"A Date with Morky"

"The last time I was here, I caused a big problem, too."  Right spang in the middle of the premiere of Mork & Mindy on September 14, 1978 came the ultimate Marshallverse crossover, and it's time to talk about it.  "About 20 bleems ago" (which is 40,000 years ago, but OK), Mork was on Earth to "visit his friend the Fonz."  Never mind that Mork tried to abduct Richie, threatened to destroy Arnold's for fun, and succeeded in stripping Ralph Malph down to undershorts.  Or that "it was all a dream."  It's Retcon City.  And after that initial visit, Mork apparently befriended the Fonz enough to get dating advice.  And who better to practice on than Laverne DeFazio?

MORK: Are you interested?

MINDY: Oh, definitely.

MORK: Then prepare time-warp sequence.

In what I presume is 1960, the Fonz is house-sitting for the Cunninghams, who are on vacation.  (Earlier in that week, Fonzie and the Cunninghams went to a Colorado dude ranch, and M & M is set in Colorado, but that's probably a coincidence.)  The Fonz gets annoyed that a girl calling for Richie doesn't respond to his charms.

An egg lands in the yard with sound effects, which Fonzie assumes are Ralph trying to be funny.  He's startled to find Mork on the doorstep.  Fonzie assumes he's dreaming, but Mork says previously he had to erase Fonzie's memory to preserve his sanity.

Mork is puzzled by the ritual of "men dating women."  Maybe he observed a bit of this at Arnold's.  Anyway, that's the set-up so deal with it.  They briefly discuss gender on Ork, which is retconned from before but whatever.  Fonzie describes kissing as a boy and a girl sliding their lips together.  Mork wants Fonzie to introduce him to a girl, but Fonzie says it'll be difficult.  Mork suggests that the two of them slide lips.  Fonzie's not going for it.

Mork says Fonzie is "known throughout the universe for his expertise in this field."  The flattery works so Fonzie sends Mork upstairs to change into Richie's clothes.  The Fonz says it's a good thing Mork didn't land at Potsie's house.  (Which I kind of want to see now.)

Fonzie considers various chicks, including the Hooper Triplets.  Then he thinks of the perfect one and dials.

The next scene opens with Laverne, in one of her signature outfits, coming by the Cunningham abode and yelling at I think the bus driver, since she came by bus.

The audience understandably applauds, Fonzie greets her with a kiss, she shows off her outfit, and we go to commercial.

When we return, Laverne asks if this Mork guy is tall, dark, and handsome.  Fonzie says Mork is a foreigner.  In her Brooklyn whine, Laverne says she doesn't like foreigners because they talk funny.  Fonzie is going to have to convince her more.

He tells her that Mork is from Ork and has her wait outside while he briefs Mork on American customs.

Mork reenters in plaid, jeans, white socks, and penny loafers.  He and Fonzie discuss kissing a little more, and then what Lenny would call Mork's "pleasure center" appears to be on the wrist.  Even seeing Fonzie touch his own wrist sends Mork into what the captions describe as "ecstatic gasping."  Mork tells of how the zazbot once overcame him to the point that he "jerked her earlobe."  Mork sobs in shame and Fonzie holds him.  (And poor Henry has to try to keep from laughing at Robin.)  

Laverne says Fonzie's two minutes are up and she comes in.  And worlds collide!

Laverne and Mork look at each other like they like what they see, or at least he imitates her body language.  She winks at Fonzie approvingly as she strolls over to "Morky."  He gives her the "Nanu-nanu" greeting and she gives Fonzie a look like What have you set me up with?

Fonzie tries to excuse himself out of the room but Laverne asks if he "fixed her up with another jerk."  (What other jerks has he fixed her up with?)  Mork starts dancing The Jerk, which is circa 1964, so that probably further puzzles her.

Laverne tells the Fonz she washed her hair for this and ironed her skirt.  He reminds her that Mork is a foreigner and doesn't know their customs.  She'll stay if Mork won't jerk.  Then she sprays on perfume, while Fonzie advises Mork to do what Laverne does, since "she knows the ropes."  Fonzie heads upstairs, laughing about what Mork said about ropes.

