Easily the worst episode so far, a D in fact, and that's only because I liked "the Potsie Club" part and the episode starts out with a standard plot, used on The Brady Bunch and Three's Company among others, where someone can't go on a blind date and he (it's usually a guy) gets a friend to pretend to be him. Potsie hits it off with the girl, who of course (another trope here) is not the expected "dog," but then (offscreen) he attacks her and rips her dress as she tries to escape! Then she has to hitchhike back to the hotel where she and her parents are staying. And there are lots of jokes about men being "animals," as if attempted date rape is funny. Even Joanie being voyeuristic, which is weird enough with Richie pranking her by telling an imaginary date that his sister would want to watch, gets even more twisted. And to top it off, Fonzie, the "expert on women," says women aren't real people and they expect a guy to ...
Not only does Potsie get Fonzie and Roger up in a prop plane with an unreliable pilot, but he says all the wrong things when everyone worries at the Cunninghams'. No wonder Jenny calls him an idiot and Howard ushers him out the door. So I'm boosting this from a C to a C+. Notes: Flip jokes that Jenny won't finish high school while she's a teenager, but it's not exactly a joke. Catherine Gilmour, who's Teresa here, would soon be Patti on Laverne & Shirley. Skier William Woff was Bill Ziegler on Joanie Loves Chachi. Martin Ferrero would return as the pilot Omar, so I guess his parachute worked. There are four writers this time, and they still manage to bring up a possible party and then quickly drop that thread. Francis X. Feighan has absolutely no other IMDB credits, and Michael O'Mahony wrote more things but nothing else for HD, while Richard Gurman wrote five other HD scripts and Larry Strawther two others.
The title is ambiguous, since it seems at first to be about her nerdy boyfriend Roger (Marc McClure in a different role), who says "keen" a lot and doesn't kiss her at the end of the date. And then, tired of being treated like a child by her family and flattered by the attentions of the gangleader of the Red Devils, she dresses in a Jenny-Piccalofied outfit, including heavy makeup. Then she is at the risk of being "initiated," i.e. gang-necked. Until the guys ride to the rescue, with help from a guest star. Notes: One of my all-time favorite YouTube comments is on a clip of this episode, something about "the Grandpa's Trunk Hat Gang." Derrel Maury's first role on the show is Leroy. This is set on St. Patrick's Day and aired on March 1st, which is pretty timely for HD. It's presumably set before "The Physical," since Richie says that he, Ralph, and Potsie are almost eighteen. As when Joanie had her first date, Richie is prot...
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