"Child's Play"

"Child's Play"
May 26, 1981
C+

In this story Jeff Franklin wrote with Dana Olsen (who would do one more L & S script), Shirley has another chance to put on a show for children, but this time it's not Alice in Wonderland but something she's written herself, Murder in Mother Goose Land.  She again recruits all of her friends to perform (this time including Rhonda), and we see more of the play, with different members of the cast, due to Squiggy's inability to follow directions (street as well as stage).  The episode isn't especially funny, although we're probably meant to take the line about the girls being willing to look like idiots with no regard for taste, and therefore perfect for television, as a wink at critics of L & S.

After the Lavenny fest of the preceding episode, there honestly isn't much here, other than them building a card-house together and sitting next to each other on a very crowded couch.  We do get a Lavley (Shirerne?) kiss, although it's pretty ambiguous.  When the girls put on the play as a two-woman show, Shirley is the Prince who must awaken Sleeping Beauty.  Laverne objects and Shirley says something like, "I won't force myself on you."  But then she does kiss Laverne, who says, "Not bad," but also warns Shirley to never do that again.

John Miranda, who plays the nameless Man in Restaurant, would be a Minister the next year.  Gary Menteer would direct the "That's Entertainment" episode, another episode which would obviously focus on a show within a show.

In its sixth season, Laverne & Shirley climbed back to a very respectable #20 in the ratings.  (Happy Days was #15, yes, post-Richie, while even the loss of Chrissy Snow couldn't keep Three's Company out of the Top Ten, although it tied for #8 with House Calls.)  The move to California may've given this show a boost, although the glory days were definitely past.

I rate Season Six in the narrower range of C+ to B, but it still averages out to B-, like the Milwaukee seasons.  There are no classic episodes here, with even the best sixth-season episodes having noticeable flaws.  On the other hand, there are no really weak episodes either.  The series delivers, and it certainly can't be accused of being stale this season.  Quite the opposite.

What was going on that season?  Off-screen, you had two leads who really didn't want their characters (and all the other characters) to move to California.  One lead was in the middle of a divorce, which must've been stressful, although what we see onscreen is Penny Marshall (especially once her regular romantic lead got a case of the Hill Street Blues) suddenly flirting madly, even when the script doesn't call for it, with a very obliging Michael McKean.  Cindy Williams's personal life wasn't yet impacting Shirley, although her marriage to Bill Hudson the following year would change the series forever.

And the scripts were all over the place, not with the controlled wackiness of the Milwaukee seasons, although the physical stunts and slapstick were as strong as ever, but with twists that made plots like Shirley thinking she's a stripper seem standard.  The girls get a job as stuntwomen, and yet Laverne doesn't like her stuntman boyfriend doing his job, but it doesn't matter anyway because he'll disappear without explanation, including how Carmine is paying the rent on his own.  (Maybe he has savings from selling his dance studio.)  Shirley meets a man whose ex-wife looks like her.  Lenny is a sex fiend who tries to attack Laverne in a hotel room, but he's also a shy, sweet guy who doesn't know how to woo a waitress.  Sgt. Plout can show up and become a lounge singer, and half the regular characters can unknowingly ingest marijuana.  And everyone can tear each other apart in a game of Truth (while the offscreen fights on this series had long upset the Happy Days cast), and then be upset when Carmine tries to be the Don Rickles of his generation.

Most bizarrely, not only can we jump ahead two or three years, but that friggin' calendar in the kitchen always stays on November 1965 and no one can measure time accurately anymore, even when it involves a wedding anniversary, and a date-- when Frank & Edna met-- that Carmine should know, since it happened back when he thought he was in love with Laverne.

Early adolescence was confusing enough, so I don't know if I even tried to make sense of Season Six at the time.  As for Season Seven, well, I'll start trying to figure that out next week....

"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!

"Not Quite New York"

No wonder the lifeguard is tan.

