"The Quiz Show"

"The Quiz Show"
October 10, 1978
B-

This episode, written by Monica Johnson, is another I do somewhat remember from the time, especially Lenny and Squiggy winning a salami through Squiggy's moth knowledge.  Both L & S pairs go on Silly for Dollars, although they don't compete against each other.  (And, yes, the cast was making lots of dollars being silly every week.)  The physical humor is pretty good, although there is something sort of heartbreaking that the girls not only have their stove blow out (in front of their landlady, who should replace it in my opinion), but don't get to win anything except Pastaroni, apparently an inferior knock-off of Ricearoni.  Even Laverne plugging the Pizza Bowl at her father's insistence doesn't work out.  I know we're supposed to root for these plucky working-class gals every week and hope that their dreams come true, but did they have to not even get a decent consolation prize?

Shipping notes are sparse (there's not even really any Fredna, other than her scolding him), but I do have to say that the Carmine-as-forbidden-fruit thing is continuing, with Shirley making Laverne trade seats with her in the studio audience so that he won't accidentally put his arm around Laverne.

Kip Gilman, who at 32 seems a bit young to be hosting a show that Carmine watched as a little kid (when? in the 40s?), played Dr. Sandor the year before.

"The Robbery"

"The Robbery"
September 26, 1978
C+

This Sotkin-written episode was a bit of a letdown after the first two of the season, not that it's bad, but the two main threads don't really work, separately or together, although, yes, the thing of Laverne and Shirley being hung on the wall is some nice physical humor.  (At that, are they really stupid enough to not just unbutton their coats?)

Laverne is dating Jake the Snake of the Purple Fiends (who we saw on the St. Patrick's Day episode, but I'm not sure if he was played by the same actor, Larry Bishop, there) and Shirley disapproves because Jake is not just rude but a hood.  At the same time, Laverne thinks Shirley doesn't know how to have fun.  (I don't know if this is set before or after the "Roxy" episode.)  So Shirley decides to give Carmine an evening where he won't have to take a cold shower.  Instead, he ends up having to leave in Laverne's fluffy pink robe, and apparently goes outside in it.  (I kept waiting for a payoff where Lenny and Squiggy would see him in it, or Laverne's father, but Frank and Edna are absent again.)  Shirley sends him away because Laverne has just confessed that she was along when Jake robbed a grocery store.  Shirley wants to call the police but Laverne goes over to Jake's apartment (which looks like they redressed the Lenny & Squiggy apartment set) to talk him into giving himself up to the police.

Since my last two posts were so long, I didn't get to mention that in Season Four McKean & Lander get a still with their names in the closing credits, unlike Mekka, Foster, and Garrett.  Clearly, the powers that be recognized how important Lenny & Squiggy were to the series.  (It was around this time, maybe Season Three, that their spin-off was considered but wisely rejected.)  They don't get to do much here, except play detectives and then tour guides.  Note that Laverne accepts the description of a "cheap floozy bimbo" as accurate for her, rather than bristling at it as she would've done in the first two seasons.

"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.)

"Bachelor Mothers"

"Bachelor Mothers"
October 19, 1976
C+

The Fonz is shoehorned into this story, written by Barry Rubinowitz (his first of eight), although I suppose you could argue that only his powerful smooches, of both Laverne and Shirley, could've convinced them to babysit on a Saturday night.  He also demonstrates that his finger-snap and/or "Ayyyyy!" work as well on babies and television sets as on jukeboxes.

Actually, it looks like this was sort of a two-parter, as Udana Power (who's most recognizable to me as Nurse Nancy Darwin on Soap) also played Louisa Corrigan on Happy Days that night, although in "Fonzie the Father" she's very pregnant by one of Fonzie's oldest friends.  Anyway, if they wanted to have an episode where the girls babysit, there were probably less contrived ways to bring this about.  They turn out not to be great sitters, wanting to ditch the baby when two fellas they like call, although Laverne can't even remember which one she likes.  And when Shirley has to race in the rain to catch Laverne at the bus stop before Laverne heads pointlessly to Chicago, Shirley leaves the baby under the care of Lenny & Squiggy, who tune the TV in to Heckle & Jeckle (the magpie cartoon referenced on I believe the episode where the guys move in upstairs).

Note that Carole Ita White is credited onscreen and at IMDB as Rosie Greenbaum, but I'm not sure where she would've fit into such an apartment-centered episode.

"Angels of Mercy"

"Angels of Mercy"
October 5, 1976
C

In the episode where the girls found out that their old friend had become a nun, Shirley claimed that they were candy-stripers, while here it comes true.  Unfortunately, I didn't find the episode, written by Bickley and Warren, particularly funny.

Charles Frank returns as Jerry Callihan, the cute writer neighbor that Laverne has a crush on.  (In fact, it turns out everyone in the building but Jerry knows this.)  She does his laundry and feeds fish, and even agrees to work in the hospital to try to win him over.  He doesn't ask her out until she's honest with him (offscreen), but then we never see him again.

