"Fonzie vs. the She-Devils"


I knew this couldn't live up to its title, but it's not bad for Season Seven.  Richie, Ralph, and Potsie are invited to a girl motorcycle gang's "nerd party" (Richie wins, of course), but then find out that the gang has kidnapped Chachi because he jilted a girl.  Fonzie saves the day by out-nerding everyone and then making threats as himself.  I'm going with C+.

Notes:
  • Georganne LaPiere was Corinne back in '75 and is Joy here.
  • The wonderful Judy Pioli, who wrote for Laverne & Shirley and played Terry Buttafucco there, perks things up as the leader of the She-Devils, Bertha.  She'd also appear on HD in 1982.
  • Sam Greenbaum didn't write anything else for Garry Marshall, although he did write the one Three's Company episode without Joyce DeWitt.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Poobah Doo Dah"

Image
Even if you haven't seen this episode before, you've seen it before.  You know, the one where someone promises a celebrity for some charity benefit and they may or may not show up.  HD had already done it at least once before, with "The Magic Show."  So a C. Notes: Frankie Avalon was then 41, playing his 21-year-old self as Al's fifth cousin.  He sounds as much like he's lip-syncing as Fonzie does, due to the echo chamber. As nice as it is that Lynda Goodfriend gets to dance again, why is she doing a Jazzercise routine to the Twist?  For that matter, why do J&C and their ever-morphing band audition with a Twist song but he, Potsie, Roger, and Al form a barbershop quartet? Is it stranger that Jenny auditions with a striptease number or that the stripper song is on the Arnold's jukebox? There is one half-funny joke here, about Lincoln and the theater, which you will make before you hear it. David Ketchum returns as Lodge member Donald Hedges.
Read more

"The Other Richie Cunningham"

Image
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 ...
Read more

"Great Expectations"

Image
When I was a kid catching up on the early seasons in syndication, this April 16th episode was probably my favorite, and I'm very pleased that it holds up.  In fact, it's the first B+ of the series: smart, warm, funny, and willing to give Ron Howard something meatier than he's been given so far.  He even gets in a yelling match with Tom Bosley!  Also, it has the words "reefers" and "pregnant," and that wonderful "purpose"/"usurp us" rhyme that has stayed with me for over forty years.  Oh, and the nifty little scene of Potsie & Ralph (who are shifting into their later standard friendship) sneaking into the coffeehouse, only to find Marsha moonlighting from Arnold's. Other thoughts: The line I most recall from this episode is of course "You're going to be a daddi-o." Richie wanted to go to law school on a recent episode, but his poetry shows the writer he would become. This is set at the beginning of summer vacation...
Read more