"Not Quite New York"
November 18, 1980
B

So this was the Fall that everything changed.  Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide and I started junior high.  I needed my shows to get me through difficult times.  But, while Mork & Mindy was working on "Putting the Ork Back into Mork," Richie left Happy Days and Chrissy would soon leave Three's Company.  (The Ropers had already been spun-off, and Welcome Back, Kotter and What's Happening!! had both graduated into syndication.)  A bunch of other ABC sitcoms had bitten or would bite the dust before Reagan's inauguration.  Even over on CBS, Alice had spun off Flo, M*A*S*H had lost Radar and a bunch of other folks I now caught in syndication, and Mike and Gloria Stivic had moved to California a couple years ago.

Maybe it was time for Meathead's real-life wife to move to California.  Or not.  Here we have what is widely regarded as Shark-Jump #1 for L & S (with Shirley's departure of course #2, chronologically at least).  But the season premiere (written by Jeff Franklin, although he'd soon be busy with Bosom Buddies) in itself is perfectly fine.  I mean, any episode where Lenny says that they'll narrowly avoid violating the Mann Act by taking a frog across state lines is going to make me laugh.  (The studio audience barely registers it, and I'm sure I hadn't a clue at the age of twelve.)

The boys are sitting in the break room, planning their vacation with the help of a Viewmaster (including slides of Snow White and the Seven Prisoners!).  But the girls kick them out because there's going to be a bottle-cappers' only meeting.  The girls hope for a promotion because they have seniority, but in fact Shotz is automating bottle-capping and the best the girls can hope for is jobs as truck-washers, with a cut in pay.  In this scene, we find out that Laverne and Shirley are now both 27, and if you're going, "What???", you're not alone.

"The last two or three years are a blur."

The opening credits and opening scene provide few clues.  The credits look just like Season Five's, down to Carmine spilling a submarine sandwich on himself at the girls' kitchen table.  Shirley looks just the same in her pajamas, although Laverne's skirt is shorter and her hair is fluffier when she comes in making out with a guy named Ray (Mitchell Laurance, who would play a Director later).  But, what's this, Frank and Edna are opening a restaurant called Cowboy Bill's, in California??

OK, OK, you're not shocked at this point, but were you 39 years ago?  (If you were alive and watching 39 years ago that is.)  Was I?  I honestly don't remember.  I mean, even over at NBC on Diff'rent Strokes, they had managed to spin off Mrs. Garrett in less than a season, and Facts of Life had already by November of '80 dumped Molly Ringwald et al.  I probably took L & S's transplant in stride, and I was a Southern Californian, so that made it nicer.  (Besides, I soon had a new favorite ABC sitcom, the aforementioned Bosom Buddies, which was definitely set in New York and which made fun of California.)

Anyway, Shirley luckily doesn't decide to re-enlist in the Army, and our girls don't get sent to Nam.  She suggests that she and Laverne join Frank and Edna in California, which leads to a shared-fantasy sequence set on a beach (or rather what is very obviously a stage set of a beach), where they reject the "evil things" a Big Movie Producer offers and instead meet their Mr. Rights, a Fish Doctor and a Tan Lifeguard (the latter played by a pre-Hunter Fred Dryer).  This is enough to convince Laverne, who wants Lenny and Squiggy to drive them to California on the boys' vacation.  Shirley wonders if this will be safe, but Laverne says it's safer than kissing them goodbye.  ("The Road to Burbank" would beg to differ, but we'll get to that.)

Carmine gives Shirley a lot of what she calls "fantastic" goodbye smooches, hoping to change her mind but he doesn't.  He says he'll save up to move to California to be with his Angel Face.  They kiss some more.  Poor Laverne has to carry out the last of the heavy luggage by herself, but I guess this is payback for Shirley covering for her on the phone when she got home very late with Ray.  (Who presumably wasn't a serious boyfriend, since Laverne wasn't completely honest with him about her job.)

This looks like during a break in filming, with Marshall whispering to Williams.

