Laverne & Shirley

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As a spin-off from Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley was an instant hit and one of the most popular sitcoms of the '70s. It's a bit quaint by contemporary standards, and its light-hearted sentiment is ...As a spin-off from Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley was an instant hit and one of the most popular sitcoms of the '70s. It's a bit quaint by contemporary standards, and its light-hearted sentiment is strictly old-school, due to the crowd-pleasing influence of producer and co-creator Garry Marshall, a veteran of The Dick Van Dyke Show whose subsequent film career peaked early with Pretty Woman. As working-class roommates in mid-1950s Milwaukee, Laverne De Fazio (Penny Marshall, future director and Garry's sister) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) were a classic case of opposites: Laverne was relatively saucy and cynical, while Shirley was cheerfully naive and eternally optimistic. As bottle-cappers at the Shotz brewery, they regularly associated with colleagues (and eventual neighbors) Lenny (Michael McKean) and Squiggy (David L. Lander), and as an inaugural ratings-booster, Happy Days superstar Henry Winkler (as "Fonzie") appears in the first three episodes including "Bowling for Razzberries," later named by TV Guide as a classic episode. As Shirley's crooning would-be beau, Carmine "The Big Ragoo" Rugusa (Eddie Mekka) provided a touch of romance to Shirley's otherwise lackluster love life. Despite personal rancor that later erupted between its energetic costars, Laverne & Shirley was always a showcase for polished, professional comedy and effortless chemistry between characters, giving it the same widespread appeal later enjoyed by Friends. A mid-season replacement with a prime time-slot (following Happy Days at 8:30 Tuesdays on ABC) the show placed its good-natured characters in a variety of standard sitcom predicaments, typically set in L&S's apartment, the "Pizza Bowl" diner run by Laverne's father Frank (Phil Foster), or the Shotz brewery, where some of the show's funniest slapstick humor emerged.

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