"To Tell the Truth"

"To Tell the Truth"
February 17, 1981
B

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

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

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

"Malibu Mansion"

"Malibu Mansion"
February 10, 1981
C+

The team of David Ketchum and Tony DiMarco's first of five L & S stories doesn't feel like it really goes anywhere but it's innocuous enough.  Laverne convinces Shirley to throw a beach party while they're house-sitting the title location for Cowboy Bill (Stubby Kaye, deliberately cast against type), the owner of the chain that the restaurant Frank now manages is part of. 

Some things of note: Cowboy Bill uses the word "vibes," which seems a bit premature for '64 or '65.  His pet bird calls Laverne a "bimbo," and Shirley says, "Well, you do have a past," so it's definitely clear that Laverne lost her virginity in the time-skip, if not sooner.  And Squiggy refers to his and Lenny's departure as "several years ago," which doesn't make any sense considering they were still working there in the season premiere.

Richard Moll appears very briefly in the DVD version of this episode, and I'm guessing the scene with the bikers was cut out, especially since the run-time is now about 21 minutes.  He would, however, appear that year as "Louis Armstrong," so I am tagging him.

"Love Out the Window"

"Love Out the Window"
February 3, 1981
C+

Ruth Bennett wrote this episode that doesn't live up to its potential but at least shows some connection to an earlier episode.  Shirley has taken up painting, including Laverne and Sonny as Scarlett and Rhett.  (There's also a portrait of what looks a fat Laverne on the back wall.)  Laverne confesses to Shirley that she's starting to fall for Sonny.  However, Laverne worries when she hears about a dangerous stunt Sonny is going to do, so she cancels their next date.

After Laverne goes up to the bedroom, Shirley sits down with Sonny and tells him something that he can't tell Laverne she told him: Laverne was in love with a fireman "a couple years ago" and Randy died before he could propose.  So Sonny quits stuntwork and becomes an insurance salesman.  He's very unhappy but denies it.  Shirley admits to Laverne about telling him about Randy.  Even now, it's painful for Laverne to talk about. 

So far, so good, a little drama, mixed in with some sight gags, like Carmine as Cupid, Lenny & Squiggy in borrowed neck-braces.  Even the scene of Frank trying to get Laverne and Sonny to make up is a nice touch.  And Laverne taking the picnic basket to Sonny's office is fine.  But then she, out of desperation, goes out on the ledge to convince him to become a stuntman again.  He goes after her and they talk things out, while pigeons land on her head and eventually take her fall (hairpiece).  Even that I didn't totally mind, although a scene of them talking this out like adults would've been preferable.  And then Shirley somehow goes out on the ledge (from another office) without noticing that Sonny and Laverne have come back in.  At least in the Fabian episode, not one of my favorites, there was sort of a reason for the girls to be out on the ledge, but here it feels forced. 

Still, I do like the acknowledgement that the past is impacting the girls in California.  And Shirley's story of the artist "Michael Angelo" made me laugh.

William Sumper's fourth of five L & S roles is as the Policeman.

"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 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.

"The Dating Game"

"The Dating Game"
December 30, 1980
B

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

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


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

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

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

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

"Candy Is Dandy"

"Candy Is Dandy"
December 16, 1980
C+

Joanne Pagliaro's first of two L & S stories has the girls landing jobs at Bardwell's Department Store, jobs they'd keep for awhile, although not as long as their Shotz jobs of course.   The girls are gift-wrappers, and they wrap some candy that turns out to be full of rum, although Laverne doesn't realize this when she starts eating it.  The audience is clued in because the high school boy that Shirley is attracted to (Laverne points out he's "jailbait") knows French and can read the label.  He and his buddy plan to roofy their dates with a few pieces of the candy!  (Not that it's called that, but this is what passed for wholesome entertainment in the late Carter era.)  The girls are almost fired by their new boss, Mr. Hildebrand (Norman Bartold in his first of four appearances), but then he's grateful to them for pointing out the dangers of this product.  And Lenny and Squiggy bring four or five of their clients into their apartment through the "doggy door" under the girls' staircase.

"Grand Opening"

"Grand Opening"
December 9, 1980
B-

Ruth Bennett's first of two L & S stories has a few overlapping threads.  Although Frank and Edna said in the season premiere that they were opening their new restaurant in a couple weeks, it's not until this episode that they, yes, have their grand opening.  (Maybe there was a soft opening earlier.)  Enough time has passed that Shirley has found a job and collected her first Californian paycheck.  Laverne hasn't had any luck in her job search, although she had fun exploring Disneyland with the boys after she applied there.  (Marshall, McKean, and Lander are freaking adorable singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme.)  Shirley is trying to be patient, but it's tough when Laverne won't clean the apartment and she keeps spending money, including on calls to Milwaukee.  (Terry Buttafucco is name-checked and apparently still working at Shotz, but I guess the loading dock didn't have lay-offs.)  Also meanwhile, Carmine is going to visit and he ends up deciding to move to Burbank, in with Sonny, who he's just met.  (No word on the dance studio, but he could've sold that in '63 for all we know.)

Sonny offers Laverne $10 to be part of his knife-throwing act, and she agrees to do it for $20, thinking that she's in real danger.  He doesn't explain then or later the trick in the act, so when Shirley takes over for Sonny, after he's hurt doing a stunt, Laverne thinks Shirl must really be mad at her.  She offers Lenny and Squiggy "anything" if they'll free her, and Lenny looks at Squiggy hopefully, but Squiggy says that's not much of an offer from a dead woman.  Everything works out OK of course, and Sonny apologizes to Laverne and asks her out on what I presume is their first date, although it becomes a double date with Shirley and Carmine when an "unplanned pregnancy" leads to Shirley being fired.  (The pregnancy of her boss's sister, who has a husband who needs a job.)

