Why was Laverne & Shirley popular?

I watched it when it was a hit and even I couldn't tell you.

Stupid shows can be popular.

It came from a simpler time, when at most you had three TV channels to pick from (maybe four with PBS and five if you got an independent station). I watched and enjoyed it when it first came out, but can't imagine watching a single minute of it today.

It really was the lowest brand of comedy imaginable. Never even remotely funny.

But as R3 says, people didn't have much of a choice back then. There was always only one or two really good comedies on TV -- Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family -- at a time. The rest was just dreck, appealing mostly to Deplorables.

Because it was completely mind-numbingly, insipidly stupid, which as we saw in 2016 appeals to a large segment of American society.

OP = Big Rosie Greenbaum

Beats me. My mom had us convinced that the "L" was for lesbian on Laverne's clothes.

There were a lot of terrible shows on tv then. L & S was a spin off from Happy Days, which was super popular for years and it went for the same nostalgic time setting (the 50s) and yeah, it was stupid.

Dare I say I liked it???

Carmine Ragusa had a cute ass.

As others have noted, there were only three network channels back in the 1970s (ABC, NBC and CBS), plus PBS and some had HBO, but HBO didn't really have any original programming back then, just recycled movies. Networks tended to "own" a particular night. Many TVs still didn't have remotes. Happy Days caught on in the 1970s as a nostalgic look back on the "innocent" 1950s. My mother, who was a teenager in the 1950s, absolutely loved the show. Laverne & Shirley was a spin off of Happy Days and was shown on the same night, Tuesdays. ABC basically owned Tuesday nights for years when it came to ratings.

I was just a kid in the 1970s and used to watch a lot of TV. Watching it all back, I can't believe how truly bad some of this stuff was. Early Happy Days was actually pretty good, but then it became the Fonzie show. Laverne & Shirley was more focused on physical comedy, which sometimes could be very funny. But watching the show back, it mostly sucks. I can't believe this was so popular, but times and tastes change, sometimes for the better.

It WAS funny. To this day no show has ever been so popular proportional to the audience/population.

It was the first show to show real working class women. OK you had some single working women like Ann Sothern or Mary Richards but they were executives.

Laverne and Shirley were just working class slubs. Whereas Laverne was happy to be herself, Shirley was trying to better the lot they had in life

Unike today where you have these victims celebrating living the lower realms of society like the ghetto, Shirley knew that was not something to celebrated but something to be gotten out of.

Yeah Squiggy and Lenny were impossibly stupid but so was Ted Baxter, which of course you all love.

I believe L&S was the only show to be number one for the year that was on a half hour time slot, which shows just how much people liked it.

Star Monkey and Lemon Pledge

The early seasons were funny for the 1970s. Yet, the usual gags became tiresome. Also, their musical revues, the hammy singing and dancing, was annoying. It was filler; the writers lost their creativity. Whenever this frequently happens, cancellation is near. The show will be a axed.

The move to California, was a huge mistake. The ambiance of two single working class women, in an industrial town, was ruined. That was the main theme of the show,

[quote]There were a lot of terrible shows on tv then.

There are a lot of terrible shows on now, so what's your point?

When I was a kid I loved it (much more than "Happy Days"): I think the humor was best appreciated by 10 year olds.

Pat Carroll always stole the show, as Shirley’s mother. She was hilarious! Carol Ita White, as Rosie Greenbaum, was hysterical.

R12 = Cindy Williams.

It was popular because there wasn’t anything else to watch on tuesday nights after happy days. Remember most of us had only 3 national networks and a local broadcast stTion or two in 1978.

I didn't enjoy it, but my mother got a charge out of it, outright calling it silly, but also saying how much it reminded her of her first years on her own. My mom almost WAS Shirley. She was a petite brunette, lived in an apartment in a large working class city with her brash but lovable best friend (Bunny in this case), worked similar jobs, had two annoying but basically decent nitwits living upstairs, and a hunky Italian guy who wanted to be her boyfriend and maybe was "off camera".

So there are reasons besides the desire for first rate comedy. And no, Bunny did not wear a "B" on her blouses.

We do it better.

I watched it because I was stupid.

R15---My point is there was a lot of terrible shows THEN. The discussion is not about NOW, you cantankerous jackass.

I think it was popular because people kept tuning in waiting for Laverne and Shirley to hook up.

They later tuned into Kate & Ally and Cagney & Lacy for their lez fix.

Betty, please...

