Laverne and Shirley is another good example of a successful spinoff and mid-season replacement. It debuted in January of 1976 and was an instant hit. Ranking number 3 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1975-1976 season. On Happy Days Laverne De Fazio and Shirley Feeney were two girls who were love interests for Richie Cunningham and Fonzie. Their occasional appearances led to their own series, which took place in the same city as Happy Days, Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 1950's. Laverne and Shirley were lower class girls who shared an apartment and worked together at Shotz Brewery as bottlecappers. Laverne and Shirley were also quite different. Laverne was feisty, quick-tempered and manhungry while Shirley was more naive and trusting and quite inexperienced when it came to romance. Others in the cast included, Laverne's gruff father, Frank De Fazio who ran the Pizza Bowl, where Laverne and Shirley worked on occasions and Edna Babish was the girls landlady who later ma
Laverne, Shirley and Carmine go back to Milwaukee to attend their high school reunion. What they don't know, however is that the gang back home thinks that the girls are famous movie stars and that Carmine is a famous Las Vegas singer. Lenny and Squiggy write to the gang back in Milwaukee that Carmine, Laverne and Shirley have all made it big in Hollywood. Feeling slightly insecure about how they measure up the rest of their old classmates' successes, the trio agree to go along with the story. Laverne is supposedly dating Marlon Brando and Shirley Paul Newman, when Rosie starts asking questions about Marlon and the girls start giving contradictory answers, they soon get found out. Shirley then tells the truth and Terri Buttafuco asks them to leave for lying. The girls get out the doors and Laverne comes back in telling off all her old friends for only being nice to them because they thought they were famous. This lays a heavy guilt trip on their old friends and all is forgiven.
Laverne and Shirley decide that they must change their usual habits for meeting guys because they're not getting anywhere going around the single bars. Rhonda comes in and shows the girls her new ski outfit. This gives Laverne the idea that they should go to a ski resort to meet new guys. Shirley reluctantly agrees. Next we see them trying to ski and failing miserably, especially Shirley. Along comes a chairlift guy who Laverne wants to impress so she lies about being a novice and pretends she knows how to get on the ski lift. Of course she doesn't and the next few scenes are pictures of the girls trying and failing to mount the ski lift. Eventually they manage only to have the ski lift breakdown while they're half way up a mountain. The girls are up there for hours, but eventually they get back to the ground. We find them sitting on a rock, shivering and hugging among themselves about whose great idea it was to come skiing when along comes two mountain rescue guys Bob and Bennett.
Squiggy's long lost father suddenly shows up and wants to spend time with his son.
Frank and Carmine argue about whether today's music is better or worse than the music of yesteryear.
Carmine finds fame after being struck by lightning.
Frank and Carmine set up booby traps in the girl's apartment to try and catch a burglar who has been breaking into the apartment and stealing things.
When Shirley loses Laverne's favorite purse, she is afraid to tell her because she didn't ask if she could borrow it. When Laverne asks Shirley if she knows where the purse is, she lies and says no. Shirley then goes to sleep and dreams that Laverne is trying to kill her because she knows that Shirley lost her favorite purse and lied to her about it.
The girls agree to live in Bardwell's main show window for a weekend in order to demonstrate the 'House Of The Future'
The show starts in Laverne's apartment, where she's trying to put together a load of her stuff to sell as she's desperate for money now she's out of a job. In comes Frank with an old army buddy whose life he saved during the war. This army buddy offers Laverne a job at Ajax Aerospace. Laverne's delighted and is told to report for work Monday morning. Come Monday, we see Laverne at her new job which is testing gravity boots. She soon finds this more boring than bottling beer in her old Milwaukee job. When everyone goes for lunch, there's only her and a weird guy called Chuck left in the room. To make things more exciting, Chuck gets Laverne to try on a secret experimental anti-gravity spacesuit. Laverne comes out wearing the the suit and helmet and Chuck who has the remote control soon has Laverne doing acrobatics in mid-air. The problems start when Chuck can't get Laverne down, Laverne suggests she put on a pair of gravity boots which brings her back down to earth.
Laverne is waiting tables at Cowboy Bill's when Rhonda comes asking if Laverne would be kind enough to go downtown to pick up a Playboy Bunny application form for her as she's busy trying out for her new play. Rhonda suggests Laverne should pick up an application for herself at the same time. Laverne is reluctant to go and even more reluctant to get an application for herself because of her 'chicken ankles'. Next we see loads of beautiful girls at the Playboy auditions when Laverne walks in, the woman in charge is a hypochondriac and says she has a fever coming on so Laverne starts handing out the application forms for her. Laverne becomes friendly with a woman named Kathy. Laverne decides to apply after Kathy (Carrie Fisher) tells her to try after all what's she got to lose. Back at the flat, Laverne is eagerly waiting for a phone call from the Playboy auditions to see if she's allowed to attend "Bunny Training". She gets the call and she in.
When Laverne is convinced that she is jinxed after refusing to answer a chain letter, her friends send her a "gypsy" to help her.
Laverne's plan to restore her cowardly boyfriend's self-confidence backfires.
