Eldergays, why did everyone move to California with Laverne & Shirley?

It didn't seem to make much sense.

Even at the tender age of five, it made no sense to me at all.

They wanted to jump the shark together.

And they somehow went from poodle skirts to early 80s "style."

What about Big Rosie Greenbaum?

[quote] And they somehow went from poodle skirts to early 80s "style."

Read us any rule we'll break it.

Frank and Edna retired to California and then Laverne and Shirley lost their jobs at the brewery .

and then there was the season of Laverne and Shirley without Shirley.

Couldn't they at least remove her name?

There is NO LAVERNE WITHOUT SHIRLEY!

Have you been to Milwaukee in the 50's?

Why did Shirley leave the show? Was she a Constance Wu?

Cindy Williams was pregnant, and the producers weren't accommodating her. She complained to the press, and was let go, I believe.

The plan was for her to return for the next season, but the show was never picked up.

Cindy has said publicly that they wanted her to work right up to

& including on her due date so she flat out refused to do so.

The last season of the show was horrible, thank god it wasn't picked up.

Supposedly CIndy Williams' departure from the show had a lot to do with her insufferable husband Bill Hudson. Penny Marshall said they were willing to accommodate her during her pregnancy but that Bill Hudson was a total "pest" who made unreasonable demands. I tend to think that if she'd never married Bill Hudson the show wouldn't have ended on such a sour note. As I recall, Shirley simply disappears to be with her husband, not even bothering to say goodbye to her lifelong best friend Laverne. I thought that was completely unlike the character. It's sad how badly L&S ended.

Everyone says how The Golden Girls are an updated version of Three's Company with a Roper inside the dwelling so they don't always have to knock but after watching several dozen Laverne & Shirley episodes, I think The Golden Girls are an 80's take on it.

Sex crazed Laverne - Blanche (she could get away with more than L could in the 50s /60s)

Pain-in-the-ass at the door Squiggy (Hello...) - Stan (Hi, its me Stan...)

Impossibly dumb naive Lenny who can't shut up about his relatives - Impossibly dumb naive Rose who can't shut up about her relatives

Wise older woman (with limited dating options) who is tied to a man who gives her headaches = Edna (& Frank) - Dorothy (& Stan)

Loud mouthed older Italian parent who can't shut up & will give advice whether it's wanted or not = Frank - Sophia

L & S have an annual Shotz talent show episode - The Golden Girls have several talent show episodes

Also Laverne loses the love of her life by death (Fireman played by Ted Danson) - Blanche loses the love of her life to death (her husband George)

The list goes on & on...

Did that bitch, Rhonda, ever get any acting gigs? Or did she just whore her way around Los Angeles for cash?

r4 Big Rosie got more laughs than the leads so they cut her out of the show. True.

They hit a creative low and relocated the show, except none of them "fit" in California. It became an unsuccessful fish-out-of water comedy (attempt). The only new character, Rhonda, wasn't that funny.

Dorothy even becomes the owner of a building (just like her L & S equivalent Edna).

Eerie ain't it?

Wise old Edna leaves her show & the characters go on without her (Laverne & Company).

Wise old Dorothy leaves her show & the characters go on without her (The Golden Palace).

Weird.

The Golden Girls rip offs just from L & S season 5 =

In L & S "Upstairs Downstairs" the characters go to Heaven = Sophia goes to Heaven to see Sal.

In L & S "Take Two, They're Small", L & S date two little men but the relationships don't go anywhere = Rose dates a little person & it doesn't go anywhere.

In L & S "Not Quite South Of The Border", the girls go south for a "near Mexico" vacation from Hell with a lousy room & manager. = The Golden Girls go south for a "near Mexico" vacation from Hell with a lousy room & manager.

in L & S "One Heckuva Note' Shirley gets mad over Laverne dating Carmine for 1 episode = Dorothy gets mad at Blanche for dating Stan for 1 episode (who later gets mad at Sophia for dating Fidel S. for 1 episode).

In L & S 'Fat City Holiday", the girls crash a fat farm pretending to be counselors = The GG crash a high school reunion pretending to be students/teachers.

In L & S "What To Do With A Drunken Sailor" - Shirley's recurring brother has a 1 episode drinking problem which alters his personality = Rose has a 1 episode pill problem that alters her personality (none of the other girls noticed her taking those pills every day for years?).

There are other rip offs in this season (& others).

Because they had magnetic personalities, Rose.

R22 You should teach at Cal State.

Well, you would have had to have to known them.

Such dears, and soooooooooo talented.

Ha ha R24 I never saw that thread before.

I forgot to mention 2 other similarities = L & S get EXPOSED as being fake counselors on their episode & The GG get EXPOSED as being fake students/teachers on theirs.

Also in the vacation from Hell episode = L & S (due to a mixed up reservation) have to share a single bed overnight with a fat lady = Due to a mixed up reservation, Rose & Dorothy also have to share a single bed overnight with a fat lady (named Blanche).

I loved it, just loved it.

And can still sing the theme song

R19 They also had hunky Sonny St. Jacques (played by Ed Marinaro) debut

when they added Rhonda to the new California scene so she was never "the only new character".

We live in the cellar! We're models!

r28 Per Wiki--"Sonny St. Jacques (Ed Marinaro, season 6) is a stuntman and Laverne and Shirley's landlord in Burbank. A tall, handsome, muscular man, Sonny is often seen with his shirt off or open. He was intended as a love interest for Laverne. After several episodes in Burbank, Sonny was written out of the show and rarely, if ever, mentioned again. (In reality, Marinaro left the series to star in Hill Street Blues.)"