It's an old piece of DL wisdom that the opening credits of the last season are on the saddest things ever on this earth. No Shirley. No one else really in the opening credits (if they're guest stars you can pay them less) besides Lenny and Squiggy,

It was a loud, loud show with a good timeslot.

The set was miserable a lot of the time. Some of that may be due to the stars, but in their defense they were women headlining a show when there weren't that many...people say Lavin, Franklin et al were all tough too.

The show crashed and burned without Shirley Feeney!

I think the chemistry between the two leads was what made the show, and is the only remaining redeeming value when you watch it now. The writing is terrible, the sets are Garry-Marshall-cheap, and the look of it is drab. The casting was good.

As a 7-year-old watching it, the idea of two young women out on their own in the working world, with no boring, grouchy men to drag them down and say "no" to them all the time, seemed quite glamorous to me, even if the show itself was not glam.

R27 what about Charlie’s Angels and The Bionic Woman?

Mork and Mindy was much better.

It was amusing enough to not bother changing the channel after Happy Days. Plus, there were only two other choices anyway.

The physical comedy was a huge factor as well. You don't see much of that today but back then it was a throwback to Lucy and Ethel and audiences loved it.

Squiggy and Lenny were from the Groundlings and were really talented. Penny Marshall was very good at physical comedy. I didn't watch it until the bitter end.

It was much, MUCH better than "Happy Days," and there were some good episodes.

Great theme song.

None of Gary Marshall's shows hold up. They're all terrible.

The Odd Couple was pretty good.

Here's the depressing show opening in the final season after Cindy Williams left.

Watching the reruns on LOGO are also a disservice. They edit down the episodes to fit more commercials. There's frequently entire scenes missing out of the episode so the network can crowbar in an extra 3 minutes of commercials. You're better off watching the originals of these old sitcoms on the DVD box sets of the seasons.

Why was Laverne & Shirley popular?

Because it followed Happy Days - which was a smash hit

I loved it! I laughed out loud most episodes, I was about twelve or thirteen.

I still think it is a goofy, sweet, funny show.

Haters!

So in the final-season opening credits at R39, Squiggy (David L. Lander) got a credit but Lenny didn't? Or had Michael McKean also left the show?

I’m currently watching American Graffiti on HBO. Seems like revisionist history of suburban white folk or a really smarmy love letter to the 1950’s. It’s odd that the 50s were so popular in the 70’s. Far From Heaven by Todd Haynes was far more interesting take on the 50’s.

"American Graffiti" is set in 1962, when the '60s were still the '50s. All that was about to change.

The final season actually got good ratings — it was #25 for the year.

ABC wanted to renew for another season, but Penny Marshall said enough already.

The ending of "American Graffiti" is anything but a smarmy love letter to the 1950s.

The actresses had great chemistry together. The physical comedy was hilarious. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it was 30 minutes where you could laugh and forget about your problems.

R39 that intro was so depressing. Laverne and Shirley without Shirley... good god what a horrible time to be gay! Let’s not mention the news broadcasts that would follow that depressing hot mess.

I think in that last season, Michael McKeon had left the show but was doing some guest spots. I think he was in the opening credits for the episodes in which he appeared. That's what I remember hearing but maybe someone else knows better.

R47- fair point, I’m still watching it. I forgot about how it ended.

Here's an alternate final season intro that also includes a credit for Michael McKeon.

That last season, all the cocaine certainly did Penny Marshall's body good.

And she called in her friends to do guest spots: Carrie Fisher as a Playboy bunny, Anjelica Huston, Laraine Newman as a Patty Hearst type, etc.

Lenny & the Squigtones

Thanks, R52.

Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Things we laughed and laughed over now only elicit stony silence and confusion.

Michael McKeon took some time off to do This is Spinal Tap and producers weren't happy, so they told him he wouldn't be billed for eps in which he didn't appear.

R39 The year is supposedly in 1967, but the children in the opening sequence are dressed in late 70s casual chic. Did they just grab some kids from a local elementary school?

R39 The show jumped the shark when they moved to California.

For some reason as I kid I loved it.

I couldn't watch it now. Later in life, I met Penny Marshall and she was wonderful.

(And I watched in reruns in the 90s so I have excuse!)

Even as a kid, I always wonders why the show in the last season simply wasn't called "Laverne". Did the network think viewers would be confused without the "& Shirley", thinking it was a entire different show or a spin-off?

It was Slapstick comedy, very simple, easy to digest, and full of goofy antics and pratfalls. It's the type of low-brow comedy that been popular in America for forever.

