"Here Today, Hair Tomorrow"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"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.

"Do the Carmine"

"Do the Carmine"
March 15, 1983
C

If you can get past all the anachronisms in this episode, the only one written by Jay Grossman (don't get me started on how backmasking was more of an '80s thing than '60s), this isn't bad, especially for Season Eight.  I do want to note that Rhonda is definitely nicer this season than she was in Season Six, here even offering to help Laverne make dozens of sandwiches.  And there are some nice Carmine moments, with Squiggy and Laverne.  Also, this is at least the third California episode with a Bob Dylan reference.

Oh, and while the previous episode had a couple Shirley references, this one has an exchange where Squiggy tries to hit a jukebox like "that kid we knew back in Milwaukee," and Carmine says, "Arthur?"  Not only that, but Laverne says that dancing with a broom as a teenager made her have a thing for "tall, skinny blond guys"!

Jay Leno's role as Bobby Bitts (sort of a West Coast Dick Clark) is less memorable than his appearance four years earlier as Laverne's boyfriend Joey Mitchell.

"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.

"Jinxed"

"Jinxed"
November 30, 1982
C+

While of course an improvement over the "Death Row" two-parter, the plot of this DiMarco & Ketchum story is terribly unoriginal.  (In fact, the "dog out the window" story has its own page on Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rain-of-terrier/.)  But Carol Kane is one of my favorite actresses, and I could've watched a whole episode of her as Olga, the fortune-teller who turns out to be Laverne's old classmate from Flatbush.  (If Season Eight is canon, then Laverne moved to Milwaukee at some point between the start of third grade and the end of fifth grade.)

Note that Rhonda again plays the trumpet, during an audition!

"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.

"The Note"

I'd bet $100 that this was part of the one of the school sets for The Brady Bunch.

"The Note"
October 19, 1982
B-

I like this episode, too, the penultimate one written by Judy Ervin Pioli.  It offers a nice blend of humor and sentiment, with a sense of history that a writer less familiar with these characters probably couldn't have managed.  That said, it is the first episode without Shirley, so it's got a bittersweet feeling.

I literally got chills watching the opening credits, like I'd been slapped across the face with a time machine.  When the multi-ethnic group of children marched across the screen chanting the girls' rhyme, it all came back to me, that initial jolt of What??? in October of '82.  Then Laverne was dancing by herself, doing a bunch of stuff from earlier seasons by herself, while the lyrics were still in the plural, while Shirley was still in the title.  The rest of the cast do appear later, with and without her, but it was a shock to the system, then and now.

And there were lines I remembered, like Squiggy's tasteless one about "incense."  I vaguely remember the plot that Shirley's left, with a short, impersonal goodbye note.  Laverne is hurt and angry.  Her friends, who are apparently of the "if your dog dies, get a puppy" school of mourning, send over potential roommates.  But only when Laverne finds the rest of the note, a couple pages' worth, can she move on, honoring nineteen years of best-friendship, ten years of living together.

And the episode sends out random romantic signals like ships that are lost at sea.  Squiggy pursues Rhonda (of course), Lenny pursues Rhonda (more surprising, but not totally new), Frank doesn't pursue Rhonda (thank God).  Lenny wants to dance with Laverne but she chooses Carmine.  Squiggy suggests (with Lenny's full approval naturally) that Laverne move in across the hall.  And the Lavmine ship is teased but more subtly than when Shirley was actually around.  Yet, Shirley wrote about Carmine in her P.S., something Laverne couldn't share with her father, the boys, or Rhonda.

Not shippy per se, but the reveal that Lenny has been telling Squiggy an installment of a bedtime story every night for eight years certainly shows some devotion.  (Note that Lenny has broken out the Bullwinkle pajamas from "Road to Burbank," so he does actually own them and they weren't just a product of Squiggy's imagination.)

The casting of Laverne's potential roommates is interesting.  Julie Brown returns, this time as Patti.  Penny's sister, Ronny Hallin, plays the Laverne-like Maxine.  (Yes, there's an Andrews Sisters joke.)  Bag Lady Kathryn Fuller was Ernestine at the Vegas wedding chapel.  And frequent director Tom Trbovich plays Tom.  (This episode's director, Gabrielle Alice James, wouldn't do any other directing.)