"Studio City"

"Studio City"
December 2, 1980
C+

We now get completely Californized credits, both opening and closing, and I do remember being incredibly confused at the time by the New Year's 1965 sign in both.  Was it already '65 or would it be when 1980 turned?  Since the girls are mostly supposed to have graduated in '56, wouldn't that make them 27 in '65?  And wasn't Troy Donahue a has-been by '65?  Well, maybe that's why he's starring in a cheap caveman picture.

Yes, Donahue plays himself in this episode (written by Richard Rosenstock), wearing a very early-'80s-looking mustache, although no one notices of course.  The girls get jobs as stuntwomen, not through Sonny, although he does show up on set.  They are playing the "village virgins," and Laverne says it's a little late.  (So she stopped saving herself during the time-skip?)  Rhonda annoys Laverne and me.  And that's about all I have to say, except that the Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank (STAB) is now a thing and would continue to be for awhile.  I guess Lenny & Squiggy had to earn money somehow after running out of ice cream.

Doug Cox, who was the Birthday Boy on the "beatnik" episode, here plays the director Zwick, an obvious shout-out to Joel Zwick (who had moved on to Bosom Buddies and It's a Living).  Frank and Edna are absent, as is of course Carmine (for now).

"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."