"The Survival Test"

"The Survival Test"
March 11, 1980
C

Richard Gurman's only L & S story, which inspired the Aidekman & Garrett teleplay, has Sgt. Plout return from Greenland and get the girls to agree to help her prove that WACs are capable soldiers, by dropping them into the snowy wilderness.  There were moments when I thought this was a shade better than the first Plout episode, including Lawrence's material (like her tale of a "brief and brutal affair"), but it was hard for me to get past the fact that L & S were in this situation only because of Plout, including her dropping the bag with their food into a river! 

Note that the rest of the regular cast doesn't appear in this episode, except for Laverne's hallucination of Lenny and Squiggy in shorts and offering her a fifteen-pound turkey.  Also, this is at least the fourth episode this season where Laverne refers to "monkey nerves," although this time Shirley cures them with a banana.  Freud would probably have more fun analyzing this episode than I did.

"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.

"Murder on the Moose Jaw Express: Part 1"

"Murder on the Moose Jaw Express: Part 1"
February 26, 1980
B-

So ABC came to its senses and moved Laverne & Shirley back to 8:30 on Tuesdays, and gave us a two-parter.  (Not a one-hour special, since Part 2 would air the next week.)  They also threw in an array of C-list celebrities that the studio audience was thrilled to see and I was, well, dumbfounded, because, sure, Charlene Tilton, Scatman Crothers, and Wilfrid Hyde-Pierce, it's the Love Boat era so why not, but I was actually spluttering about Conrad Janis today, because ABC had booted him off Mork & Mindy and he'd only been recently been brought back to M & M.  So who knows what I thought of this at 12, other than, Yay, my Tuesday night lineup is back!  (Also airing that night, the episode with Jack Tripper's brother, and Joanie and Chachi's first date!)

Anyway, in Richard Rosenstock's first of two L & S stories and Jack Lukes's first of four (although he had acted in a couple episodes already, which I'll retroactively tag), the girls have won a slogan contest, where the first prize is opening a brewery in Canada.  And the second prize, won by Lenny and Squiggy is, um, also a trip on the train to Moose Jaw?  Oh well, I'm not complaining of course.  The boys are prepared to solve a mystery because they're on a train, and "lucky" for them, a man gets stabbed and dies in the girls' surprisingly spacious compartment, but not before warning them about "the bald man" and passing Secret Microfilm (TM) to Shirley.  But before the boys can find the culprit, Shirley drinks poisoned cocoa and falls to the floor.  TO BE CONTINUED....

Roger C. Carmel would return as the Waiter in Part 2, while Charles Pierce would again be MacGuffin (you see what they did there?), while somehow Shelley Lipkin, who had recently been the Poet on the beatnik episode, would be back as "The Dead Man."

"The Collector"

"The Collector"
February 11, 1980
B-


John Byers and Linda Segall's only L & S script became a teleplay by Frank Alesia and Jeff Young, who also didn't write for L & S again (although Alesia would play Marty a couple years later, so I'm tagging him), but it's pretty good for a collaboration of newbies.  Carmine again wishes he could buy nice things for Shirley, and to a lesser extent for Laverne, so he gets a job working for a loan shark.  Pacifist Shirley makes him see the immorality of this.  The episode is also notable for the girls doing backup for Carmine at the Pizza Bowl, all of them in sparkling blue, and for some more Carverne, mostly on her side, as she kisses him for his gift of a watch and later ogles the beefcake in a towel.

Billy Sands previously was Holms and is Waldo here.

"Why Did the Fireman?"

"Why Did the Fireman?"
February 4, 1980
B

Roger Garrett wrote this episode where Laverne falls in love with a fireman named Randy Carpenter (32-year-old Ted Danson, still a few years away from Cheers).  The two are infatuated on their first date, and then we jump ahead a couple months and he's ready to propose.  But they keep being interrupted, and then he dies in a fire before he can keep their date.  So, while Danson is fine in the role, we don't really get to know much about him or their romance, and this is more about how Laverne and her friends react to his death.

It's an interesting touch having Lenny and Squiggy be the ones to break the news to Laverne.  We've seen on previous episodes that the boys love to play fireman, and here they're happy to tag along to the fire.  But they are broken by Randy's death, yes, even the usually less emotional Squiggy.  When Laverne cries, "I love you!", Lenny reacts as if she's talking to him, but he's actually not jealous of Randy, and in fact tells Laverne that they liked Randy.  She thinks it's a sick joke, and the boys have been established as having sick senses of humor, but she should realize that this isn't something they would joke about.  On some level, she does realize that, but she has trouble moving out of the denial stage of grief, even when Shirley tells her.