Meanwhile, Shirley has dreams of meeting and marrying a rich doctor, dreams that she refuses to give up on, even after a doctor attacks her in a supply closet, ripping her uniform and trying to give her ether!

Mekka is credited, but I'm pretty sure he couldn't have been in any of the scenes, even in first run.  There aren't really any shipping notes, although it is weird as an adult to see Shirley straddle a sleeping patient while trying to help Laverne change his bed linens.  Also, the opening credits for Season Two have wisely dropped "DeFazio" and "Feeney."

"Drive! She Said"

"Drive! She Said"
September 28, 1976
B-

Laverne & Shirley came back for Season Two, so I and millions of others watched it at 8:30 every Tuesday, after Happy Days.  (Eight Is Enough wouldn't start until the following March and it's entirely possible I didn't watch anything in the 9:00 clock slot yet, definitely not CBS's M*A*S*H in its fifth season, since I was only eight.)  I was more into Welcome Back, Kotter (Season Two) and What's Happening!! (Season One) in the eight to nine block on Thursdays, but I was already an ABC-sitcom connoisseur and Tuesdays would've been my second-favorite night.

Anyway, I laughed a few times at this episode watching it today and I do feel like the cast and production team are gaining more confidence.  Storm knows how to move the characters around, even in the extended driving sequence, and Jack Winter's first of three L & S scripts seems to have a good handle on said characters, from their tendency to name-drop relatives (Shirley apparently has only two cousins, Mikey and Mickey I think it was, and a 79-year-old uncle whose name escapes me) to Laverne's fondness for milk & Pepsi.  Not that everything is in place yet.  For instance, when Lenny & Squiggy make their first entrance, it's through an already open door and they are actually coming downstairs to complain that Laverne and Shirley yelling secrets out the window is interrupting their "orgy"!  And later we see Laverne and Shirley throwing them and their dates out of the car the girls have bought.

The only plot (no subplot or even sub-subplot, like Lenny joining the Reserves, this time) is about Shirley teaching Laverne to drive and it going badly, so Laverne gets her father to teach her.  The weird thing is, I don't remember Laverne and Shirley owning a car at any point and certainly it's gone by the time they have Lenny and Squiggy drive them to California in an ice cream truck.

Bo Kaprall returns as Officer Norman Hughes, who reluctantly gives Laverne a ticket after she runs over his foot!  We find out that they've gone out five times and she agrees to go out with him again, so he says he'll pay for her ticket.  Other than that, no real shipping notes, with Carmine seeing a woman named Lucille (not credited on IMDB) but still calling Shirley "Angel Face."  Note that in the revamped credits, we see Betty Garrett as Mrs. Babish, but her character is not yet introduced or even referred to, although if the girls are going to keep parking their car out front, you'd think the landlady should be informed.

"Once Upon a Rumor"

"Once Upon a Rumor"

"In your dreams, Fella!" seems to be what she's thinking.

March 16, 1976

B-

Holly Mascott's only L & S script, the first written by a woman, is an uneasy balance between '50s and '70s in relation to the double standard, although of course the idea that a "reputation" for a guy is good while a girl having a reputation makes her a "bimbo" sadly hasn't disappeared, even if the terminology has changed.  Shirley becomes popular for the wrong reason when a proto-Three's-Company misunderstanding leads Lenny to believe that she fooled around in the break room with Squiggy, which Squiggy doesn't deny.  I might've gone with a B, but Laverne scoffing at Shirley's story of being attacked (not raped but "jumped" and I guess fighting the unseen-by-us guy off) doesn't sit well, even allowing for the times.  The argument here is that because Shirley is saving herself for her wedding night, she shouldn't be gossiped about, but what if she weren't a virgin?  Still, that this is even brought up, from the female perspective, is something you probably wouldn't have got on Happy Days.

The shipping notes get a little more complicated this episode.  It was apparent in earlier episodes that Squiggy felt a mild lust for Shirley and he here does ask her on a date as a reward for fixing her zipper, but of course she is Carmine's "Angel Face," and Carmine threatens Squiggy for not telling the truth.  The surprise is Lenny assumes that Shirley only puts out for Squiggy because she's in love with Squiggy, a pairing that Laverne finds nauseating.  Breaking this down a little more, is Lenny a romantic, or does he put Shirley on a slightly higher pedestal because of her virginal image?  Or is it that, as will be made clearer later, he thinks Squiggy is a ladies' man and so he doesn't see any reason why Shirley wouldn't be in love with him?

There's not much Lavenny shipping in contrast, although the second picture I've chosen would suggest otherwise.  (The happily-married-to-other-people Marshall and McKean do have a chemistry that comes through even when it's not supposed to, more so over time, but I'll discuss that as we go along.)

Charles Frank would return later that year as cute upstairs neighbor Jerry Callihan.  Shearer is given more to do as the Public Address Announcer this time, which leads to a payoff with him doing voiceovers with Squiggy, including Squiggy singing "Still of the Night," and Lenny (onscreen) doing backup, a slight hint of their later musical endeavors, as well as a Credibility Gap reunion.  Howard Storm would direct seven more episodes, although I associate him more with his 59 for Mork & Mindy.