Carmine carries out Boo Boo Kitty and the girls have a moment looking back on their memories in the apartment, to the tune of "Yesterday."  Except not on the DVD release because of that ol' music rights issue.  (I won't penalize the episode for that, and there is currently an intact if wobbly version on Youtube if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk7s9IHo9nI&t=49s.)  Marshall and Williams are embracing before and after the clips and it's surprisingly moving.  And then we get a visual joke as they shut the door on that apartment for the last time, since Laverne has painted a big L on it.

They wait outside, with a Beatles standee that would soon grace their new apartment, and the opening credits (the main thing I remember about the California seasons).  If this is '65 (it isn't, but we'll get to that), then it makes sense that the girls would be Beatles fans and "Yesterday" did come out in the U.S. that September.  But it is one of many signs that the times they are a-changin'.

Carmine gives Shirley some more goodbye kisses.  Laverne gives a complete stranger a kiss and introduces herself after.  She's going to miss Milwaukee in general, more than the people, although she doesn't yet realize how few of her friends are going to be left behind.  It turns out that the boys have bought a used ice cream truck.  (Lenny wanted a garbage truck but it wouldn't come with garbage.)  And so it's a sweet ending to the Milwaukee days, and the start of a brand-new life, making their dreams come true, as Shirley reminds us in the beach fantasy scene.  But of course, this is Laverne and Shirley, and nothing goes smoothly for them, on or off screen.

John Tracy would direct only four more L & S episodes that Fall.

"The Duke of Squigman"

"The Duke of Squigman"
March 25, 1980
B-

Jeff Franklin wrote this odd but interesting episode that has very little of Laverne and Shirley.  (Penny M. was directing her second Squiggy-centric episode, but I don't know what Cindy W.'s excuse was.)  The girls are going to a wedding in Chicago for a few days and they let the boys hang out in their apartment, as long as the guys follow a few rules and as long as Carmine stays there, too.  I don't know why Lenny and Squiggy can't use their own apartment, at least rather than go to the Texaco Station for the restroom, but that's the set-up.  Well, that and that Squiggy handles rejection so poorly that he starts sleep-walking, -talking, etc. in the guise of the title character, a "Gentile nobleman" as Lenny puts it.

Lenny tries to be supportive, repeatedly singing Squiggy a lullaby (the main thing I remember from the time) and playing along with Squiggy's delusions, until Carmine warns Lenny that sleep-walking is dangerous.  So there's a nice little scene of Lenny consulting Dr. Mathew Gentry (Charles Thomas Murphy again), then he tries to get Frank, Edna, and Carmine to be nice to Squiggy, but Squiggy assumes Edna has the hots for him, so the other three comically attack him.  Lenny finally gets Squiggy to accept that not everyone likes him, and the two men do their "Stupid!" handshake.  Then the tag undercuts this, with Squiggy forcing a kiss on a girl (Susan Barnes, who previously was Adele Harrison and a member of the Blue Team) who rejects him at the Pizza Bowl.  Still, McKean and Lander do some nice work, showing different sides of their often cartoony characters.

"Murder on the Moose Jaw Express: Part 2"

"Murder on the Moose Jaw Express: Part 2"
March 4, 1980
B-

Charlotte Dobbs (who would do one more L & S episode) and Jeff Franklin wrote this second part, where Laverne mostly has to investigate the case herself, because Shirley has disappeared and so do Lenny and Squiggy, after playing good cop & bad cop with the dead man (who I was sure was going to turn out to not be dead, but, no, we're in proto-Weekend at Bernie's territory).    Shirley turns up wearing a suitcase (!), because she was stripped naked (!!) by what turns out to be a bald man in old-lady drag (OK, I saw that part coming).  To my surprise, there's actually a bit of action and suspense in the final showdown, with the girls teaming up and Lenny helping a bit, so a B- rather than a C+.

Note that both boys pucker up when Laverne says she could kiss them, and Lenny of course bites his hand when she says she'll do anything if they can help her.  Also, this episode has Shirley in old-man drag, being flirted with by the supposed old lady, because, well, that's how Season Five rolls.  And the opening narration is by McKean, doing a British accent, and it's quite a contrast to his Lenny voice.

