"A Date with Shirley"

It is now time to look at the "Laverne & Shirley" portion of the November 11, 1975 Happy Days episode, "A Date with Fonzie."  My Happy-Days-specific review is at https://relivinghappydays.blogspot.com/2021/03/a-date-with-fonzie.html.  Here's what we can cull for (or maybe against) LAS canon:

• The episode aired in November of 1975, in the middle of HD's third season, and yet there are Valentine's decorations up at Arnold's.  That Richie and Shirley's second date will be "eleven and a half months" later, and Richie is still magically a seventeen-year-old high school senior, only confuses the issue.
• As Fonzie is dialing Laverne & Shirley's phone number, he tells Richie that these girls don't know the word no.
• We don't hear the girls' half of the phone call, but Laverne answers and then Fonzie has her put Shirley on so Richie can say hi.
• Fonzie gives them the invitation and then hangs up.  They apparently know where Arnold's is, or can find out.
• Fonzie describes Shirley as "a very cute girl," but "not your usual type of girl."  She is a little bit older than Richie, and "wouldn't give him a hard time," if you get his drift.  And she's "a good sport."  I suppose it could be argued that he means that she'll be kind to Richie and maybe make out with him.  Or Shirley hasn't yet regrown her hymen.
• The girls don't look drastically different than they would in their own Season One.  Laverne even has an L on her blouse.
• She loudly calls Fonzie "Fonzie" and he greets her as "DeFazio."
• Shirley quickly snuggles up to Richie, her head on his shoulder, which would become a signature move, sometimes preceded by the Shirley Shimmy.
• Richie, who's wearing a tie and a handkerchief, helps Shirley off with her coat.  He is probably more of a gentleman than she's used to, even in later canon.
• Laverne takes off her own coat, which she'd wear on her series.
• Shirley thinks Richie is nice and is impressed by the tie, but she resents Laverne's hanky remark, which will have, if you think about it, long-ranging consequences.
• This Laverne apparently can drive but doesn't have insurance, which shocks Richie.
• Shirley is relatively more lady-like than Laverne and at least excuses them so they can argue in the ladies' room.
• Laverne and Shirley are "a little more boisterous than Fonzie likes," and actually he does seem to prefer the quieter types, like Paula Petralunga.
• Fonzie tells Richie that Laverne and Shirley don't usually get along and they fight.  (If my theory is correct that Shirley was putting on an act for Richie, Fonzie must've been in on it.)
• The girls yell and then when Laverne emerges, she says she held Shirley's face under the sink.  The subject of the argument was Laverne's "crude" remark about Richie's hanky.
• Laverne scares Potsie and Ralph since they keep staring at her, although can you blame them?  (She'll scare Potsie more pleasantly a year later.)
• Laverne calls Richie "Red," as I believe she would in subsequent crossovers.
• Shirley is in a slinky black dress with a broken strap.
• She again rests her head on Richie's shoulder, perhaps for comfort this time.
• Saturday night is the girls' big night out, and hitting each other "gets their blood up," if you get Fonzie's drift.  Richie is understandably dubious about this.
• On their way out of Arnold's, Laverne fusses with the fallen "dip" in Shirley's hair, while Shirley brushes her off, which feels very them.
• Laverne is happy to get some alone time with Fonzie, but not if it's in the kitchen.  (It's in his "penthouse," as he calls it.)
• On the way out the back door, Fonzie says, "I respect you, Laverne."  Take that as you wish.
• Shirley calls Laverne a bimbo but her best friend.
• She puts Richie's arm around her.
• She works at the still-nameless brewery as a bottle-capper.
• She doesn't mind taking off her sweater before she finds out that Richie's cufflink is hooked in it, but she doesn't want the sweater damaged, since she just bought it at the dime store.
• Once the sweater is safe, she puts her head on Richie's shoulder again.
• He's nervous, so he goes to get her beer, pretzels, and chips.  She's agreeable to whatever he suggests.
• While he's in the kitchen, he asks about the fight.  She says she told Laverne she has "a mouth like a sewah."  She recreates the argument and refers to Laverne's "chubby little hand."
• The punch, by the way, is spectacularly timed, and the audience of course goes crazy, especially when she offers to "kiss the boo-boo."
• Having his family come home in the middle of it is icing on the cake.  Shirley's first impulse is to try to fix her broken strap.
• I love that Richie's parents shake hands with Shirley in the midst of the chaos after Richie introduces them.
• Shirley calls out to Laverne, who probably can't hear her over the sound of Fonzie breathing heavily and playing Johnny Mathis.  (I assume.)
• Shirley is sympathetic, Richie apologetic.
• With sensitivity that we wouldn't expect from a gum-chewing bimbo, she knows that Richie was pushed into this and says that if he wants to go out again, he can call her, so she'll know it's his idea.  (Ironically, she'll call him.  Although I assume they see each other on the upcoming HD crossovers this season.)
• He clearly does want to go out with her, despite this disastrous date, and she says a girl would have to be "nuts" to not want to date "a cute kid" like him.  Showing confidence for the first time this episode, he asks for a goodnight kiss, and she tells him, "You bet!"
• The kiss lasts over ten seconds and must be quite a good one, since someone in the audience whistles, and Richie hides part of it by closing the door.
• Shirley is going to make Laverne hitch home.  One hopes Fonzie gave her a ride on his motorcycle.  (No, that's not a euphemism.)