Not going to lie, it was my favorite show as a kid. This was a standout sequence. Shirley, in one of her betterment schemes, wants to go to a society event to meet nice guys. As always the girls are broke and it costs money. To get the cash they become “guinea pigs” for a scientific study just before the event. Shirley likes to eat, she’ll do the food one, Laverne likes to sleep, she’ll do the sleep one, but what they don’t know is it’s a deprivation study.

The physical comedy it astounding, but what adds to it is knowing their foibles. Shirley wanting to be so refined pounces on the cracker, but does it with as much dignity as she can while starving. Laverne, always up for a good time with guys goes to her go to seductive moves, even as she falls asleep standing up. This is equal to anything Lucy and Ethel did.

Another brilliant physical comedy sequence. This must have taken days of training to execute and then performed in front of a live studio audience and I think there’s a very genuine improv moment in there too.

It’s weird season 8 intro offers credits for Squiggy and sometimes Lenny but not Eddie Mekka or Phil Foster who stayed with the show the whole time.

I agree with r40 that the syndicated reruns are cut to shreds and unwatchable. I’m curious if all the people hating on the show are basing it off these reruns. Sadly the DVDs are also edited and not the complete original run episodes.

I don't think anyone has mentioned it before on this thread, but am I wrong in thinking that the "California" apartment set for L&S looks to be the exact one they later used for 2 and a Half Men?

I went out with a guy who loved this show (reruns, I guess, because this was the late 90s)...LOVED it....I couldn't even sit through it. Kind of a deal-breaker.

[quote]I agree with [R40] that the syndicated reruns are cut to shreds and unwatchable. I’m curious if all the people hating on the show are basing it off these reruns. Sadly the DVDs are also edited and not the complete original run episodes.

I saw a few original episodes when they aired but it didn't make me a fan.

[quote]Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Things we laughed and laughed over now only elicit stony silence and confusion.

If it's a bad one. Obviously people still watch I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Honeymooners, Golden Girls, All In The Family, Mary Tyler Moore and other sitcoms and enjoy them.

R64 I'm glad you posted this. Yes, the show could be downright dumb at times, but this was one of its best moments.

I still remember watching this on TV the first time it aired. My family and I were laughing so hard, we were crying. Then the phone rang, and it was my sister, who was watching it at her house and wanted to make sure we had seen it, too.

A classic TV moment. Physical comedy at its peak.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought some of the season eight openings were titled only "Laverne" on their original network airings.

I love the theme song. Especially the footage of them in the bottling plant, where Laverne places her glove on one of the bottles sliding past on the assembly line. Then both of them have a dreamy look on their faces while all the bottles slide by on the conveyor belt in front of them. For a moment, the upbeat song feels melancholy. Then you see them smiling on the bicycle.

Their comedy was so physical, they were always on top of each other, and they were always holding hands. Though no one ever complained that it was "too gay".

[quote]Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought some of the season eight openings were titled only "Laverne" on their original network airings.

That would make two of us misremembering. I recall that, also.

There were 3 channels + PBS and no internet.

Thanks R75, that's been said only 12 times now.

My favorite was the diner episode. They were forced to work in a diner for some reason, and they were completely unqualified.

I was fortunate to meet the big-hearted Betty Garrett, always willing to participate in an AIDS fund raiser, and always very friendly with fans. I'm sure she was asked a million times why she wasn't in the last season of the show, and she always had a prepared answer, that they had gotten a cancellation notice so she signed on for a Broadway show. But then she got a call that they were bringing the show back for another season sans Cindy Williams, and it was too late for her to change her plans. Edna simply existed as always being in the kitchen, and eventually they said in passing that she had left him. She always said it made no sense, and she had no regrets in leaving. A friend worked with her on "Meet Me in St. Louis" and said they became very close during that time. Betty could have been a bigger star on Broadway and in film had the McCarthy era not gone after her and sexy hubby Larry Parks. I love her in the film version of "On the Town" (performing "Come Up to My Place", one of the few songs retained from the Broadway show) and "My Sister Eileen", singing songs by Jule Styne rather than the "Wonderful Town" team because Columbia didn't want to pay for the song rights and got Styne much cheaper. I would have loved to have seen Betty doing "I Can Cook Too" and "100 Easy Ways".

"Betty, please, pick up your WEENIES"

[quote]The show jumped the shark when they moved to California.

There were a few isolated funny episodes in the beginning of that run, though. I loved the one where Laverne gets drunk on rum balls while working the candy counter at Bardwell's.

The last season wasn't supposed to happen. The show was officially over, they had a wrap party and were close to tearing down the sets when ABC asked for another season.