"You Oughta Be in Pictures"

"You Oughta Be in Pictures"
January 14, 1980
B-

Jeff Franklin wrote this story, which is interesting for several reasons, including ABC censorship (or lack thereof) in the very early '80s.  We begin with Laverne, Shirley, and Lenny all coming home from the Reserves.  He gives Shirley a light kiss on the head and, with his arms around both girls, says that they're all "bosom buddies" because of this shared experience.*  And when the girls think that he's gone home and they start to get out of their fatigues, he starts stripping down, too.  When Laverne shoos him out, he scolds her for not at least saying he has a nice body.  After he goes, Shirley wonders where he buys his underwear, so Laverne says she'll be up all night thinking about it!

Wait, there's more.  Shirley wants Laverne to go with her to audition for an Army training film, so she has to talk Laverne into it, leading to compliments on not only Laverne's acting, but her "sex goddess" body!  She says that Laverne could be Marilyn Monroe, with a bag over her head.  (I think we're now in '62, and Monroe would die that August.)  As if that back-handed compliment isn't bad enough, Lenny and Squiggy drive the girls to the audition and Lenny calls them both plain-looking!

The girls get the parts, although they're not clear, even when they're wearing the "gaudy" costumes, what these roles are.  Laverne hits it off with one actor, but Shirley tells the other that she's involved with someone.  (Are she and Carmine more exclusive this season?  It's hard to tell sometimes.  I mean, she did have the date with the midget, sorry, little person, not that long ago.)  The actor replies that he's gay, which definitely caught me off guard today.  Never mind that I'm not sure that someone as naive as Shirley would know the word "gay" in that sense in '62, but it just felt so randomly throw in for shock humor.

Then again, this is an episode about V.D., not that that's ever explicitly said, but it's pretty clear.  The girls end up thinking they're playing bimbos, humiliating enough, and have to be told by Carmine, who hasn't even seen the movie-- unlike Lenny and Squiggy, who play infected men and go to the premiere-- that they were actually hookers.  Note that Carmine can vouch for Shirley's purity but Laverne has to vouch for herself.

Bruce Kimmel, who's the director "T.P." here, was Scott and the Organist previously.  Harvey L. Kahn is Dickie here and would later be the Narrator.  Edna is absent although it would've been interesting to get her take.

This is, by some calculations, the 100th episode.


*For those keeping track, it was still ten months before Franklin, Zwick, and others would see the premiere of Bosom Buddies, but it's possible that show was already under discussion at this point.

"We're in the Army Now"

She'll be back, yay?

"We're in the Army Now"
November 15, 1979
C

This Franklin & Ervin story shows that the series was trying to mix things up in the sense of keeping them fresh, but I'm afraid that this one-hour special mixes them up in the sense of not getting what makes the series work.  The girls have been at Shotz for five years with no promotion, a company record, while the boys have been promoted from truck drivers to semi-truck drivers, because they're "semi good."  The girls decide to join the Army, even though Shirley describes herself as nonviolent.  (We even see her with a daisy in her gun barrel, like it's the late '60s rather than the early '60s.)  They screw things up and then succeed too well, so that they have to try for a Section Eight to get out.  Luckily, they can now go into the Reserves (like Lenny, although it's not mentioned).

They at first have a pushover sergeant, but then they meet Sgt. Alvinia T. Plout.  I generally like Vicki Lawrence and she's certainly giving it her all.  Unfortunately, she hasn't really been given anything funny to do.  The highlight of the episode is of course when the boys, eager to help get the girls out of their uniforms (cue the leering and hand-biting), bring in a "Trojan Horse" that looks like a Shetland pony.  I just don't understand why, even for a one-hour special, the girls would be taken away from their able supporting cast, and into a hackneyed situation. 