Laverne asks Morky if Ork is near Greece, so he starts talking about grease and other lubricants.  (Honestly, this episode sounds naughtier than it is when I type all this out.)  

MORK: Is it time to flatter you?

LAVERNE: Sure.

MORK: You have a lovely fungus growing out of your head.

He explains and she says, "Yeah, I always wear mildew when I wanna impress a guy.  What did Fonzie do to me?"

He asks if it's time to kiss.  She says no and has him sit on the couch.  So of course he sits on his face.  Laverne really can't believe this.  They both sit "Fonz-style."  He sits too close so they move to opposite ends of the couch.  He copies her body language.  

She thinks he's making fun of her and threatens a fat lip.  He feels rejected and "returns to hatchling state."  She tells him, "Don't suck your finger.  Your teeth will end up like mine."  She feels sorry for him and offers to be his friend.  Unfortunately, she touches his wrist.

He wants to jerk her earlobe, an act which appears to be called "gangnab."  She kicks his ankle so he kicks both of hers.  He chases her around the living room.  She says she liked him better as a baby.  He grabs her earlobe when they're behind the couch, so she slaps him and runs upstairs, yelling, "Fonz!  Fonz!  He wants my earlobe!"  He tells the empty room, "I think she likes me."

Back in present-day Boulder, Mork is still lusting after Laverne's lobes and says he just wanted to tweak them.  Mindy says that's what got him into trouble last time.  And that's the end of the crossover.

I don't like the rapey undertones, but I do like how Winkler, Marshall, and R. Williams play off of each other in this minisode.  Never again would more than two Marshallverse casts get together (not counting real life of course, like for baseball games), but this is a good melding of the three different tones of the shows, although we're sort of back to the brassy Laverne of '75.  And I guess we can be glad the Fonz didn't fix Mork up with Shirley.

"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.

"Blansky's Beauties," Episode Number Eight

"Nancy Meets Laverne" aired on April 9th and here's a running commentary (time-marks may be approximate):

00:17 "I'm Laverne DeFazio and tonight I'm one of the Blansky [sic] Beauties."

02:00 Written by Roger Garrett and directed by (once again) Jerry Paris.

02:18 Scott Baio hits on Lynda Goodfriend again, with his character being twelve as a selling point.

04:14 Marvin the Bellhop returns.

04:46 Shirtless Eddie

05:25 Flashback begins with the "Welcome Milwaukee Visitors" tower.

05:31 "1957" appears on the screen!  So Laverne is nineteenish, right?

05:47 Nancy, with a '50s hairstyle but otherwise not de-aged is greeted in her hotel room by Frank DeFazio.

06:00 Frank is smoking a cigar!  Also, he's running the benefit that she's in town for.

06:30 "Incidentally, my daughter, Laverne, is a good dancer, you know."

07:38 Laverne walks in and of course the crowd goes crazy.

08:10 Laverne is starstruck, by Nancy.

08:50 Nancy was a big Broadway star?  How did I miss that earlier?

09:35 Laverne wants an autograph for her "best friend, Shirley Feeney."

10:10 Laverne is imitating Señor Wences.

10:44 "I just got my first part-time job, down at the brewery."  So it was only part-time then?

10:50 They started her off as a barrel-roller, but she hopes to be promoted to either bottle-capper or labeller.  Also, she's taking a stenography class.

11:02 Nancy offers her a job as secretary.

13:00 Penny and Nancy have decent comic chemistry together and I wonder what they could've done with stronger material.

13:43 Laverne offers to drive Nancy to the rehearsal hall, although she admits she drives "not real good."  Canonically, Laverne at this point is afraid to drive and does not yet have her license in '57.

13:46 Laverne admits she can't drive at all.

14:40 "Pfister Convention Center Sons of Sicily Benefit for Underprivileged Children"

14:43 Frank is hosting.

