The Forgotten ‘Laverne & Shirley’ Spinoff That Sent Them to the Army
In 1979, TV’s favorite brewery working roomies Laverne & Shirley joined the Army after they got stiffed for promotions at the beer plant. The Season 5 two-parter, “We’re in the Army, Now,” saw the gals, played by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, enlist, hoping to earn a little respect. What they get instead was the wrath of comically crusty Sgt. Alvinia T. Plout (Vicki Lawrence, The Carol Burnett Show) who quickly makes the ladies realize the Army was not for them and that they need of a creative way out. The episode marked the sitcom’s only hourlong outing, but it had even more significance. The “We’re in the Army Now” episode was spun off inyo the animated morning cartoon Laverne & Shirley in the Army, which debuted October 10, 1981, two years after Laverne & Shirley left the airwaves.
So what inspired Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney to don Army green once again? The very guy who introduced TV audiences to them in the first place: Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli.
Fonzie got animated first
In November of 1980, ABC debuted the Saturday morning cartoon The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, hoping to cash in on the success of Happy Days with a version that catered to kids and their active imaginations. Animation icons Hanna-Barbera produced the series, which featured the Fonz (again voiced by Henry Winkler), Richie Cunningham (voiced by Ron Howard), Ralph Malph (Donny Most) and Fonzie’s new sidekick, a talking dog named Mr. Cool (celebrated voice actor Frank Welker), plus a troublemaking “future chick” named Cupcake (Didi Conn).
After Fonzie fixes Cupcake’s time machine, a goof-up causes the gang to become lost throughout history, ending up in a series of oddball adventures involving vampires, pirates, cowboys and even Cleopatra as they try to get back to 1957 Milwaukee.
Narrated by Wolfman Jack, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang lasted two mildly successful seasons before it was canceled. But just as Laverne & Shirley spun off from Happy Days, ABC and Hanna-Barbera had another animated adventure waiting in the wings.
Lenny and Squiggy were drafted first
From Laverne & Shirley‘s very first season, Marshall and Williams were frequently upstaged by their leering dingbat neighbors, Lenny Kosnowski (Michael McKean) and Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman (David L. Lander). Per Pop Goes the Culture TV, the duo proved such an audience draw that ABC president Fred Silverman demanded a sequel right away.
Laverne & Shirley creator Gary Marshall, Penny’s dad, put the bumbling but self-confident pair in the Army, but the pilot episode was discharged from going to series and Lenny and Squiggy returned to 730 Knapp St. in Milwaukee.
“We wrote it and we cast it, and it went over well,” Lander told the outlet of his and McKean’s efforts to bring the show to fruition. The show was a hit with Laverne and Shirley producers Paramount Television, but ABC had a contract with Marcy Warner who wanted the time slot after Laverne & Shirley. “So at the last minute, they pulled Lenny and Squiggy, and that was the end of the pilot.”
Laverne & Shirley in the Army — sometimes also billed as just Laverne & Shirley — debuted in fall of 1981 during Laverne & Shirley’s seventh season. At that time, tensions between Williams, Marshall and now Laverne & Shirley’s producers were headed for disaster, but ABC took their chances anyway.
Laverne & Shirley enlist… again
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Though it too spun off from an existing series, Laverne & Shirley in the Army isn’t Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. gone girly. Playing off the premise of “We’re in the Army, Now,” the ladies sign on (first names only) as privates and get much more than they bargained for.
This time, the girls’ commanding officer is a neurotic uniformed pig named Sgt. Squealy, voiced by Welcome Back Kotter alum Ron Palillo, who played Horshack. And their very first mission, “Invasion of the Booby Hatchers,” takes them to outer space to battle aliens who are (because of course they are) bent on world domination.
Over the next dozen episodes, Laverne and Shirley enjoy superpowers, travel by rocket, camel and magic carpet, and more, as they help — and sometimes not so much — Sgt. Squealy take on everyone from more aliens to giant apes, a Bigfoot and a werewolf to spies, robots, an evil sheik and a Dark Knight (not the Batman one). When they really get on Squealy’s nerves, he turns them over to his own superior, Sgt. Turnbuckle, a lanterned jawed guy with Popeye’s forearms who was voiced by The Little Mermaid‘s King Triton, Kenneth Mars.
Unfortunately for all involved, Laverne & Shirley in the Army couldn’t match the ratings of the beloved cartoon it replaced, Thundarr the Barbarian. In its second season, the show got a mouthful of a rebrand, becoming Laverne & Shirley with Special Guest Star The Fonz.
But even making The Fonz the star of the show (and ultimately combining with it with animated versions Mork and Mindy, whose popularity were also waning) couldn’t keep Laverne & Shirley in the Army on the air. Plus, Laverne and Shirley about to go their separate ways.
Hello, Shirley Feeney-Meeney, goodbye Laverne & Shirley
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Die-hard Laverne & Shirley fans may remember that a pregnant Shirley Feeney married Army doctor Walter Meeney (who never appeared on-screen) and moved overseas the first episode of the show’s eighth season, “The Mummy’s Bride.”
In real life, Williams had married comedian and musician Bill Hudson of The Hudson Brothers and was expecting their first child. She agreed to film Laverne & Shirley during her pregnancy, but soon learned that she was expected to be on-set the very day the baby girl was due.
“I thought I was going to come back and they’d hide me behind benches, couches, pillows, and that wasn’t it,” Williams told TODAY in a 2015 interview. “”When it came time for me to sign my contract for that season, they had me working on my due date to have my baby,” she revealed. “I said, ‘You know, I can’t sign this.’ It went back and forth and back and forth and it just never got worked out.”
Williams’ former American Graffiti costar Lynne Marie Stewart took over for her on Laverne & Shirley in the Army, and Marshall carried the rest of the Laverne & Shirley season by herself, declining to make a ninth season when the network refused to move production of the show to New York. Williams filed a $20 million lawsuit that eventually settled out of court.
Marshall and Williams would reunite for a 1995 reunion special, The Laverne & Shirley Reunion, and eventually mended their friendship. In her 2012 memoir My Mother Was Nuts, Marshall says she reached out to Williams during the latter’s divorce from Hudson and let their previous chemistry take it from there.
“We got together at my house and had the conversation I wished I’d been able to have fifteen years earlier,” Marshall wrote.
“There would be squabbles, but in the end, the entire experience, the entire thing was such a blessing and so much fun,” Williams told the Archive of American Television in 2013. “I couldn’t have done it without her, it wouldn’t have been the same and, I’m sure she would say, vice versa.”
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