Now, I can take or leave Army comedies.  I enjoyed the sitcoms Bilko and of course M*A*S*H, and I recently found Biloxi Blues better than expected, but I don't feel like Franklin & Ervin do anything fresh here.  It's as if just putting Laverne & Shirley in the Army is supposed to automatically make us laugh, but it didn't work for me then or now.  In fact, I remember being less than thrilled at 13 to see that this episode inspired the Laverne & Shirley cartoon, although there their sergeant was a pig.  (OK, voiced by Ron "Horshack" Palillo, but even so.)  I guess I can just be glad that the regular series didn't stay in the Army.



The Blue Team contains, among others, Susan Barnes, Joie Magidow and Ruth Silveira, who previously were Adele Harrison, Fish Trainer, and Karen respectively, while Frances Peach of the Red Team was Mary before.  Doris Hess was Dolores and is Sgt. Shannon here, while Julia Payne was Charmayne and is Colonel Turner here.

"You've Pushed Me Too Far"

"You've Pushed Me Too Far"
October 25, 1979
B

In this Jeff Franklin story, Squiggy literally and figuratively pushes Lenny too far, out their third-story window in fact.  It's a bit like "Hi Neighbor,"* in that the girls have to resolve things (and Jeffrey the Stuffed Iguana returns), but it plays out differently because the characters and the show are in a different place than in Season One.

The episode opens with the girls in exercise outfits to watch an exercise show.  When they go upstairs, the boys are distracted from their fight long enough to lust after the girls and, yes, it's Squiggy ogling Shirley while Lenny bites his hand over Laverne.  But after Lenny's injury, we see different pairings.  Lenny tests Shirley's patience and love of nursing by ordering strange food (e.g. Bosco in his BLT) and requesting a sponge bath.  She reluctantly agrees to bathe the foot of his broken leg, although it turns out that Lenny's "pleasure center" is on his sole.  (McKean basically mimes an orgasm with his expressive face, and that got past the ABC censors somehow.)

McKean also shows more anger on the show since when Lenny was mad at Squiggy on "The Slow Child," although here it is longer and more personal.  He doesn't want "Squiggman" to come home, so Laverne suggests he go tell Squiggy that.  Squiggy is staying at the oft-mentioned but never before seen wax museum his Uncle Elliot owns.  Laverne is the one to encourage Squiggy to at least apologize after treating Lenny like dirt if he can't stop treating him like dirt.  I like that her plain-speaking gets through to Squiggy in a way that Shirley's sweetness couldn't, just like she probably would've either flat-out told Lenny no to his requests or performed them without Shirley's squeamishness.

Both girls are touched by the boys making up but tease them about it.  So in return, when the lights go out, the boys chain the girls up in the Horror Room.  I guess they figured out another way to get home, or maybe they came back after getting a laugh on the girls.


*At one point, Lenny refers to his Lone Wolf jacket, so I think this is meant to be a callback to "Hi, Neighbor."

"One Heckuva Note"

"One Heckuva Note"
September 20, 1979
B

Jeff Franklin wrote this episode that puts a whole new spin on the Carmine/Laverne ship-teasing.  The girls are cleaning their kitchen and Shirley finds a note behind the stove.  It turns out to be a love note from Carmine, to Laverne!  Shirley is understandably upset, so Laverne tells her, in an extended flashback, what happened three years ago, i.e. Season Two.  (Presumably when he was not with Lucille Lockwash.)

Shirley had to cover for Terry Buttafucco at Meckler's department store because Terry's dog was going to have puppies.  Shirley insisted that Carmine take Laverne in her place to the rodeo.  Both of them were reluctant but gave in.

What Shirley didn't know was that Carmine and Laverne had a great time.  And they made out in the living room.  (The white couch looks wrong, but I haven't been paying much attention to the furniture, so I can't swear to it.)  They knew they shouldn't but they couldn't resist each other.

Then the next day, Shirley talked to Laverne and Carmine at the Pizza Bowl.  (And even though it's three years ago, Laverne's father again has a mustache in a flashback, which makes him attractive to new landlady Edna.)  They felt incredibly guilty but she just wanted to tell them that it was a false alarm and Terry's dog didn't give birth yet.  Shirley wanted Carmine and Laverne to eat the home-cooking she'd already prepared, and they again gave in after now very understandable reluctance.

