"The Gymnast Show"

"The Gymnast Show"*
December 14, 1982
C

Monica Johnson, who contributed the classic "Honeymoon Hotel" episode and a couple others, here bows out with a not very original but not terrible story.  Laverne dates a gymnast, really a trapeze-artist, played by 54-year-old Adam West, which made me sort of wish the episode had been about Laverne on a Batman episode.  Instead, Edgar Garibaldi is obsessed with his dead ex, who looks like Laverne.  But it's OK, because he's not actually a killer.  Whew!  Oh well, the costumes and sets are good and I was mildly amused.

Note that in the tag, Rhonda fixes up the not-yet-abandoned-by-Edna-according-to-airdates-rather-than-production-order Frank.  DeVera Marcus, who previously was a Reception Nurse, here is Esmerelda the bearded lady.


*IMDB has this as just "The Gymnast," but in this form it marks the second Season Eight episode, after "The Playboy Show," of several with this title format.

"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.

"Honeymoon Hotel"

"Honeymoon Hotel"
February 22, 1977
B+

There's no depth to this Johnson & Cohen story, like there was in "Look Before You Leap," but it is an utter delight, from the opening scene rich with Lavenny fodder to the girls getting away with a scam, OK, thanks to Rosie.

Laverne is letting the guys watch From Here to Eternity with her, since their TV isn't working and hers is.  (Presumably the one she won dancing with Richie.)  She is sitting very close to Lenny on the couch and keeps reaching for the popcorn on his lap, and, yes, you could fit four people on that couch, as on "Playing Hooky."  Squiggy is in the room but upset about a relationship that soured.  Laverne complains that the popcorn is unbuttered, so Lenny mocks her but he nonetheless goes and gets a stick of butter and a knife.  And he proceeds to butter every single kernel that he hands her, while she's oblivious!  This is funny and in a weird way romantic.  (Well, Lavenny is by definition almost always weirdly romantic.)  Not only that, but when Laverne reacts to the famous lovemaking-on-the-beach scene, Lenny says, "He ain't such a much.  He didn't even remember to bring a blanket to the beach."  And yet when Squiggy says that the whole world is out on a date and Lenny gives her a look, she reminds him that he and Squiggy are only there because of the TV.

There's also a moment that is inadvertently Lenny/Squiggy, when they both try to put an arm around Laverne and instead touch each other.  Laverne notices, they don't.

The TV announcer draws a name to win a honeymoon weekend at the Hotel Pfister (a hotel mentioned in previous episodes) in beautiful downtown Milwaukee.  The winner is Miss Shirley Feeney, who is out on a date with someone we never see.  The announcer calls the apartment and Laverne answers and has to pretend to be Shirley, with the guys rooting her on.  Shirley comes home towards the end and Laverne and the guys race out of there without seeing her.

This is not an episode where there's a voice of reason saying, "You can't cheat the hotel out of a weekend's stay in the honeymoon suite."  Even the sensible Mrs. Babish rolls in (with Lenny's help) a garment rack with her five (!) wedding dresses.  Carmine agrees to put on a mustache and carry Shirley over the threshold for a publicity photo.

Unfortunately, as the girls discover after Carmine returns mustacheless to the dance studio, it isn't going to be just one photo op but a series of pictures taken throughout the weekend.  They are going to have to bluff their way through this "honeymoon," while still having a good time.  And they do, from setting off the musical bed to throwing a party with Big Rosie and a circus.  Just being in a fancy hotel is a thrill for these working-class women, and I love the line, "Laverne, this must be how Liberace lives!"  We're rooting for them and, yes, Rosie redeems herself by bribing the hotel manager.

In the tag, Laverne almost says what she often does, "Doesn't your balloon ever land?" but then she stops herself.  And she reveals that she's stealing the heart-shaped toilet seat!  The manager, after bribery, has a very '70s line about "who are we to say what's right and what's wrong?"  For once, the sentimental Garry Marshall touch is gone and we get something more anarchic, more Marx-Brothery, yet in its own way lovable.

On his way out, seeing Squiggy "in love again," this time with the bearded lady, Lenny kisses Laverne on the top of her head.  So, yeah, the episode has Lavenny, but it should be noted that there's some Shirverne, as when Shirley accuses Laverne of trying to abandon her on "their honeymoon" and Laverne dresses in drag (including the mustache) to try to pull off the ruse.  Heck, we even get Rosie/whatever the bodybuilder's name is, as she embraces her inner bimbo and forgets about her husband Ogden (who's at a proctologist convention elsewhere in the hotel).

Gary Shimokawa unfortunately wouldn't direct any other L & S episodes.

"Buddy Can You Spare a Father"

"Buddy Can You Spare a Father"
February 15, 1977
B-


This story, written by Monica Johnson (her first of four) and Eric Cohen (his first of two), is perhaps the saddest one so far.  Shirley's father, Jack, has traveled the world in the Merchant Marines, but he's in town and soon borrowing money and disappointing Shirley's hopes of spending time with her "daddy."  (As with Shirley's mother, we'd never see him again, although that makes more sense in his case, especially since her mom lives in California.)  Since Shirley sees the good in people, she continues to believe in him, even when he sells off her funeral plot, and she goes to a dive bar (on Squiggy's advice!) just to show him how fun she is.  The warped record of "Daddy's Little Girl" is a nice symbol of the dysfunctional relationship.  Meanwhile, Laverne, the comparative realist, hates seeing her friend go through all this and even has a censor-baiting line about Mr. Feeney being "full of it."

The shipping notes are again odd here.  Lenny goes grocery shopping with Laverne (offscreen), but she later says that he insisted on her pushing him in the cart.  Squiggy, while Shirley is removing nail polish that his manicurist date put on his hands (!), finds himself in the unaccustomed role of confidante, hence the suggestion that she go hang out with her father at the docks.  She listens to Squiggy because she's drinking cooking sherry, for at least the second time this season.  (It will later be revealed that her father has a drinking problem, adding another melancholy note even to the comic relief in this episode.)

Speaking of Squiggy, he says that his stepfather used to lock him in the closet, and his only friends were the moths.  That sort of explains his interest in moths in other episodes, although it figures that his backstory is going to be tragicomic in this episode.

Bartender Jack Perkins played a Patient the previous year.  Ray DeVally, Jr., would direct eight more episodes.