He was briefly featured in a handful of episodes and only in season 6.

R31 Nice try at damage control from what you wrote at R19 but Rhonda WASN"T the only new character they introduced at the time (Season 6).

Sonny was introduced in the EXACT same episode as Rhonda (he starred in 10 episodes overall after appearing as a different character in an earlier episode) & the character was intended to be long term (like Shirley's Carmine) but Ed M. left for the drama Hill Street Blues.

Life gets easier when you can finally admit when you're wrong.

The action between Season 5 to 6 was supposed to jump three years in time. That's why we kept seeing what year it was in the opening credits from thereon in.

[quote]It's sad how badly L&S ended.

The show was supposed to end the season prior. Everyone had assumed it was a wrap, and Betty Garrett and Michael Mckean had already accepted other job offers, when ABC wooed Penny and Garry enough to do another year at the last minute.

r32 Facts hurt when they challenge your reality.

I was furious they never called me to step in and play Shirley. I would have been perfect for the role.

The opening credits for that year just remind me how totally bizarro it was. No Shirley.

I don't know why they didn't just end it the prior year. The show was already on the down spiral, they'd already made syndication level (at least 100 episodes).....

And even without Shirley (or Lenny) the bitch still couldn't list more actors in the opening credits? It's not like there wasn't time/space.

For the Angora Debs reunion

You know you are definitely a die hard "Laverne and Shirley" fan if you actually managed to sit through the last season of the show (Which more accurately should have been called "Laverne").

Because that was some excruciatingly horrible television.

The Big Ragu was dwarfed by Ed Marinaro, who was hot as fuck.

I knew a shopbottom who worked in a mall store in the 80s who insisted for years that he had a one night stand with Ed Marinaro, and that Ed was blessed with a double digit dong.

Take that with a mound of salt, but there it is.

I loved watching Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days in syndication on WPIX in NYC in the mid 80’s. I was always a bit fascinated at how different both shows were in their later seasons and how far they strayed from their original concepts. Happy Days seemed to fare better, the wheels didn’t really seem to fall off the bus until the last three seasons or so (Joanie & Chachi leave to do their spinoff, essentially making the show about Ted McGinley and Crystal Bernard). Laverne and Shirley completely fell apart after season 5. I did read, however, that both shows continued to pull in strong ratings until the end.

[quote]Frank and Edna retired to California and then Laverne and Shirley lost their jobs at the brewery .

Actually Frank and Edna moved to Los Angeles to open a new restaurant. Shortly after the brewery went automatic and L&S were given humiliating token jobs (the joke being they were at the position the longest without ever being promoted). So the decided to say screw you brewery and moved to LA.

Lenny & Squiggy (L&S♂ ) drove L&S♀ to LA and then decided to stay. Carmine of course followed Shirley later which made sense because to be a dancer you have to be in LA or NYC.

The last season should've had Big Rosie Greenbaum's husband dump her and she was forced to move in with Laverne because Laverne couldn't afford the rent without Shirley.

The final season was depressing.

Okay R35. Let us know when you're feeling better.

Get well soon.

I don't think Garry Marshall ever wanted to set Happy Days or L&S in the Midwest, but network execs insisted. They thought it made the characters more relatable, or something. But in both shows you heard nasal New York accents and most of the characters were broad stereotypes of NYC-type characters, not remotely similar to the Midwest. So it sort of made a weird kinda of sense that when he was able to, Marshall moved L&S to LA, where he was able to squeeze a few more years out of the worn-out concept by having the girls do things they couldn't do in Milwaukee, like appear on The Dating Game or go on a movie studio tour.

But the show had a limited shelf life to begin with. I mean it was about a couple of women in their early 30s, no real romantic relationships, dead-end blue-collar jobs, who were rooming together to make ends meet. How long can you keep that up before it becomes depressing?

R47 No real romantic relationships?

r47

They were supposed to be in their 20s

[quote] How long can you keep that up before it becomes depressing?

About 6 seasons.

R48 Shirley wouldn't even vo-dee-oh-doh with you, so yeah. No real romantic relationships.

She vo-deeeee-d once, but no oh-do.

L&S should have ended with both of them getting married in a double wedding, to regular guys, not the upper class types they were always trying to date. And Lenny and Squiggy should finally have been given girlfriends. That would have made a good finale.

R53 I always wanted Laverne to end up with Lenny & for Shirley to marry Carmine.

Squiggy should've died by getting hit by a delivery truck in the finale (since he drove them for Shotz).

I seem to remember reading something about how ABC didn't want either one of the "girls" to get married off so the show could avoid the "Rhoda" factor.

Rhoda Morgenstern as a married woman in a weekly tv series got boring pretty quick. But if Laverne and Shirley had gotten married in the finale it wouldn't have mattered. And it would have been a great send-off.

A better ending would have been to have Laverne marry Shirley.

Shirley was a lesbian. She was scissoring with Boo Boo Kitty.

The stupid sex troll at R59 is tiresome. And God knows unfunny.

I don't know if anyone remembers or why I remember, but on one of the reunion specials they had a skit where it was present day and L&S were still best friends and they were on some Survivor type reality show and they had Shirley married with grown kids (not sure if it was first or second marriage) and Laverne married several times, she recited her long list of last names ala Erica Kane, and she had many fuck up grown kids.

I make one joke about Boo Boo Kitty and I'm a "stupid sex troll?"

Go voh-de-oh-do yourself, you fat cow.

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