So now the core cast of seven are all out in California, plus the two newbies, but the show is going to throw in a waitress in law school as well.  (Becky Gonzalez would play Rosita once more.  At least she gets lines, unlike poor Mary at the Pizza Bowl, whoever that actress was.)

"Studio City"

"Studio City"
December 2, 1980
C+

We now get completely Californized credits, both opening and closing, and I do remember being incredibly confused at the time by the New Year's 1965 sign in both.  Was it already '65 or would it be when 1980 turned?  Since the girls are mostly supposed to have graduated in '56, wouldn't that make them 27 in '65?  And wasn't Troy Donahue a has-been by '65?  Well, maybe that's why he's starring in a cheap caveman picture.

Yes, Donahue plays himself in this episode (written by Richard Rosenstock), wearing a very early-'80s-looking mustache, although no one notices of course.  The girls get jobs as stuntwomen, not through Sonny, although he does show up on set.  They are playing the "village virgins," and Laverne says it's a little late.  (So she stopped saving herself during the time-skip?)  Rhonda annoys Laverne and me.  And that's about all I have to say, except that the Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank (STAB) is now a thing and would continue to be for awhile.  I guess Lenny & Squiggy had to earn money somehow after running out of ice cream.

Doug Cox, who was the Birthday Boy on the "beatnik" episode, here plays the director Zwick, an obvious shout-out to Joel Zwick (who had moved on to Bosom Buddies and It's a Living).  Frank and Edna are absent, as is of course Carmine (for now).

"Welcome to Burbank"

"Welcome to Burbank"
November 25, 1980
B-

Jeff Franklin also wrote the first episode set completely in California, with stereotypical establishing shots of the L.A. area (including of course an ABC sign).  The opening credits are the same except for the last shot, of the "California or bust" sign on the ice cream truck.  And after the views of L.A., we see the boys drop the girls and their furniture off in a still-dialogue-less scene.  The actual before-a-studio-audience part starts with the girls arriving in their new apartment, which Frank has found for them.  (Unless I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume he coughed up first month's rent, deposit, etc., especially since the girls are unemployed and made only $18 from selling their stuff last episode.)

Frank and Edna come in soon after, in shorts, which apparently turns Edna on.  (Laverne shares your discomfort.)  They brought the girls gifts back from their recent trip to Mexico: castanets for Shirley and a guitar for Laverne.  (The guitar would return in at least one episode.)  The girls love the apartment, including that it has an upstairs bedroom.*

They soon meet their neighbors, hunky manager Sonny St. Jacques (Ed Marinaro with less curly hair than as Laverne's cousin a few months earlier) and busty actress Rhonda Lee (Leslie Easterbrook, who I remember a lot better than Marinaro from the California years, but she would do a lot more episodes).  Lenny and Squiggy, who are hanging around selling what's left of the ice cream at the beach, immediately lust after Rhonda, but then Laverne and Shirley lust after Sonny.  (As I recall, Squiggy would have quite a thing for Rhonda, Lenny not so much.)

Things seem to be going well and Shirley even adopts a plant, a Wandering Jew named Stanley.  (By the way, I could've sworn that Shirley was Catholic as well as Laverne, but maybe I just assumed that because Shirley is Irish.  It turns out she's Protestant, and a Democrat.)  But then a massive earthquake, like I don't know, a 10.7**, strikes and the girls start rethinking California.  Finding out that Lenny and Squiggy have just signed a three-year lease on the apartment next door doesn't help.  (The boys think that their "male prowess" after scoring with a couple women they picked up is what made the earth move.  Unless they're lying, this is the first definite indication we've gotten that Lenny and Squiggy are sexually active.)

Laverne doesn't want to leave their garbage disposal and she convinces Shirley to give California another chance.  The promise of breakfast with Sonny, who worried about them, helps.  (And there is no sign of Carmine, except in the revised closing credits, which have all been Californized.)


*I don't, at least at this point, understand the layout of the building.  The exteriors don't match the interiors, and somehow there's the girls' apartment between two other apartments, with only one apartment upstairs, making four total.  I mean, it's not Brady-Bunch-house level mind-warping, but it did take me out of an episode that is in part about the building.

**I mean, I've lived in California a total of almost 40 years, and I have never been in a quake that throws beds around the room like that!

"Antonio the Amazing"

It's an episode with lots of beefcake.

"Antonio the Amazing"
April 1, 1980
B-

Cindy Begel and Lesa Kite's first of three times as a writing team for L & S has Ed Marinaro as the title character, Laverne's cousin from Italy.  Obviously, there's cognitive dissonance here, considering that Marinaro would show up as Laverne's boyfriend in California the following season.  On its own though, it shows that Marinaro works well with the regular cast, including Lenny and "Squidgy," who amuse him and show him how to be American, Lenny of course demonstrating how to bite your hand as an expression of joy.

Note that initially both Laverne and Shirley lust after Antonio, with Laverne clearly disappointed to find out that they're related, and Shirley needing to be reminded that she has Carmine (I cracked up at the way Cindy W. said "Edna"), but then they just seem fond of him, Laverne wanting him to be her honorary big brother.  Also, this is the second episode in a row where Shirley assumes that Laverne is still a virgin, admittedly a dirty-minded virgin.  And yet, Shirley is eager for Laverne to share what she overhears at Confession.  Oh, and the episode has a live bear.