Trivia / Laverne & Shirley

• Acting for Two: Cindy Williams as Diana McKenzie, the estranged wife of Shirley's boyfriend, in "The Other Woman".
• Actor-Inspired Element: The cursive "L" in the upper corner of Laverne's shirts/sweaters and her fondness for milk and Pepsi were both added to the character by Penny Marshall (milk and Pepsi being a favorite of Marshall's in Real Life).
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Eddie Mekka (Carmine) was given numerous opportunities to show off his singing and dancing skills, sometimes in episodes where he had nothing else to do. Eventually his dancing made it into the credits (though his spin ended in him colliding with Laverne).
  • The show had annual talent-show episodes that would give everyone a chance to sing, especially Michael McKean and David Lander, who wrote and performed their own comedy songs as "Lenny and the Squigtones" (even releasing an album and performing on American Bandstand under the moniker).
• Creator Backlash: Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams were not happy about the move to California in season 6, a decision which was forced upon them by Garry Marshall. Neither wanted the characters to leave Milwaukee, but Penny felt that if they had to move to shake things up, they should've moved to New York.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Penny Marshall's favorite episode was "Why Did The Fireman?...", one of the few very serious episodes on the show. The plot has Laverne's boyfriend Randy (played by Ted Danson) dying while fighting a fire. Laverne becomes depressed and goes into denial, and then her father has to talk her out of it.
  • Cindy Williams' favorite episodes were "Guinea Pigs" and the two-part "Murder on the Moosejaw Express".
• Dawson Casting: At the beginning of the series, Laverne and Shirley were portrayed as being only a few years out of high school (one first-season episode showed their three-year high school reunion). But at the time, Penny Marshall was 32 and Cindy Williams was 28.
• Directed by Cast Member: Penny Marshall directed four episodes of the series, serving as a springboard to her career as a feature film director. Cindy Williams and Michael McKean also each directed an episode.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Laverne's father Frank was born in Italy, which wasn't the case with the American Jewish Phil Foster.
  • Eddie Mekka, who played Italian-American Carmine Ragusa, was actually of Armenian descent.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Various cast members from Happy Days (Ron Howard and Erin Moran for example) have talked about the vicious fights next door on the set, which were so loud that they would listen with glasses to the wall. Cindy Williams, ever the damage control agent, would often refute these claims in interviews, while Penny Marshall mostly remained mum on the subject.
  • Garry Marshall stated in interviews that Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall were immature during the production and did not handle stardom well, treating their coworkers in an abusive manner, acting like prima donnas, endlessly fighting about who got more lines, etc.
• No Dub for You: The series has never been dubbed in French (neither France nor Quebec), unlike Happy Days.
• No Export for You: Unlike Happy Days (in the '80s) and Mork & Mindy (in 2008), the series never aired in France.
• The Other Darrin: Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams voiced their characters for the first season of the animated Laverne & Shirley in the Army; when Williams quit the parent program, she left the animated series as well, and this time she took Marshall with her. Both were replaced by different actors for The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour, with Shirley now being voiced by Williams' close friend Lynne Marie Stewart.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Penny Marshall was the sister of series creator Garry Marshall.
  • Penny's daughter, Tracy Reiner, was seen in several episodes.
  • Penny and Garry's sister Ronny Hallin appeared in the first Shirley-less episode of the final season as Maxine, a potential new roommate for Laverne who dressed like her — right down to a cursive "M" in the upper corner of her shirt — and had a similar laugh to Myrna Turner, Penny's previous character on The Odd Couple.
  • The mothers of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams appeared in one "talent show" episode. In addition, a portrait of Penny's father was used as the portrait of Mr. Shotz that hung at the brewery during the Milwaukee years.
• Recycled Script:
  • Virtually all the scripts of the unsuccessful sitcom Hey, Landlord were eventually rewritten as scripts for this show.
  • The Hey, Landlord episode "Testing, One Two" was recycled not only as "Guinea Pigs", but also as the Getting Together episode "Memories Are Made of This."
• Romance on the Set: Cindy Williams and David Lander dated for about a year during the series' production. Lander noted that he started receiving "the most interesting hate mail" once fans found out about the relationship.
• Screwed by the Network: In the series' third and fourth seasons, Laverne & Shirley was #1 in the Nielsens, even surpassing Happy Days. For its fifth season, ABC moved it from Tuesdays at 8:30 to Thursdays at 8:00, and it became #38 in the Nielsens, and never really recovered, even after being moved back (the highest it was afterward was #20).
• Shared Universe: With Spinal Tap; The "Lenny and the Squigtones" album mentioned above features Christopher Guest on guitar, under the name Nigel Tufnel.
• Throw It In!: In the second season episode "Haunted House", when Carole Ita White ("Big Rosie") is leaving the apartment, she trips on the stairs. This happens off camera but the audience can be heard reacting to her fall while Cindy Williams can be seen asking Penny Marshall "did she fall?"
• Troubled Production:
  • By all accounts, Laverne & Shirley was a bad shoot, with lots of bickering among the stars. The on-set fights got so loud and heated that the cast of its parent program Happy Days, which filmed next door, would often listen with glasses pressed against the wall.
  • The showrunner was Penny Marshall's brother Garry, which caused some friction between her and Cindy Williams over charges of nepotism. In addition, Garry hired other relatives to work on the show's production staff, and later noted how that may have been a mistake, as any little family squabbles could spill over onto the set and create unnecessary headaches.
  • Cindy Williams in particular would complain a lot about poor plots, jokes, storylines and not having the exact same screentime as her co-lead to an indifferent Garry Marshall, who would always respond "Please just take the money".
• What Could Have Been:
  • A ninth season was planned, but ABC backed down after Penny Marshall insisted that the show move said ninth season's production from Los Angeles to New York.
  • A Spinoff about Carmine moving to New York was proposed. The series finale acted as its backdoor pilot.
  • Gilda Radner was considered for Shirley Feeney.
  • When the series was first picked up, Cindy Williams refused the role of Shirley Feeney, resulting in a seven-minute screen test with the role played by an actress named Liberty Williams (no relation), only to be talked into taking in later that night. However, when ABC executives wanted to compare the version with Liberty Williams and that of Cindy Williams, Paramount executive (and future Disney CEO) Michael Eisner hid the Liberty Williams reel in a closet and claimed the afternoon reel had gotten lost; leaving only the Cindy Williams version to be screened.
• Working Title: Laverne Defazio and Shirley Feeney.
• Written by Cast Member: Michael McKean and David L. Lander wrote "Hi, Neighbor" and "Hi Neighbor, Book 2". The former was also co-written with Harry Shearer, who acted with McKean and Lander in the comedy troupe the Credibility Gap (and would co-write and star in This is Spın̈al Tap with McKean).
• You Look Familiar: Carole Ita White appeared in the first season episode "Dating Slump" as an unnamed tough girl who gets into a fight with Laverne at a pool hall. The next season, she began appearing as recurring character "Big Rosie" Greenbaum (of course, there's nothing to suggest they aren't the same character).

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