By this point in the series, the cast had been relocated from Milwaukee to Los Angeles, Hollywood in particular, with new career goals. Leslie Easterbrook, later of the "Police Academy" movies, and former NFL player Ed Marinaro joined the cast.
Penny Marshall (Laverne) directed this episode, in which the girls are hoping to audition for The Dating Game, but someone else lands the gig instead.
The episode aired in December of '80, 15 years to the month when Dating Game joined ABC's daytime lineup. Jim Lange appears as himself.
Edit, 4/21/22: The episode has been deleted. In its place is a screencap of Lenny & Squiggy waiting to play.
As the open indicates, the series was in fact now set in the year 1965, which is why the girls have those Beatles cutout standees.
New setting, same nonsense.
Rating: B.
2 comments:
I never enjoyed the show after the move from Milwaukee. It didn't have the same sense of fun; perhaps it was due to the backstage conflicts that were going on at the time. There's an old axiom that goes, "When they relocate a sitcom locale, that means desperation to imbue new life into it". Unfortunately, I lost interest. I think the last funny thing I saw was when they had the earthquake in the first episode in CA.
It was also a time when the show was ostensibly set in 1965 but looked too 1970s/early 80s. It took you out of the show entirely! Happy Days was guilty of this also towards the end of its run.
It goes without saying that I was pissed when Shirley and Carmine didn't get married!! I know it was related to the backstage turmoil and Cindy Williams getting booted due to her pregnancy, but it still didn't have to go the way the writers set it up.
I think most fans were expecting Shirley & Carmine to get married at some point, and there was ample time to allow that to happen before the series moved to LA.
Can we chalk it up to network interference?
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