16:16 Nancy's dance partner, a male butcher, can't go on because his shop caught on fire, so it'll have to be Laverne.

16:57 When Laverne reluctantly agrees, she asks if she can sew an L on the costume.

17:27 Fortunately, the costume fits perfectly.

17:33 "Nancy Blansky and my little muffin."

17:44 "Fit as a Fiddle" from Singin' in the Rain

19:32 Nancy invites Laverne to Vegas, which of course would've eliminated Laverne & Shirley.

21:05 Laverne doesn't want to go to Vegas.  She's going to stay in Milwaukee and work in the brewery.

21:34 Laverne plans to get a roommate and move out and then meet a fella and move out to get married and have a family life.  But by this point, more than six months after graduation, Laverne should be living with Shirley already, according to not-yet-aired canon.  And we know it would actually be "...Get fired from the brewery, move with my roommate and our best friends to California.  And then she'll marry a guy completely covered in bandages, get pregnant, and she'll move out."

22:51 Back to the present.

23:14 Joey has to decide if he wants Cochise more than dancing.

23:33 Joey bites his hand!

23:50 Nancy encourages him to take a break from dedication.

24:42 Nancy gets eaten by an inflatable raft.

Maybe a C+, I don't know.  Not bad for this series, but not on the level of Season Two of LAS.

"Here Today, Hair Tomorrow"

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"Councilman De Fazio"

"Councilman De Fazio"
May 3, 1983
C

What it says on the tin: Frank runs for City Council and, after seeming to lose badly, wins.  And Laverne spends most of the episode home with mono, so she's not involved much.  However, it's nice to see Squiggy get the girl for an entire episode and perhaps beyond.  And Mary the waitress gets at least her second line of the series.  (She had to say something the time Mr. DeFazio accidentally locked her in the restroom overnight.)

Dottie Archibald plays Reporter Karen and was Mrs. Swisher last season, and in fact co-wrote this episode with Francis T. Perry Williams, who had played a Policeman earlier in this season; and Phil Foster, who'd written another episode about his character in '78.  TV Anchorman Wayne Powers had three previous minor roles on this series.

"How's Your Sister?"

"How's Your Sister?"
March 1, 1983
C-

In Roger Garrett's last L & S story, Squiggy's younger sister Squendelyn (yes, Lander in drag) visits from New Jersey, after her marriage to a man named Arnie ends, so Squiggy fixes her up with Carmine, for $200.  Carmine reluctantly takes Squendelyn to a Hollywood party, where he's hit on by a succession of very '80s-looking beautiful women.  The episode of course isn't particularly funny, and it wants to have it both ways, with Squen mocked for her looks but then in the end admired for her "inner beauty."  Still, it's interesting from a biographical standpoint I guess, and both Squigman siblings gets the best of the dialogue, like that she's on the Pill!

"Please Don't Feed the Buzzards"

"Please Don't Feed the Buzzards"
February 22, 1983
B-

 “Hey everybody, I found a new script! And this one’s funny!”— Tom Servo talking about a treasure map on the Catalina Caper episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000

Lenny is back and we can laugh again!  (Then we can cry because it's McKean's last appearance as Lenny until reunion shows and such.)  In Andy Goldberg's only and Cheryl Alu's second of two L & S scripts, Lenny and Squiggy find a treasure map and soon they and Carmine and Frank are wandering aimlessly in the desert, fighting, drinking, and bonding.  The episode doesn't make a lot of sense, although by Season Eight standards this is icily logical, and the chemistry is good.  I laughed a few times and smiled a lot, and that heavy weight lifted off my chest for twenty minutes.

Shipping notes, a mirage of Rhonda as a harem girl makes Lenny drool, but he does say goodbye to Laverne before returning to the desert, presumably for the next forty days and nights.  Also, it felt completely in character for Squiggy to use Lenny as a pack-mule and drink all the water when he lets Lenny have all the peanut butter.  Family notes, a drunk Frank says Squiggy is the son he never wanted, which Squiggy says is what his own father said, while Carmine's anecdote about his dad makes him sound poor but joking.