Edna, who I assume has just been divorced, never widowed, doesn't know what to say, but Frank does, because he has also asked why about the loss of a loved one.  He tells Laverne he's never lied to her, so when he says it, backed up by a newspaper story about Randy's heroic death, she has to believe it.  Penny M. of course does great with the range of emotions, but the supporting cast, well, supports her. 

My favorite scene is actually when Randy tells Carmine and Shirley about his plan to propose, swearing them to secrecy, and Shirley can hardly contain herself.  This is very different than "Falter at the Altar," where Shirley didn't approve of Laverne marrying Sal Malina after two months, although there the problem was that she knew that Laverne wasn't in love with Sal.  Here she is thrilled about Laverne's romance, although clearly jealous of the public displays of affection.

I don't know what, if any, fallout the loss of Randy will have on Laverne in the remaining three and a third seasons, but I do know that Laverne will fall in love again, but probably never with this much openness and trust.

"The Right to Light"

"The Monkey on one side and the Jerk on the other"

"The Right to Light"
January 28, 1980
C+

Kenny Rich wrote this episode that begins promisingly enough with the girls giving dance lessons to "the Jerk and the Monkey."*  Then the lights go out and the guys cry, "Double makeout!"  Most of the rest of the episode is set at the power company, where a computer error has led to the girls' power being shut off.  So they have Carmine chain them together, which puts naughty thoughts in his head, especially since Laverne also wanted him to bring peanut butter.  Then it turns out a mad bomber has left a cheesy-looking bomb, so the girls have to get out of this mess.  In the tag, Laverne has started to keep a diary as well, but she's less wordy.

Although it has nothing to do with this episode, I just want to note that Laverne has been using her camera a lot this season, not just on the "shotgun wedding" episode.  Also, L & L and S & S of course pair up for the dance lesson, and in fact Laverne agreed to teach the boys to dance because Lenny put his "little head" on her shoulder.  (No, not that little head.)

Frank and Edna are both absent again.  Richard Stahl, who plays the Clerk, was in pretty much everything, including the movie Beware! The Blob, although I don't recall any scenes with both him and Cindy W.  (This is actually his middle of three roles on L & S.)


*For those keeping track of anachronisms, the dance called the Jerk came out in '64, while the Monkey was popular the summer before.  I suppose it doesn't really matter, since the record on the girls' player is pure disco.  Surprisingly, the calendar at the gas & electric office is clearly February (28 days long), with the 1st on a Thursday, which in fact is correct for 1962!

"The Beatnik Show"

"The Beatnik Show"
January 21, 1980
B-

Al Aidekman wrote this story where Shirley dabbles in the beat lifestyle, well, to the extent of performing at a coffeehouse and reading books on philosophy.  Laverne feels left out and she decides to confide in Lenny, perhaps because she's by now learned that he can be surprisingly insightful about people.  While Squiggy sits at the other end of the couch, unable to read a comic book and listen at the same time, Lenny recalls a time when Squiggy had new friends and Lenny felt left out.  He reassures Laverne about her friendship with Shirley, and says that, although he wouldn't admit this if Squiggy was there, he "loves that little guy," and he knows she feels the same about Shirley.  It's a sweet little Lavenny scene and of course Marshall and McKean play it well, with Lander interjecting about the comic book to keep it from getting too sentimental.  In fact, this is one of those episodes that is good enough that I wish it was better, but I'm just not sure how well it all gels.

Carmine is absent, although it would've been interesting to get his take on Shirley's personality change.  Shelly Lipkin is a nameless Poet here and would later be the Dead Man.  Doug Cox, here the Birthday Boy, would be Zwick.  Paul Kreppel, who plays Rafael, would spend much of the '80s as Sonny Mann on the sitcom It's a Living/ Making a Living.  And, yep, that's Art Garfunkel as the Mighty Oak (a few years before his romance with Penny).

"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.

"Not Quite South of the Border"

"Not Quite South of the Border"
January 7, 1980
C

So a new decade dawned and ABC realized that it had been a mistake moving Laverne & Shirley over to Thursdays, so they shifted the girls over to...Mondays?  I was an ABC sitcom loyalist well into the '90s and I can't think of any of their shows I ever watched on Mondays.  I'm guessing, but Mondays that season I was probably watching Little House on the Prairie on NBC, with occasional WKRP over on CBS.  I have absolutely no memory of this episode from the time, even as a summer rerun.  But maybe that's because it's not very good.