Cindy's husband apparently saw $ and got very difficult with the producers. And then Cindy just left.

By then, Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days looked nothing like the time periods they were supposed to be representing. The episode with The Spinners is the funniest of them all, because they're performing a beat box/breakdancing funk song when it's supposed to be the late 60's!

Lookie lookie, for the next ten minutes everything comes with pancakes!

Yeah, by the end everybody had feathered hair and designer jeans.

I never really watched L&S but a show that disappointed me recently is Family Ties. It was a hit and I remember watching it as a kid and enjoying it. I watched an episode a month or so ago and it was awful. I didn’t even crack a smile - it seemed more like a 30 minute drama.

R78, thanks for your post. It’s nice to learn Betty was a friend to the gays. I’ve seen her interview on YouTube where she mentions L&S was supposed to end and she had signed on to do a Broadway show when Cindy Williams had a dream they needed to do one more season. But then I went back and noticed Garrett is actually missing from the final 2 seasons of the show. They just weirdly never mention her character being missing for a whole season until addressing it in a final season episode that she’d left Laverne’s dad. She was smart to get out but i wondered if she was misremembering or there was more to her leaving the show.

Anyway maybe you or someone else will remember this. I can’t find any reference to it on the internet but I know it existed in the original run and the earlier rounds of syndicated repeats. I think it was one of the Schotz Talent Show episodes where Betty Garrett auditions by playing the ukulele and singing “Goofus.” It must have been edited from later reruns and I can’t find reference to it ever being on the show but I know my sister and brother and I used to go around singing it and imitating Betty’s silly performance. I’d love to find it again. Anyone else remember this? (Link is to the original version of the song. The Carpenters also recorded a version)

[quote]I was just a kid in the 1970s and used to watch a lot of TV. Watching it all back, I can't believe how truly bad some of this stuff was.

I was a kid in the 1980s and it's the same. I watched all the "family" sitcoms like Diffrent Strokes, Growing Pains, Family Ties etc. all the time back then. As an adult, when I've caught a rerun while channel surfing, I can't even watch any of those 80s shows for three minutes. Absolute dreck.

[quote]Also, their musical revues, the hammy singing and dancing, was annoying.

So many shows back then had musical revue episodes, the characters entered a talent contest or some shit. It was really just a way for the actors to show off their "talents." Linda Lavin did this constantly on Alice.

R85 When I lived in L.A., there were various APLA tributes to the great Broadway composers, and you could always count on Betty Garrett. Mary Jo Catlett and Carole Cook to make an appearance. Betty always did something a bit jazzy, while Mary Jo & Carole were a bit more comical. Mary Jo sang "They All Laughed" pretending she was drunk, and Carole sang "Strike Up the Band!", and when she said "Let the Drums Roll Out", guess what happened...The drums got bigger and bigger each time and so did the laughs.

Did Carmine, aka Eddie Mekka appear in the California episodes? Shirley should have married the Big Ragu and not some random dude

Yes, Carmine went to California. The last episode was backdoor pilot for a Carmine spinoff.

Fun highlight reel of actor guest stars on the show.

loved and still do.... way better then happy days which i always thought was so so "Cheesy"...

interesting on why some shows you loved when young you hate now and some you love you still do?....

for me? examples of still love are laverne and shirley, WKRP in Cincinnati, original early Dynasty...

shows i used to love but now not so much family ties, facts of life....

shows that sexually turned me on way back then and still do: buck rogers, 6 million dollar man, wild wild west, cheyenne, wagon train, black sheep squadron, american and international gladiators.....

Agreed, R92, I think certain shows hold up better than others. I think L&S, 3's Company, Gimme a Break all held up. They were comedies that didn't take themselves too seriously, and had magnetic performers in them. I can't get through an episode of Mork & Mindy for some reason. Although I love Robin, he really was just completely canned, forced, terribly written, and the show held him back (when his stand up work was next level).

[quote]It’s on Logo and it’s stupid.

Redundant

Robin Williams couldn't be his true self on Mork and Mindy because of the archaic network censorship standards of the time. There are outtakes of Mork and Mindy where Williams went off script and just started improvising and it was hilarious. Unfortunately, there was no way in hell any of that would've been allowed on television back then.

Carmine porn.

Penny Marshall had a bangin' body back then.

[quote]Penny Marshall had a bangin' body back then.

Butterface.

[quote] Nothing ages worse than a sitcom. Things we laughed and laughed over now only elicit stony silence and confusion.

R56 is really thinking about that photo of his penis his boyfriend took.