Wayne Powers has his third of four L & S roles as Gus.

"The Ghost Story"

Remember Laverne & Shirley?

"The Ghost Story"
February 15, 1983
C-

Kenny Wolin & Barry Bleach's only L & S script makes no attempt, as just about every other episode has, to pretend to have any connection to reality.  As such, it's somewhat interesting, and it does offer what feels like a lot of the remaining regulars (five!), but yeah, it doesn't work.  Laverne's apartment is haunted by an Olympic-losing ghost (Richard Karron, who was Robert A. Markland in '77), therfore, the only solution is to recreate the 1932 Olympics in her living room so that the ghost can stop possessing her.

Note that Suzi must be even more "frigid" than Shirley, since Carmine gets excited about holding hands with both Rhonda and Laverne during a seance.

Jeannetta Arnette, who plays Marianne Vimvoli, the actress that Squiggy tries to give the casting couch treatment to (on Laverne's couch), would get her long-running gig on Head of the Class three years later.

"Short on Time"

"Short on Time"
February 8, 1983
C-

Frank DeFazio confides his marital woes to a chimp, as Laverne realizes the importance of family while singing with the Spinners.

Oh, you want me to go on?  OK, in Jack Lukes's last L & S story, Laverne has three different demands on her night, none of them romantic for a change: an invitation from Rhonda passing on a chance to sing with the Spinners, a request to baby-sit "Chucky, Jr." (and if you didn't guess that the presumably single Chuck* was talking about a "monkey," then you've probably never watched a slapstick sitcom in your life), and a chance to finally talk to her father about why he's recently decided he hates women.  So her solution is to have her father chimp-sit while she goes to the concert.  Then when she gets home, she finds Frank's conveniently dropped "Dear John" letter from Edna and discovers what her pop has already confided in Chucky, Jr.: Edna has left him for a jockey.

Quite frankly, the writing is a mess.  You've got three threads that might've worked individually but don't work together here, comedically or logically.  Even a detail like Laverne inexplicably being in her Cowboy Bill's waitress uniform (when we last saw her in the padded red gown she sang in, and before that it looked like the the costumer character ripped the blouse off her so that she's probably missing buttons) shows that no one really cared anymore.  And what about the thing with Carmine's girlfriend Suzi (the same Suzi as on the Jim Belushi episode?) being offstage and stupid?  What's that about?  I'd guess it might be in service to Lavmine, but on this episode and the "ulcer" one, Laverne and Carmine bicker more in a sibling kind of way than a romcom "They are obviously meant for each other" kind of way.

And, oy, really, show?  That's how you're gonna belatedly deal with the "absent Betty Garrett" situation.  I understand that due to Cindy W's unexpected early departure, this plot had to be pushed back, but with only six episodes to go, why tarnish Edna's image like this?  She deserts Frank and it has to be treated like a joke, because you know, jockeys are funny, amirite?

Anyway, the Spinners are pretty good of course, and this is far from the worst episode, but it is a mess.

Oh, calendar note, I almost forgot.  I couldn't see the month or year, but I did get a look at the calendar in the kitchen that has the 24th and the 31st on Sundays.  In 1967, this only fit December.  Awww, Edna left right before Christmas! 


*This is the last Chuck episode, so maybe he got beamed up at the Star Trek convention.  And don't ask me why there are already Trekkies in '67, when that show didn't become a cult until after it was cancelled.

"The Fashion Show"

"The Fashion Show"
February 1, 1983
C+

The last L & S episode written by Al Aidekman and Marc Sotkin, and the next to last written by Roger Garrett, has potential it doesn't live up to but, yes, it's not bad for Season Eight.  Laverne's fashion photographer boyfriend, Mike Bailey (Larry Breeding, as presumably the same character he was on "Window on Main Street," although this Mike has been dating Laverne only four weeks), has to flatter and flirt with his models, so Laverne gets very jealous, despite his reassurances.  Inevitably, she has to cover for the model she makes quit, and it goes disastrously, or does it?  Note that Mike likes Laverne because she's "real," and yet she never confesses that the chicken dinner came out of a fast-food bucket.

