"Shotgun Wedding"




It's September 11, 1979.  I am in the sixth grade and, along with puberty, I must endure the trials of ABC deciding to shake up their entire schedule.  So the Tuesday Night Line-Up now lacks Laverne & Shirley, which has been sent over to Thursdays, which means Mork & Mindy has gone over to Sundays.  Another Garry-Marshall series, Angie, is now in the 8:30 Tuesday slot.  I like Angie, but having to watch a two-part crossover spread over 49 hours is odd.  At least no one is budging Three's Company.

My review of "Shotgun Wedding," Part One is here https://revisitinglaverneandshirley.blogspot.com/2019/12/shotgun-wedding-part-1.html .  What I looked at today is the syndicated version, recorded off of TV Land, I guess in the '00s.  There is not, as of this writing, an official DVD release of the last five seasons of Happy Days.  So the remaining episodes may've once been better.  I can say that the tag here does not work, dramatically or otherwise, and not just because we miss out on Richie and Fonzie almost marrying Shirley and Laverne respectively.  In it, Richie runs for an hour yet not to the girls, but rather to his father, then keeps running.  Then Fonzie shows up and says he got out of the mess by claiming that Potsie and Ralph are rich doctors who will marry Helga and Inga.  This makes no sense.  So I'm giving this version of the episode a C.

Notes:
  • We hear that it's the Sixties, the "New Frontier," and JFK is President.  It is 1961 over on Laverne & Shirley, so that works.
  • Joanie is almost seventeen.
  • We get to see the regular cast enter and exit the Cunningham living room in a line, which is nice, although only Lori Beth gets anything to do.
  • She is indeed dating while Richie is away and, yes, 2019-self, they do seem to have an understanding, sort of.
  • I assume that this is Summer, or at least Labor Day Weekend, based on wardrobe and other clues.
  • Without the second part, the title becomes another of the misnomer episode titles, like the one about Fonzie getting married in Season Two.

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