Laverne & Shirley

It's late 50s. Working class best friends Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) are roommates in a Milwaukee basement apartment. Shirley is the sweet one and Laverne is the tougher one. Laverne's favorite drink is milk and Pepsi. Shirley has her stuffed animals like Boo Boo Kitty. They are Fonzie's friends working at the Shotz Brewery with annoying former classmate Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David L. Lander). Laverne's father Frank DeFazio (Phil Foster) owns the Pizza Bowl. He starts dating the girls' landlord Edna Babish (Betty Garrett). Their school friend Carmine Ragusa (Eddie Mekka) is a Golden Gloves boxer, singer, and dance teacher.

This popular sitcom is a spin-off from Happy Days. Over the years, there are cameos and cross-over from the mother show. The girls stay independent modern women as they search for Mr. Right. Laverne is hounded by her father to get married and have children. Shirley has a long running romance with Carmine. The sixth season starts with Frank and Edna in California about four years later. When the bottling department gets replaced with machines, the girls follow them to Burbank. They are joined by Carmine, Lenny & Squiggy. The gang is befriended by their new neighbors Rhonda Lee and Sonny St. Jacques. The show fades a little and the move to California doesn't help. California takes away the midwest working class vibe although the show continues to have fun like the earthquake.

This show is legendary for the fights between Williams and the Marshall clan. It never got into the way of the fun on screen except for the last season. Cindy Williams got pregnant and a lawsuit followed. She would miss most of the last season and is the final nail on the coffin. The girls' friendship is modeled after Lucy and Ethel especially during their physical comedy gags. The gags are always fun. I love getting hung up on the coat rack. It's silly fun.

The girls struggle to move beyond singledom. Even with Carmine, Shirley could never go off with him for fear of splitting the girls apart. That is the Archilles heel of the show. The obvious move is for the girls to have more work situations and marry them off in a double wedding. They could live in connected apartments. The show never got to that point. This is a classic girl friendship show but it couldn't figure out how to get past the single girl stage.

In the seventies, so many sitcoms were making an effort to change something, to make a point. And this show did it without anybody really ever realizing it. Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney are hardworking girls, out on thier own, putting up with men, work, neighbors, and other life problems. Laverne had her "L", on every single item of clothing that she owned, Shirley had her security Boo-Boo-Kitty, and wrote in her diary. The annoyance and sometimes utter stupidity of Lenny Kosnowski and Andrew Squiggmann just made you have to love the guys. Lenny was the soft one, who looked up to his best friend, had a toy lizard, a slight crush on Laverne, and a tough childhood. Squiggy seemed to be above the world, yet he did show emotions, if you only looked. He loved Lenny more than anything. Laverne and Shirley had their quarrels, but they were always best friends, and Shirley did finally achieve her dream: she married a doctor and lived happily ever after (much to the downfall of the series, but none the less). Laverne and Shirley is my favorite show, as you may have noticed, and there is so much to be seen in it, as there is with many comedies, if we only try to look hard enough!

Laverne and Shirley was one of my personal favorites growing up. Of course, we had reruns and repeats in those days. I loved Laverne and Shirley. They were the underdogs and perfectly suited as roommates and best friends. They were played brilliantly by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams. Unfortunately, the show never recovered after Cindy Williams left to have her daughter and who could blame her. She was happily married to Bill Hudson, Kate's father, for twenty years with two children. Penny Marshall and the gang did their best to recover but never fully did. The reason and there are many that this show was so popular was the physical antics that Laverne and Shirley got into. I don't know if I preferred Milwaukee or Burbank but the supporting cast was top notch featuring Lenny and Sqiggy who could have had their own show. The delightful Carmine as the aspiring dancer. Elaine Joyce as the beautiful neighbor in Burbank. Betty Garrett and Al Molinaro as the landlady and Mr. Defazio. The show had plenty of it's moments too and great guest stars. It's certainly still a beloved show even in repeats.

"Happy Days" spin-off about the two titled characters (Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams) and their total comedic and romantic misadventures as Milwaukee brewery workers in the 1950s and 1960s. The series seemed to work in spite of itself due to the likable leads and their ever-lasting love interests (scene-stealers Michael McKean and David L. Lander). The characters were silly, but had a reality to them that could not be over-looked. Adequate writing and above average direction were sufficient in keeping the show a ratings winner for a good eight years from 1976 through 1983. Still a show that has a strong following as it survives the years in relatively wide-spread syndication. 4 stars out of 5.

When Laverne and Shirley first debuted on Happy Days, little did anyone know that that supposed one off appearance would lead to a classic. Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams were perfect as the wild Laverne and the prissy Shirley. However, the rest of the cast deserves credit for this excellent slice of life comedy, especially Michael McKeon and David Lander as everyone's favorite losers Lenny and Squiggy. But the thing that made this show great was the fact that it was one of the all-time great slapsctick comedies.