in the honeymoon suite."  Even the sensible Mrs. Babish rolls in (with Lenny's help) a garment rack with her five (!) wedding dresses.  Carmine agrees to put on a mustache and carry Shirley over the threshold for a publicity photo.

Unfortunately, as the girls discover after Carmine returns mustacheless to the dance studio, it isn't going to be just one photo op but a series of pictures taken throughout the weekend.  They are going to have to bluff their way through this "honeymoon," while still having a good time.  And they do, from setting off the musical bed to throwing a party with Big Rosie and a circus.  Just being in a fancy hotel is a thrill for these working-class women, and I love the line, "Laverne, this must be how Liberace lives!"  We're rooting for them and, yes, Rosie redeems herself by bribing the hotel manager.

In the tag, Laverne almost says what she often does, "Doesn't your balloon ever land?" but then she stops herself.  And she reveals that she's stealing the heart-shaped toilet seat!  The manager, after bribery, has a very '70s line about "who are we to say what's right and what's wrong?"  For once, the sentimental Garry Marshall touch is gone and we get something more anarchic, more Marx-Brothery, yet in its own way lovable.

On his way out, seeing Squiggy "in love again," this time with the bearded lady, Lenny kisses Laverne on the top of her head.  So, yeah, the episode has Lavenny, but it should be noted that there's some Shirverne, as when Shirley accuses Laverne of trying to abandon her on "their honeymoon" and Laverne dresses in drag (including the mustache) to try to pull off the ruse.  Heck, we even get Rosie/whatever the bodybuilder's name is, as she embraces her inner bimbo and forgets about her husband Ogden (who's at a proctologist convention elsewhere in the hotel).

Gary Shimokawa unfortunately wouldn't direct any other L & S episodes.

"Steppin' Out"

Rosie seems to have a
different hairstyle in every
 episode, but then she
 is comparatively rich.

"Steppin' Out"
February 8, 1977
C

This Deborah Leschin story feels like filler.  The girls try to get ready for a big date but things keep going wrong, including a fire breaking out in the neighborhood.  Not that they're terribly concerned about their neighbor, but the water being shut off in their building does affect their grooming.

Not shipping notes per se, but both Lenny and Squiggy leer at Laverne when they see her in her slip, and Squiggy asks if Shirley is "naked, too."  Oh, and Carmine is still seeing "that divorcy" Lucille.  (I'm assuming they never went to Europe, or that's just not going to be mentioned again.)

"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.)

"Anniversary Show"

Oh no, a clip show!

"Anniversary Show"
January 10, 1977
C+

Ah, yes, a dreaded clip show.  This isn't bad as such shows go, although obviously they're harder to sit through on DVD.  The screen during the opening credits says "Laverne & Shirley Birthday Show," but IMDB says "Anniversary Show,"* and the framing story is that the girls' friends, including Rosie, are throwing a party because they won a big bowling tournament.  The girls mistakenly take a train to Canada, so everyone sits around and reminisces about them, including moments that none of the people at the party were present for, like Shirley wooing Richie.  Still, it is nice to see scenes from that episode again, as well as Lenny's proposal, plus a thirty-second montage of some of Lenny & Squiggy's entrances.  And we hear that Mrs. Babish's second husband (of how many I don't know) was named Lloyd.

Paula A. Roth and Roger Garrett wrote the frame story, and he'd write ten more episodes.  I'm mostly just tagging the people listed on IMDB, which means leaving out the various writers and directors of the episodes we see clips from, but I'm also including Winkler and Howard of course.


*The actual anniversary would've been closer to January 27th, but I guess the middle episode of Season Two is close enough.

"Two of Our Weirdos Are Missing"

"Two of Our Weirdos Are Missing"
December 7, 1976
B-

This episode is somewhat off but it is admittedly funnier than most of the other episodes so far this season, especially Squiggy's lines.  (My favorite is the one that goes something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of All Religions.")

Both Rosie Greenbaum and Officer Norman Hughes appear, she of course flaunting her wealth and insulting the girls, while Laverne uses kisses and a whispered promise to get Norman to stay behind and answer the phone in case Shirley's new boyfriend the golf pro calls.  (He presumably does, since we see her smooching him in the tag.)  In fact, Bo Kaprall, who plays Norman, co-wrote this episode, his first of two; Bob Sand is his co-writer both times.

When Lenny and Squiggy invite the girls to the circus, Shirley would rather ride in Rosie's Cadillac, but Laverne seems up for it.  And she's the one who wants to stay and listen to the guys' problems but Shirley insists on going.  Then the next morning, Shirley wakes up Laverne with the news that Lenny and Squiggy "have runned away."  (It sounds like a blooper that slipped through, with Marshall teasing Williams about it, so Williams corrects herself, but then she says "runned" away again when announcing it to the others.)  It turns out that they've runned away to the circus, which means funny costumes of course.  The girls go after them, offering their help if the guys return.  And then Laverne and Shirley get attacked offscreen by a half dozen midgets!  (Frank Delfino, who spent the earlier part of the decade at Paramount as a stand-in to the Brady kids, leading to an onscreen role as a Kaplutian, plays Charlie, the midget who invites them into his trailer.)

"Dear Future Model"

"Dear Future Model"

Lucille/Carmine.  (Lucmine?  Carmille?)

November 23, 1976
C+

In this story by Barbara Robles (her only credit at IMDB) and Judy Skelton, Shirley's latest scheme to make her dreams come true is mail-order modeling lessons.  Lucille (Sandy Wirth) now runs some sort of Tupperware-like lingerie company and agrees to have the girls model for Rosie Greenbaum and Rosie's friends, oddly enough in Laverne & Shirley's apartment.  This allows Shirley to be annoyed with Lucille, while Laverne is annoyed by Rosie, although there's not much of a pay-off to either.  Then the girls go to a real modeling agency but get overlooked.

It's kind of weird to have the girls so insecure about their looks and weight, although I guess they're Hollywood-average.  Lenny scoffs at the idea that a book can teach them how to be sexy.  And I couldn't help wondering how exactly the Tarzan rope that Laverne uses would work in a basement apartment.

Photographer Michael Mann would play a Lackey the next year.  Receptionist Deborah Harmon would star as a mother of eight a dozen years later on ABC's Just the Ten of Us.  Billy Sands, who's Holms here and would be Waldo later, would probably at that time have been most recognizable as either Private Dino Papparelli on Sgt. Bilko or "Tinker" Bell on McHale's Navy.

"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.

"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.