Speaker Kit McDonough, with her distinctive voice, was Julie the Stewardess in "Airport '59."  Guard Robert Arcaro was a nameless Man the season before.  This time Anjelica Houston plays Miss Paris, although I didn't recognize her.  And Joanna Kerns is unmistakable, if miscast, as spoiled model Monique, a couple years before Growing Pains.

"The Rock and Roll Show"

This isn't helping Laverne's ulcer.

"The Rock and Roll Show"
January 25, 1983
C+

Maybe I'm so beaten down by Season Eight that I sort of liked this episode, even if there's something a little heart-breaking about an episode with this title not only missing Michael McKean but with Lander soloing in the opening credits.  (And Squiggy isn't even in it that much.)

In Jill Gordon's third and final L & S story, Laverne encourages Chuck to pursue music because of his harmonica skills.  (Fleischer's harmonica had perked up a dreary final-season Welcome Back, Kotter episode four years earlier.)  He recruits a bunch of science geeks from work, played by Jack Mack and the Heart Attack, and it's up to briefly Carmine but mostly Laverne to teach these nerds how to rock out.  That they achieve only at best a sort of Huey Lewis and the Far from Headline News isn't her fault.  And don't get me started on the stadium audience that looks like it's from 1957 rather than '67.

Promoter Bob Perlow had written three episodes but this is his only onscreen appearance on L & S.  Former writer Chris Thompson does his only directing gig on the series, here in the post-Bosom-Buddies phase of his career.  Note that IMDB claims that "Weird Al" Yankovic is uncredited as the keyboard player, but I don't buy it, especially since the keyboardist looks too tall and not really anything like WAY would look in the "Ricky" video from later that year.

"The Baby Show"

Just a thought: couldn't Laverne have claimed to
be, say, three months pregnant?  Who would know?

"The Baby Show"
January 18, 1983
C

Judy Pioli's last L & S script is OK I guess, especially for Season Eight, but when it gets to the point of a divorced Sgt. Plout giving birth on top of a coffin, you know that any resemblance to reality (even sitcom reality) has long been abandoned.  Still, any episode that jokes that a baby looks like Squiggy is going to make me smile.  Oh, and I'm not sure if Alvinia having to bathe a pig doll is a reference to the L & S cartoon, but I'm going to assume it is.

Besides Lawrence's farewell to L & S, this is the last bow for other repeat guest stars.  Timothy Blake's third and final role on the show is Gail, Neil Thompson's fourth and final is the Funeral Director, William Sumper's fifth and final is Morry, and Lynne Marie Stewart's seventh and final is Marsha.

"Defective Ballet"

"Defective Ballet"
January 11, 1983
C+

Nick LeRose soloed on this not-bad-for-Season-Eight (and not-bad-for-LeRose) episode, where Squiggy has a lookalike, a defecting Russian ballet star.  Not that the plot makes much sense even as such plots go, but it's kind of fun to see Lander in a dual role (and credited separately), and I thought Laverne and Ivan were cute together.  Also, it is interesting to see Squiggy struggle to tell Laverne thank you in the tag.

Note that when Squiggy hears that his wife is coming in, he first thinks of Lenny.  It is instead his doppelganger's wife, Viviana (Wendy Cutler, who was Mrs. Plout in '79, presumably no relation to the Sergeant), who Squiggy is happy to make out with.  Cutler posted a one-minute video from this scene in 2014 and it is still up there as of today.

Paul Willson, who's Kovitch, had appeared twice as the girls' old classmate Eraserhead.

"The Monastery Show"

"The Monastery Show"
 January 4, 1983
D-

Damn.  This episode.