The idea in this story, the only one written by Susan Seeger, collaborating with Deborah Leschin, isn't a bad one, with the girls taking a cheap vacation in "Near Mexico," although if they'd taken Frank's advice to visit Laverne's grandmother in Brooklyn again, I'd have been perfectly happy.  It's the execution of the story, with timing of dialogue off and the physical comedy not really working, although I can see everyone, including the special effects crew, throwing themselves into it, as I listen to the studio audience roar with laughter like it's a classic I Love Lucy episode or something.  I didn't find the episode painful or anything, and I of course liked the stuff with Lenny and Squiggy wanting to stow away in the luggage (with Lenny almost eating Laverne's garter belt), but as with the "army" special, I just don't see the point of this episode.

Billy Sumper's middle of five L & S roles is as Lou, while Neil Thompson's second of four is as Fred Frick.  And Peter Elbling's final "foreign" role on the show is as Jose.  Carmine is absent, although you'd think he'd want to see Shirley off.

"Testing, Testing"

"Testing, Testing"
December 13, 1979
B+

Kenny Rich, who'd do one more episode, wrote the story and Chris Thompson did the teleplay, but I'd like to think the cast had input on their scenes, because there is a freshness and insight here that has been sorely lacking this season.  In fact, this is arguably the funniest L & S episode ever, and the only reason I won't go A- or higher is because Shirley-Cindy is the weak link.  Not that her stuff is bad but it is a bit of a falling off.

I thought that the plot was going to be about Laverne's work injury, both hands cut on bottles, but that's treated almost like the kitten subplot in the recent Angora Debs gang episode, present in multiple scenes but not the focus.  Instead the workplace is subjecting employees to psychological tests, first on paper and then oral.  We don't see the written part but we do hear that they had to draw houses, although poor Laverne's looked like a cow.  Squiggy drew a slum and Lenny copied off of him, while Shirley drew a dream home with no people, just dogs.

The scene of the four of them in the waiting room has wonderful chemistry, the performers playing off each other like the best of sketch comedy, but with almost an improv-going-well feel, too, and some of the lines do sound like ad libs.  I'm going to pretend, unless I hear otherwise, that Marshall, Williams, McKean, and Lander worked this out in rehearsal, keeping the best bits.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Gentry (Charles Thomas Murphy, who would return in the role), calls them in one by one, in reverse alphabetical order.  I particularly had to rewind the episode for Lander's bit because I was laughing so hard, like when the doctor asks if he's paranoid and Squiggy answers, "I'm German."  Lenny's bit is funny, too, of course, like the sincere question "Are you the Wizard of Oz?", but McKean infuses some of the pathos underneath, like when Lenny talks about his childhood and says the other kids made fun of him because his mother abandoned him and his father smelled like fish.  Shirley does her best to seem happy and normal, but she's of course trying too hard.  Laverne wins the doctor over with her humor and attitude to life, like how she's an "adjuster," making mistakes but adjusting them into wins.

When we return to the break room, the four coworkers are discussing the tests and then Dr. Gentry comes in, leading to a triple spit-take by Squiggy, Shirley, and Laverne.  Lenny takes out goggles and drinks some more of his coffee.  It turns out that Dr. Gentry is writing a paper, and he reads the the conclusion to the foursome.  They expect to be fired, but it turns out to be a celebration of the working class, their resiliency and their loyalty as well as their hard work.

And then in the tag we find out that Carmine's "house," which represents his personality, shows silhouettes of either himself and Shirley in lewd positions, or of Ozzie and Harriet in lewd positions.  Mekka is given the last line, about Ozzie finally taking off his sweater, and he sells it.

He also made me laugh in the scene where the girls are talking about the tests and Laverne denies that she always thinks about sex, while Shirley indicates she never thinks about it, which Carmine vouches for.  Laverne asks the psychiatrist if he thinks it's OK to kiss on the first date, and he says sure, so Laverne reports, "He told me I could go crazy on my first date."  Squiggy laughs and says he loves it, and Lenny, yes, bites his hand. 

And earlier in that scene, Lenny asks, "How's your little hand there, Laverne?"  When he emerged from his session and revealed that he lacks confidence, Laverne got up and lightly stroked his chest with one of her bandaged hands, calling him "you poor lug."  So, if my theory is correct that the cast had input, then I think we can credit Marshall and McKean for some of the Lavenny as well.