Laverne dressed up and Carmine told her she looked beautiful.  He brought flowers with a note that said he was crazy about her.  She thanked him but chopped up the flowers to put them in the trash.  She missed the trash with the note, which she didn't then realize landed behind the stove.

They ate dinner and did kiss and flirt, but then they started picking on each other.  They realized they weren't in love, just close friends.

Back in the present, Shirley is understandably upset, especially that Laverne never told her this in three years, but she admits she'll probably forgive Laverne in time.  In the tag, she returns from talking to Carmine, who said he didn't remember the kiss or anything but Laverne's droopy nose.  So Laverne calls up "Brillo Head" and insults him, only to find out it's a wrong number.

So what's going on here?  The episode in isolation is good, with its mix of farce and friendship and sexual tension.  It's plausible that something could've happened at some point with Laverne and Carmine, unlike, say, Laverne and Squiggy.  But are we really supposed to believe that this was in the background all this time, especially Seasons Three and Four, when Shirley and Carmine were getting increasingly possessive of each other?  How could Laverne and/or Carmine never make an aside, at least to each other, about it?  Or are we to assume that that happened offscreen, too?

Let's talk about the Season Five credits, opening and closing.  We get some fresh shots mixed in with the old, including a new door-opening sequence, and a reshot Fredna pizza-dough kiss.  At the end, we see that not only Lenny & Squiggy, but Edna and Frank & Carmine, get stills with their names now.  But Lenny and Squiggy aren't in this episode.  Or are they?

Under the Hello Rule, they should've burst in when Carmine and Laverne were calling themselves terrible people.  But that would've been hard to play off, the boys walking in on a suspicious-looking date, unless Lenny and Squiggy were so wrapped up in their own lives that they wouldn't notice the Carverne.  I could maybe see that with Squiggy, but Lenny is always tuned in to Laverne's love life.

And then there's a still I found for this episode.  Laverne is wearing the dress she wears for dinner with Carmine, while Shirley has the outfit she wore to the Pizza Bowl.  The setting is clearly Meckler's Appliances Department.  So what are Lenny and Squiggy up to and why is Laverne visiting Shirley while Shirley is covering for Terry?  Did she decide to confess to Shirley but get interrupted by the boys?  I know that sometimes Getty Images are from dress rehearsals, not actual shows, so maybe a scene was cut out for time, but it only adds to the mystery of this episode.

I also want to note that the studio audience's reactions to Carverne seem to be a mix of titillation and betrayal, their oos conflicted, like they know it's wrong for Laverne to make out with Shirley's boyfriend, especially since it might not be just physical, but at the same time, they want to see it.  Since I'm not particularly invested in Shirmine (I can take the ship or leave it), and since they are together in Season Five, I didn't see the canon relationship as necessarily threatened, just tested.  And remember that in Season Two, at least at the beginning, Carmine and Shirley were still broken up.  Then again, maybe things were different in the alternative universe where Frank DeFazio always had a mustache.  At least the way Laverne is telling the story to Shirley.

"Fire Show"

"Fire Show"
February 20, 1979
B-

This episode, written by Jeff Franklin (his first of thirteen), is not the more famous episode where Laverne dates a fireman played by Ted Danson, but rather one where the girls compete for a cute firefighter, who seems to stand Laverne up, so she goes on a platonic date with Carmine, which the boys misunderstand, so Shirley goes out with the firefighter, and then there's competitive makeouts, interrupted briefly by Anne Ramsey.  Besides some Laverne/Carmine obviously, and the reveal that, according to Shirley anyway, she's allowed to date other men and Carmine is allowed to date ugly women (which implies she definitely doesn't see Laverne as ugly), Lenny and Squiggy try to help Laverne deal with being stood up, and Lenny tickles her a lot.

Rose Michtom returns as Mrs. Kolcheck.  Note that although the previous episode was set in the spring, this one is so cold that Laverne tries to thaw out Carmine with a hug that makes Shirley suspicious.