Deep breath, I'll try to unpack this without going into great detail.  (I don't know if I can sit through it again for actual quotes.)  The episode begins with Laverne going to Confession for the first time in fifteen years, which is nonsense.  Are we supposed to believe she hasn't gone since she was 13 or 14?*  Without Frank noticing?  What about the time she was going to have a church wedding to Sal Molina and it was Lenny who hadn't been to Confession in three years?

Wait, forget continuity.  Let us talk about the Queen of Flanderization.  Laverne has run to church from the pier, in a torn outfit, after waking up on an aircraft carrier, which was after getting blackout drunk.  And all the sailors saluted her and said, "Oh, Baby!" as she left.  If this was "consensual," this goes well beyond her kissing 2000 sailors goodbye when Bobby Feeney shipped out.  And if it wasn't consensual, oh God!

No one in the entire episode, which admittedly includes a lot of nuns who have taken a vow of silence, ever suggests that maybe, perhaps Laverne is a victim of gang rape.  Instead it's a question of whether she's a "good girl" who made a mistake or an irredeemable "bad girl."  Laverne herself wants redemption, so, on the priest's advice, she checks into a convent.  (Not a monastery, which would be an even stranger episode.)

The nuns play football (offscreen), some of them roller-skate and sing (the St. Andrews Sisters, ha ha, no, that's really a joke in the script by people I'm not going to let get away with just a parenthetical mention), and they all do pottery.  But they mostly don't talk, except when the plot calls for it.  Laverne, who somewhere took on the trait of klutziness**, makes a shambles of things of course, including when she decides to turn bell-ringing into an excuse to do a Quasimodo imitation (comedy gold, I'm tellin' ya) to the tune of "Frere Jacques," causing the far too obedient nuns to randomly wash, eat, sleep, and make pottery.

I mostly watched with my jaw dropped, but when Sister Margaret (Louise Lasser, post-Mary-Hartman and even post-Alex's-wife-on-Taxi) got a spotlight for her speech to Laverne, and then Laverne got one for her speech to God, I snapped, "What is this, Our Town?"***

Mother Superior Fran Ryan was on a lot of shows, but is probably best known as Arnold the Pig's "mother" on Green Acres.  That series looks like Shakespeare compared to this episode, with its story by Ken Sagoes (first of two), Nick LeRose (who also co-wrote "Death Row: Part 2"), and teleplay by Jill Gordon (middle of three) and Ed Solomon (last of three).  Ken, Nick, Jill, and Ed, I'm sure you're not bad people.  You're just good people who wrote something really bad.  And Brother Garry, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to direct your kid sister's humiliation.


*On the Adam West episode, she was suddenly 28 again, although she must be 29 by now.

**Remember in Season One when Shirley was Klutzy, while Laverne was Gutsy and their future nun friend Anne Marie was Nutsy?

***For the record, I've never seen a production of Our Town, but throwing in this bit of staginess somehow took me even further out of the episode.

"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.

"Of Mice and Men"

Chemistry?

"Of Mice and Men"
December 7, 1982
C-

I almost went with a C for this episode about Laverne's new boyfriend, "Wheezer" (28-year-old Jim Belushi, several months after his big brother John, and Penny's old friend, died) but I have issues with it, and I think there is some sloppy writing.  Susan Jane Lindner (who'd do the final episode) and Jack Lukes (who'd also write one more) came up with the story, while Jill Gordon (who'd do two more) and Ed Solomon (on his middle of three) did the teleplay.  I'm not sure who's to blame among these relatively inexperienced L & S writers, but why, for instance, are we introduced to Carmine's girlfriend Suzi and not told anything about her?  Is this the woman he conveniently fell in love with while Shirley was getting engaged to Walter, or has he already moved on?  She has a few lines, but she's basically a prop, since they needed Carmine and Laverne to be on a double date.  If Carol Kane can give 150% to a fortune-teller role, why couldn't they get someone to at least offer something besides bland good looks?  And not to pick on poor Delyse Lively, but the series had had a lot of recognizable stars on recently, so why not bring back Carrie Fisher and at least give Laverne a female sounding board again?  (Even Rhonda is absent this time.)

