"The Third Anniversary Show"

Yep, another clip show, this time airing on February 5th and purporting to be Howard and Marion's twentieth wedding anniversary, even though on "Marion Rebels" they were married twenty-one years.  There are just two clips from the non-studio-audience days: Marion giving Joanie the "sex talk" and a bit of Diana Canova as one of the "chicks" Richie has dated.  It's sort of a crossover episode, in that it introduces Nancy Blansky a week before her own series premiered.  (More about that below.)  I'm going to have to go with a C- because the clips and the frame weren't particularly interesting this time.

Notes:

• I get that Garry Marshall was eager to promote Blansky's Beauties, but this is a heck of a way to cram it into the Marshallverse.  Nancy is Howard's favorite cousin because she introduced Howard and Marion, even though it's been strongly implied that H & M met in high school.  Not only that, but they've made no attempt to change 54-year-old Nancy Walker's appearance here, so we have to assume that the Nancy of '77 is a well preserved septuagenarian.  (And Pinky T shows up on the premiere.  And then there's the Carmine connection, and later Arnold, and....)  It would've honestly have made more sense if, instead of her saying she'll be back before the fortieth anniversary, this was set in the future of '77, with everyone (except Nancy) aged up and looking back twenty years.
• The writers for the 15+ episodes are all credited onscreen but not on IMDB, where it's just Brunner and Silver, who presumably did the frame.