So, yes, this is not The Girls As We Know Them, but then again, with hindsight, I can see why the characters developed as they did.  And, yes, I still ship Richie/Shirley.  Despite their different backgrounds, they have things in common and she is indeed the right girl to give him back his confidence, while he treats her like the lady she wants to be.  And, clearly, they enjoy kissing each other.

As for Laverne and Fonzie, well, that would morph into something less earthy, but their relationship four years later in the "Shotgun Wedding" two-parter is not all that foreign to this episode.

"I Wonder What Became of Sal?"

"I Wonder What Became of Sal?"
November 3, 1981
B-

In the only episode written by co-creator Mark Rothman after Season One's "The Bachelor Party," after ten [sic] years, Sal Molina returns (and is again played by Paul Sylvan).  As in the previous episode, the girls are dealing with the past, and there are in fact three flashbacks to "Falter at the Altar."  (The DVD copy is missing four or five minutes though, I think due to music rights, since there's a line referencing Laverne playing oldies trivia.)  Sal is still handsome, kind, and single, as well as now rich.  He's also still in love with Laverne, but she has to face that he still doesn't "give her goosebumps."  (Nothing against Sylvan but he's a little bland, without the sexiness of a young Ted Danson or even Ed Marinaro.)  To a lesser degree than the previous episode, this episode is about the girls' friendship, as Laverne wonders if she was wrong to take Shirley's advice.  Note that Frank regrets the loss of his "nine-year-old grandson."

Dan Barrows, who plays Carlisle, was Bill on the "Haunted House" episode.  Lenny and Squiggy are absent, but it would've been interesting to get their take on all this.

"The Bachelor Party"

"The Bachelor Party"
February 3, 1976
C+

G. Marshall's co-creators Lowell Ganz and Mark Rothman wrote this episode that I find cruder and less funny than the premiere, although still interesting, with the obligatory heartwarming moment, as Laverne says that Shirley is the best friend anyone ever had.  Jerry Paris directed, for the only time, although he'd done eighteen episodes for The Odd Couple, and this episode arguably does have more of an OC feel and plot.*

While Mr. De Fazio is in New York to attend his 94-year-old uncle's funeral, he leaves Laverne in charge of the Pizza Bowl.  It's implied here that she's an only child, and that she thinks he would've rather had a son.  We also find out that Shirley has brothers, although not how many.  But the episode is more notable for the introduction of Foster as Laverne's father, and Mekka as Shirley's, um, I still don't know after four decades.

Carmine "Big Ragoo" Ragusa is not the Carmine I remember.  He's rougher and tougher, although he does sing the title line of Tony Bennett's "Rags to Riches."  He comes across as a not-too-bright boxer, although he does, as Fonzie puts it, "have tender feelings" for Shirley.  It's hard to tell if they're a couple or if she's just his "Angel Face," and to be honest, I never was clear how serious their relationship was.  In any case, he chivalrously comes to her rescue after Laverne pressures her into coming out of a cake at a bachelor party being hosted at the Pizza Bowl.

Fonzie is the one throwing the party, and he's in this episode more than in the debut.  He guilts and kisses Laverne to get her to fill in when the scheduled "cake girl" can't make it, but, as we learned in the previous episode, Laverne is a Size 10 while Shirley is a Size 5.  (I don't understand '50s sizes.)  The party is for a character whom we'd never see or presumably hear from again, but he's just the excuse.  It's more notable that Harry Shearer, Landers and McKean's Credibility Gap comedy colleague, does his first of six cameos on the show, as the Announcer.  (And he apparently had an uncredited role in The Robe during his kid-actor days, so I now suspect that the reference to that movie in Episode One was a sort of in-joke by DLL & MMcK, who did some uncredited writing for L & S.)

Speaking of Lenny and Squiggy, they are at the bachelor party and seem already acquainted with the Fonz, although not exactly friends.  I did spot a sort of Lenny/Shirley shipping moment, but a leering one, as Lenny says he "has feelings" for Shirley, too, because of her "cake girl" outfit.


*He would direct the Happy Days half of the "shotgun wedding" crossover night.