So let's pick on poor Jim Belushi instead.  By this point, he was already the veteran of two failed sitcoms.  (One of them, Who's Watching the Kids?, was Garry Marshall's reworked version of Blansky's Beauties, still with Scott Baio and Lynda Goodfriend.)  He knows how to act in this world, but unfortunately he's been saddled with two insurmountable problems.  One is, his character is a "wimp"* and is ashamed of being a wimp.  Even when Laverne tells him she likes him for his other qualities, he doesn't believe her.  And frankly, neither do I. 

Don't even ask me what the other two guys represent.

I suppose it's not Belushi's fault, or Penny M's since she's certainly trying hard, but there is no chemistry between Wheezer and Laverne.  (Sorry Wheezerne shippers, I call 'em as I see 'em.)  I could more easily believe that Laverne wants to make out with just-friend coworker Chuck.  I can buy Wheezer as Laverne's not particularly close buddy but that's about all.  And it's not about looks, because he's probably about equally as attractive as Jay Leno, and I bought that Laverne would put on a Southern belle act for Joey.

And then, I don't know if this is sloppy writing or just the series' ambiguous attitude towards Lavmine, but Wheezer has a dream where he not only is an extreme wimp, but he has to fight for Laverne against Carmine.  And this plays out as an Apache dance, so Laverne's own boyfriend ships them sadomasochisticly!  Season Eight, sigh.  (I know, I know, it's just an excuse for Penny and Eddie to dance together, but couldn't they have found another pretext?)

Murphy Dunne has his third and final L & S role, as Gonzague.  Director Paul Sills has almost no other IMDB credits.


*I'm willing to bet cash money that "wimp" was not in wide popular usage in the 1960s, certainly not on the level it was in the '80s, when it was applied to a wide range of men from Woody Allen to Alan Alda to George Bush, Sr.  Merriam-Wesbster Online claims it was first used in the 1920s, but I don't even recall it in the '70s.  Yes, there was Wimpy in the Popeye cartoons of the '30s and later, but he wasn't really "wimpy" in a modern sense.

"Death Row: Part 2"

"Death Row: Part 2"
November 23, 1982
D

Well.  This episode.

This is simultaneously worse than Part 1 and capable of more entertainment than its predecessor.  And Lenny and Squiggy are somehow the best and worst aspects of the episode.

In Nick LeRose's second of four L & S stories, Laverne and Sheba are now on Death Row and going to be executed at midnight of the following day.  They aren't allowed last phone calls because "Smith and Jones" already had their phone calls.  Luckily, sort of, Lenny and Squiggy like to visit women's prisons.  (If I recall correctly, this was actually a hobby of theirs in at least one early episode.)

Newman as a Valley Girl in '75

They are very surprised to see her and she's so happy that she tries to hug them through the bars, causing them to accidentally kiss.  (Lenny remarks, "See, I told you she was a good kisser.")  Laverne wants them to deliver a note to her father, and they're reluctant!  Squiggy fears Mr. DeFazio's violent temper and won't touch the note with a ten-foot pole.  Lenny says he's just "a six-foot Pole" so he can deliver it.  (OK, I laughed at that line.)

Still, even when the guys are sitting at Cowboy Bill's, they hesitate, so of course Mr. DeFazio gets understandably violent with Squiggy when he finally finds out.  He goes and gets a judge, who suggests running a match on the fingerprints.  Laverne is released and (Lavmine shippers take note) carried from the car all the way up to her bedroom when she's sleepy.  Why is she sleepy after almost dying?  Who knows?

At least it makes more sense than her joining in the gospel number with the black priest and the black prisoners.  Not that the song is "bad," I mean, it's well sung (except by Laverne and the monstrous Anne Ramsey, who was a nameless Lady in '79 and here plays Killer), but this isn't like the song at Frank & Edna's wedding, which worked surprisingly well.  This musical number actually made me cringe more than Laverne teaching the other inmates the "Schlimiel!  Schlimazel!" song and dance.