Frank and Edna are absent but not really necessary in this episode.

"The Fourth Annual Shotz Talent Show"

"The Fourth Annual Shotz Talent Show"
December 6, 1979
B-

Chris Thompson's writing is a little weak here, with characters meta-discussing, talking about what they need to discuss, too much.  But Carmine & Edna do a nice "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the girls put on Scarlett O'Hara dresses and gold disco-wear, and best of all Lenny & Squiggy do the hard-rocking "If Only I Had Listened to Mama,"* as well as a funny running commentary on the finale.  Oh, and this time Frank has ventriloquist dummies that look a little like Laverne & Shirley.

Valorie Armstrong played Cookie before and is Bernice this time, while William Sumper was a Concessionaire before and is Milo here.  Squigtone W.G. Snuffy Walden would go on to write the theme for Roseanne, among many other shows.  The actor who does the voiceover for Mr. Shotz isn't credited but I definitely miss Harry Shearer's version.


*The line "She said you better wear your rubbers or you're gonna catch your death" sounded a lot different in the pre-AIDS era.  (Rubbers as in galoshes, although then again, who knows with McKean's subversive humor?  Maybe it was about gonorrhea.)

"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.

"Bad Girls"

"Bad Girls"
November 8, 1979
B-

Barry Rubinowitz wrote this episode where the girls help Mrs. Babish's teenage niece join their old group the Angora Debs (and we get another rendition of the song), but it turns out to be more of a gang now, given to stealing and vandalism.  This episode contains kittens, more Sea Hunt references and of course Lenny and Squiggy in drag.

Uh, yeah, about that.  So first of all, '70s drag for laughs, it's a definite thing on ABC sitcoms.  We already had Laverne and Shirley in Lenny and Squiggy's clothes and I suspect that Squiggy is in one of Shirley's outfits since they're about the same size.  Lenny is more obviously wearing at least Laverne's top, since it's got an L on it.  Generally, this sort of thing hasn't aged well, although it's not bad here until the tag, when the girls joke that the guys are teases for leading "big spender" sailors on and now have to "face the music."  The "half-ladies" seem perfectly comfortable in drag, but I assume we're meant to chalk this up to their general perversion and weirdness, as well as a sort of innocence that even Squiggy has, not pre-sexual but not fully mature either.  Obviously, no one was meant to analyze this at the time, and you can tell that the makers of the show are just having fun, as in the credit card at the end for "Lenore" and "Squendelyn."  (Bizarrely, there's a 1983 episode where Squiggy's sister visits, and she's named Squendelyn, and I'll try to figure out the canonical explanation for that when we get there.)

Judy Ervin returns as Terry Buttafucco, who we learn (or relearn) works on the loading docks.   It feels a little odd to not have Big Rosie as one of the ex-Debs to show up, and I'm pretty sure Terry wasn't a member before, but oh well, retcon.  This time Tracy Reiner, now 15, plays Carole.  Elizabeth Daily, who's 18 here, would still look youthful enough to play Loryn in the movie Valley Girl four years later.

"The Wedding"

"The Wedding"
November 1, 1979
B

Paula A. Roth wrote this episode that doesn't have much of a plot but is nonetheless sweet and at times very funny.  Although we just had a "wedding episode" a few weeks earlier, this time the wedding is for real and for an actual canonical couple.  Frank proposes to Edna, a month after he booked the church, and a day after waking up the girls in the middle of the night to get Laverne's blessing.  Edna doesn't mind this when he does finally awkwardly propose, but she thinks it's a bad omen when a funeral bumps their wedding off the schedule.  She's had five postponements and five bad marriages.  Frank, who's having a bachelor party with the guys (either because he has no friends his own age or because would you wanna party with Uncle Fungi?), reassures her.

Laverne is great about everything.  Although she was initially thrown off by the ship (whatever she may tell Shirley in the flashback to when she and Carmine made out and she was happy to introduce Edna to her father), she is thrilled for Pop, and she accepts Edna into the family with a little speech that's so heartwarming that Edna almost cries.  Sentimental Shirley is of course also delighted, and the two girls do what they can to plan the wedding.  They even find another church for the wedding, a black church.

I braced myself for cringey humor, but it actually works, even Laverne and Shirley singing with the choir.  And of course Lenny cries at the wedding, because he's just as sentimental as Shirley.  So we're going to just ignore the bad omens and forget what we know about the future of Fredna's marriage.

"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."

"What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?"

