JOANIE LOVES CHACHI: "Christmas Show"

 

I was leaning towards a C- but the sentimental last part bumps this up to a C.

Notes:

• This manages to both offer backstory for the middle-aged people and to contradict HD.  As for the latter, not only does Joanie say she's never had a home-movie camera before (contradicting the "Summer of '62" two-parter), but we even get a different version of the Cunninghams' Christmas that week!  Joanie will not get to see Richie, Lori Beth, their son, or Grandmother Kelp, none of whom were expected on "All I Want for Christmas."
• Chachi says he's never had Christmas with a "father" before.  Did his biological father die when he was a baby?
• Al says his father always had to work on Christmas, so Al would go look in the window at another family gathering.  But what about his mother and twin brother?
• Rico was nine and Louisa was seven one Christmas during the Depression.  So that puts her born somewhere between 1922 and 1933, probably towards the earlier end, since Chachi was born somewhere between '44 and '46.
• A whopping four writers, all female, contributed to this script: 
• Cindy Begel and Lesa Kite had co-written two episodes for HD, three for Laverne & Shirley, and four for Mork & Mindy.
• Nancy Churnin had done one cameo on HD, written one script for that show, and would write another.
• And it's Cheryl Alu's second JLC script.