Screw Lavenny!  Fourteen-year-old Rebio had a new ship!

The episode ends with Lenny and Squiggy, who had raided Laverne's refrigerator and assumed she was dead even when Carmine carried her in, wondering what her still being alive will do to "the funeral."

No wonder I have much fonder memories of the Square Pegs episode that week, where Johnny's New Wave band, Open 24 Hours, debuted.

"Death Row: Part 1"

"Death Row: Part 1"
November 16, 1982
D+

Sigh.  This episode.

When I thought of Season Eight before this project, this was one of the episodes I thought of, although my main thoughts were "Laraine Newman" and "anachronisms."  Well, yes, this episode has both, but I can see why I blocked the rest out. 

At fourteen, I had the feeling that the whole "RALPH" (Radical Action for Love, Peace, and Happiness) thing was at least five years off, feeling like a satire of the Symbionese Liberation Army.  Like Patty Hearst in 1974, Laverne joins a radical group, but she's not kidnapped but is instead hungry for friendship and male companionship.  Even more than joining the Playboy Club, this episode shows how lost Laverne is becoming without Shirley as her conscience.  At a certain point, I had to question her intelligence, and her street-smartness, especially when, even in the midst of a bank robbery, she doesn't get that these people are not her friends.

The comedy, such as it is, becomes unsettling, even when Laverne is again imitating Marlon Brando and Eleanor Roosevelt.  Even a slapstick armed robbery is an armed robbery.  Still, I was willing to just say that this was one of the worst episodes ever, not the absolute worst, until we got to "Smith and Jones."

Ben Powers on Good Times

Laraine Newman (who I usually liked and still like) has been playing her character throughout the episode as some sort of hippie Valley Girl.  (She says "gross me out" at one point.)  Then we get to the police station and, even though Sheba has betrayed Laverne and never seemed that bright to begin with, Laverne follows her example by giving a false last name.  (They, or at least writers Braunstein & Perlow, are so lazy they don't even bother with first names.)  These just happen to be the names of two female prisoners who are about to go to Death Row.  So let's not bother with fingerprints or paperwork, OK?

All that said, I didn't hate the episode.  It has a certain surrealness to it, in all its details, and it puts Carmine in a corncob costume and Rhonda in a "Mexican bride" costume (and has her speak in a Swedish accent).  But I can't say I waited with bated breath to find out Laverne's fate the next week, and I'm not now racing to watch Part 2.  But I'll get it over with, I promise.

Bank Manager Garry Goodrow previously played Mr. Caulley.  Doris Hess, who was Dolores and Sgt. Shannon before, would return in Part 2 as Kluger.  Ben Powers, who's Aaron, the leader who does celebrity impressions, would play Rick West in the final episode.

"The Playboy Show"

"The Playboy Show"
November 9, 1982
C+

Laverne, who lost her Bardwell's job after turning into a chicken in the store window and who is already bored with her aerospace job, applies to be a Playboy bunny, befriending fellow applicant Cathy (Penny M's real-life friend Carrie Fisher).  Squiggy is part of the audition process, having to harass the women, although he's unable to harass Laverne under pressure.  (He's apparently licked her arm multiple times when she's asleep!)  Hugh Hefner plays himself.  The episode isn't hilarious, but it has cheesecake and Fisher sings "My Guy."  (I guess it was worth paying for music rights to keep a plot-related song on the DVD.)

Ed Solomon would write two more episodes, but Joan Marks was done after this.  And Michael McKean directs his only episode for the series, although Lenny does not appear.

"Lost in Spacesuits"

"Lost in Spacesuits"
October 26, 1982
C-

I don't know that this unfunny and uninteresting episode, Barry Rubinowitz's last, would've been better with Shirley, but maybe she would've perked up the Laverne's birthday party scene.  At least the wire-work is decent for its time.  This episode introduces Laverne's spacy (pun intended) coworker Chuck (Charles Fleischer, post-Welcome-Back-Kotter, pre-Roger-Rabbit), who'd be back three times.