"What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?"
October 18, 1979
B-

Bobby Feeney returns in this Very Special Episode written by Chris Thompson and Gary H. Miller (the only L & S script by Miller).  It's a nice touch having Shirley's favorite brother, and the only one we've "met," as well as someone that Laverne is fond of, be the one who is alcoholic, so that the message is more meaningful.  (And knowing that Cindy Williams's father was an alcoholic adds to the poignancy of Shirley saying that "Daddy" was an alcoholic, too.)  I'm just not sure how well the sword-fighting and Lenny and Squiggy's silly costumes fit in with that.  Note that Mrs. Babish gives serious advice for the first time in awhile, since her third husband George had a drinking problem.  We also see the return of Shirley's "Dear Diary" in the tag, and even Laverne singing "Rubber Tree Plant" to encourage Shirley, who doesn't think it's applicable in this situation.

Confusingly Lynne Marie Stewart does in fact play Barbara Tedesco here, but she was definitely a different Barbara in "Hi Neighbor, Book 2," no matter what IMDB says.  She's an ex-classmate here but would be a different ex-classmate in her next, and final, L & S role three years later.

"Upstairs, Downstairs"

"Upstairs, Downstairs"
October 4, 1979
B-

Alan Aidekman's story of the girls dreaming about the results in the afterlife if they return or keep a $56 check for a mistaken refund from the phone company is pretty well done, with Shirley's dream of Heaven followed by Laverne's nightmare of Hell.  But the two things that most amused me have little to do with the moral dilemma.  When Laverne finds out she's going to be the Heaven bus driver but with no bus, she doesn't mind when she sees her hunky passengers.  Watching it today, I burst out into raucous laughter, because they look like two-thirds of the Village People!  I'm not sure if it would've had that association in '79, or how much the mainstream knew that the VP were very gay, but the subtext is glaring now, like the "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?" number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

And this is the episode that my then-future-ex-husband would quote for years out of context.  We got together in '84 and I assume we later saw L & S on cable a bit (I do have Lenny's "In Love with Laverne" song on videotape), but even if we hadn't, I'd probably have been able to place "You bought a Hubba-Hubba Heiny??" back in context.  Remember, a big butt was not yet bad in American white culture (that came in during the '80s), and it's plausible, if ridiculous, that Shirley would order such an "enhancement" in the '50s.  Laverne and the studio audience were very amused, and I still am.

Dick Shawn's tendency to overact serves him well in the triple role of Gatekeeper for both Heaven and Hell and Phone Company Representative.

"Fat City Holiday"

"Fat City Holiday"
September 27, 1979
C+

I'm not a fan of the two-friends-go-to-a-health-spa-run-by-psychos plot, as seen on Ellen in '95 and (much worse) Roseanne in '96.  In this case, in Roger Garrett's story, Laverne and Shirley aren't even customers, they're trainees, so they have even more reason to leave.  Still, the Lenny & Squiggy appearance helped, and I did smile at the sequence where the girls break into the locker filled with forbidden food.  Note that this episode is set over Columbus Day Weekend.

In the Three Degrees of Garry Marshall game, Donovan Scott, who's Rollo here, would the following year appear as Castor Oyl in Robin Williams's Popeye.

"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.

"Shotgun Wedding: Part 2"

"Shotgun Wedding: Part 2"
September 13, 1979
B-

So, ABC, in its infinite late-Carter-era wisdom, broke up their winning Tuesday night lineup, taking Laverne & Shirley  out (replaced by Angie, which I admittedly liked) and over to Thursdays at eight o'clock, which sent Mork & Mindy to Sundays, which....Sixth-grade was tough enough without my network loyalties being tested like this.  And yet, yes, I do vaguely recall both parts of the "shotgun wedding" from the time, and a crossover two-parter would've been enough for me to tune in almost 48 hours later, rather than just after these messages.*

Judy Ervin wrote Part Two and it is an improvement over Part One.  (Also, Lavenny shipper that she is, she has Lenny overhear the proposals and prevent the wedding.)  I was leaning towards a B until we got to Fonzie ex machina, at his own wedding!  As with the dance contest episode, I can see Ron Howard visibly perk up when give other material to work with and other characters to interact with, and Richie is especially fun to watch in his first scene in this episode with L & S, whether reacting to Laverne slapping him twice in the face with a dead fish ("You girls live in a rough world") or proposing to both girls in quick succession, and still willing to pose for shutterbug Laverne in the midst of explaining that he has to get married because he and the Fonz are in trouble.