Laverne, upset with the way her life has been going, asks if she can stay at a convent for a couple of weeks to try and sort things out. The Mother Superior lets her stay but then asks her to leave when she has trouble keeping the vow of silence that all the other Sisters have taken.
Squiggy is mistaken for a Russian ballet dancer who is trying to defect to the United States.
Laverne talks her wacky friend Chuck into forming his own band after he plays Beethoven on his harmonica. Laverne is also on a special diet for her ulcer and back at the flat Carmine is trying to stop Laverne from eating all the wrong foods. Chuck shows Laverne his new band, a bunch of geeky looking guys enter and proceed to put Laverne to sleep with their classical playing. Laverne tells Chuck he has to play rock music if he wants to make big money. The guys trust Laverne so much that they've quit their jobs to become big musicians. Laverne tries to show them how to jazz up their act a little, but the results are still terrible. To make things worse, Squiggy has just gotten the band their first job. He tells them that they are to perform in 20 minutes. Laverne has to read out to the massive crowd that the Rolling Stones won't be performing and that instead her friend Chuck's band will be playing instead. Amazingly to everyone, the band plays extremely well and goes over a smash. It
Jealous of all the beautiful girls her new photographer boyfriend has to take pictures of, Laverne goes to a fashion show where he is working and ends up being one of the models in the show.
When Frank finds a note from Edna saying that she has left him, he goes to Laverne's to talk to her about it. Laverne, who doesn't know that Edna has left, asks her father to stay at the apartment and babysit Little Chucky who is a chimp, because she has gotten a chance to sing with The Spinners as Rhonda gave her the winning woman. While singing with the group, she feels guilty about leaving her father when he wanted to talk to her so she rushes back home and learns about Edna leaving. The show ends with Little Chucky waiting on tables at Cowboy Bills.
Laverne and the gang hold a seance to rid her apartment of a ghost that has taken up residence there.
Squiggy's bizarre sister, Squendolyn, arrives for a visit and ends up moving in with Laverne and falling for Carmine.
Carmine and Squiggy are sitting at Cowboy Bills, as Carmine complains that nobody likes his new record 'Do the Hotfoot', Squigy notices that sitting at the next table is Bobby Bitts, king of the hits. Squiggy tries to talk Bobby into playing Carmine's record on his show "American Dance Band" but Bobby's having none of it. Squiggy decides the only way to get Bobby to hear the record is for Carmine to sing it live there at Cowboy Bills. Carmine gets a few verses in and Bobby stops him, says it's "Superrific" and books him to sing on his next show. The title is changed to "Do the Carmine", and Carmine now fills his head with dreams of becoming a rich rock star, and he asks Laverne if she'll be in the audience of the show to hear him sing. Carmine sings his record and for 1 week he's a success, but some pious do-gooder hears his song and thinks it's rebellious and communist. So he confronts Bobby and demands that he not play Carmine's record.
Frank is making his usual contribution to his local councilman. After the guy has taken Frank's money he tells him that he plans to tear down Cowboy Bills and build a high rise on top of it. Frank chases the guy from the restaurant and heads down to see Laverne.Laverne is ill in bed, but Frank vents his frustrations to Laverne and decides the only way to stop him and beat city hall is to run against the current corrupt councilman and stop him that way. Next day back at Cowboy Bills, Frank is busy getting all his friends to help him campaign for him, the councilman walsk in with a camera crew in tow and he's telling them all about his plans for the area. Frank confronts the guy and tells the news crew that the other guy is crooked and that his family has all the companies that he gives the city's jobs too. The anchor woman for the TV station invites Frank to an open debate on tv to air his views against Counilman Pike.
While Mr. DeFazio is away for a few days, Laverne and Shirley take over running the Pizza Bowl for him. Later, The Fonz convinces the girls to let him host a wild bachelor party at the Pizza Bowl - it goes against Shirley's better judgement, but Laverne doesn't see any problem with it. When the party gets started, however, the girls both begin to realize just how much of a mess they've gotten themselves into.
Laverne accidentally loses one of her mother's diamond earrings.
Squiggy is jealous of Lenny's new girlfriend. While out at the local tarpits, Lenny sees a nice girl reading on the lawn. A guy starts to hassle her so he tells him to leave her alone. Lenny then asks her out on a date, and this starts to make Squiggy feel that he's being left out. Three weeks later Lenny and Karen are still together and Squiggy is sure that Karen is out to break Lenny and Squiggy up. Lenny and Squiggy have an argument over Karen and Lenny leaves in a huff. Later at Cowboy Bills, Lenny learns that Karen has been accepted for a university in New York and she leaves in 2 days. Lenny thinks she's breaking up with him because he's too dumb, and tells Frank he's going back to the tarpits for a last farewell. Squiggy hears this from Frank and thinks Lenny is going to kill himself. He rushes to the tarpits to find Lenny waste deep in the tar, jumps in to save his life and after a heartfelt chat Squiggy apologizes and they leave best friends again.
Laverne makes friends with a group of people that she doesn't know are really a gang who plan to rob a bank. When she goes to the bank with them she thinks it is only to get new dishes that the bank is giving away with every new account that is opened. When she realizes what is actually happening it's too late because the police have already arrived. Laverne is handcuffed along with the rest of the gang and they are all carted off to jail.