The episode actually starts out with Al Delvecchio's "previously."  (Or is he perhaps Father Gucci from L & S's Season One, explaining what he learned in Confession later?)  We get scenes of the L & S gang settling into the campsite that Fonzie recommended, interspersed with Richie running, before he actually shows up, and presumably the warm-up guy back in July or August of '79 explained the set-up, but the studio audience is delighted to see Ron Howard enter.  The stuff with the regulars is fine, of course the part with Lenny and Squiggy, explaining their plans to use duck puppets to trap ducks for their duck circus, being the highlight.  In fact, Lenny peeks out of a "wigwam" and McKean gamely (sorry) does reaction shots with his puppet.  So at least the boys showing up with Carmine, Frank, and Edna later makes sense.

The girls agree to pretend to be engaged, and Richie leads them back to the farm.  Richie boosts the girls over the fence and Laverne warns, "Watch the hands, Cunningham."  As he and Shirley hold hands to look engaged, Laverne calls for Fonzie, who enters bound and on a donkey.  The girls and the guys plan to leave after announcing their engagements, but Helga and Inga challenge Laverne and Shirley to a square-dancing contest, with H & I's four female cousins as the other pairs.  Of course things get a little rough, but Laverne fights back and fights dirty, impressing Fonzie.

The girls want to free the guys (Richie now has his hands tied, too) and leave, but the farmer says he's sent for a preacher, so the four of them will have to get married.  When we go to the next scene, Laverne is cheerfully thinking about the wedding night, especially since Fonzie is "real sexy and Italian."  Shirley now tries to look on the bright side, since Richie is a "college man" and "he probably keeps his room very tidy."

Laverne brings up Carmine, who early in the episode she said Shirley was lucky to have, since he was hauling everything out of the car and to the campsite.  Shirley says Carmine will understand, "and I'll explain things to Lori Beth."  Carmine will understand?  This is the same guy who (admittedly accidentally) hit her just for going to the opera with an older man!  As for Lori Beth, I'm fuzzy on this, but wasn't there an episode where Richie "cheated" on her and they had to start their relationship all over, including introductions?

Fonzie looks surprisingly calm and happy, but Richie requests, "Shirley, if our first baby's a girl, can we name her Lori Beth?"  She sensibly replies, "Richie, could we possibly talk about this some other time?"  (And again, we see more subtlety in the writing for her than we got on Part One.)

Laverne wants to know if she'll be known as "Mrs. Fonzie" and her groom tells her that "they're gonna call you the Fonzess," so she feels like she's marrying into royalty.

When the minister asks if there are any objections, Helga and Inga speak up but their father shushes them.  The minister asks the guys if they take Laverne and Shirley.  Richie answers first and solemnly says, "I do," to Shirley's delight.  Fonzie calmly says, "Me, too."  Laverne looks like she's thinking of the honeymoon again.

The minister asks if the girls take Fonzie and Richie.  Laverne nods eagerly and quickly says, "I do!", but Shirley makes a little speech out of her vows.

The minister is wrapping up when Lenny and Squiggy announce their arrival with duck calls.  The girls seem annoyed to be saved, and then the farmer shoots his shotgun, causing Lenny and Squiggy to flee for protection from Hilda and Inga.  (Squiggy and Hilda, the more brazen one, look particularly friendly for the next minute or so.)  Carmine, Frank, and Edna also arrive.  Frank doesn't want his daughter marrying without his permission, and Carmine feels the same about Shirley, who is impressed by his "forcefulness."

The farmer won't listen to any of the girls' friends, so Fonzie says he's tired of being polite and he breaks the ropes and takes the gun.  Couldn't he have done that an hour ago?  Why lead on poor Laverne with that "Fonzess" talk and all?


The Fonz recommends that the farmer take lessons from Mr. DeFazio on how to be a better father, dubious advice but they've got to resolve this somehow.  Fonzie frees Richie and everyone is happy, except the girls, who feel used and cheated out of a wedding.  They settle for a wedding photo, with everyone including the minister.  Laverne poses with her groom, but Carmine yanks Shirley away from Richie.  Yeah, I'm sure Carmine would've totally understood Shirley marrying another man.



*This is, I believe, the end of the HD/ L & S crossover saga.  At season's end, Richie would leave Happy Days for quite awhile, and the girls would soon find it difficult to return to Milwaukee, but I think it was also that that era, for Garry Marshall, for sitcoms, was coming to an end, just like the '70s were going to morph into the '80s.  We're not there yet, but this is an interesting last hoedown.