INTRODUCTION:

Say yes? Proposal #1, Look Before You Leap.

LENNY: “I defy you to look into my eyes and tell me you can resist me, Laverne.”
LAVERNE: (looking into his eyes): “I can resist you.”
LENNY (Aside happily to Squiggy): “She’ll do whatever I tell her to!”
-LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY MOVE IN, EPISODE ELEVEN, SEASON 4.

Once upon a time, in a magical place called Milwaukee in the year of nineteen and fifty-six, there was a tall boy and a tough girl. In the beginning they loved (his choice) and were vaguely annoyed by each other (her choice), but most of the time Things Were Weird (the sole mutual choice). As time went by their feelings were less easy to define. Affection blossomed, making them true friends, and yet the possibility of more was stifled. Somewhere in the middle ground they forged in steel a relationship that proved to be one of the most important bonds of their lives.

He asked her to marry him; she said no.

She helped him find love with someone else; it never lasted.

And still, after twenty years, two hundred plus episodes and one reunion skit, there remains a small but strong following for two characters that never exchanged a romantic “I love you,” never shared a bed, never married or had children. Despite all of this they’re the most sought-after pairing in the Laverne and Shirley fandom, and the one most often wistfully spoken about among general fans of the show.

“How is it,” someone once asked me, “that Laverne and Lenny never got together?”

It’s an answer only Garry Marshall can provide, but my answer is short and to the point.

“They should have.”

THE SHOW:



Opening Theme, California

SQUIGGY: “Goodbye, Shirl – Goodbye Laverne.”
LAVERNE: “Fellas, I’m still gonna be here.”
SQUIGGY: “Yeah, but without her, what good are you?” -LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY MOVE IN, IBD.

Laverne And Shirley was a half-hour sitcom produced by Garry Marshall which began airing on ABC in January of 1976. Set in 1956-1964 East Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and then in 1965-1968 Burbank, California) it was initially about two best friends fresh out of high school who worked at the Shotz Brewery plant capping bottles. They also shared living quarters and expenses in a basement-level brownstone apartment. Despite their ordinary beginnings, the girls had dreams and strove to make them real. For Shirley, they were obvious: a stable white-collar marriage, children, suburbia. Laverne claimed to have no dream, but she secretly harbored the desire to be a Broadway dancer. In the meanwhile, they tried to maintain classy reputations while seeking dates. Laverne was the cynic, Shirley was the dreamer; Shirley sought enlightenment and maintained her strong sense of self - Laverne turned herself into a southern belle to impress a guy. The conflicts between them made for interesting (and surprising) pathos along with some great physical comedy right from the Lucille Ball/Vivian Vance playbook.

In the season premier of season 6, the girls were demoted off the Shotz line to the position of truck washers. Enraged, they quit and moved to California, attempted acting careers, ending up gift wrappers with Bardwells’ Department Store, and lived in a converted Spanish hacienda complete with an upstairs bedroom and a balcony. In a move that pleased no one, in season 8 Shirley was married off to Army doctor Walter Meeney, became pregnant with his child, and was then written out of the show. For a season, Laverne struggled to live on her own, abetted by the remains of the supporting cast. It all ended in the canonical year 1968, where a now-solo Laverne ended up testing space suits with the guy who voiced Roger Rabbit. Squashed by the A-Team in the ratings and having lost half of its original main players, the show was cancelled in 1983.

Along for the ride were Carmine, Shirley’s boxer/dancer/singer sometimes-steady-boyfriend; Edna Babbish, their much-married landlady; Laverne’s loud and hectoring father, Frank – owner of the Pizza Bowl Restaurant/Bowling Alley and,in the California seasons, Cowboy Bills - part of a western-themed rib and hamburger chain; Rhonda Lee, actress/singer/model/dancer, a Jayne Mansfield figure who shocks the girls with her mirrored bedroom when they move to California.

Most importantly, right beside them for the entire journey, are the two boys who’ve been chasing them since high school; Lenny and Squiggy.

The Players:
Laverne DeFazio

Laverne, Circa Season 1
LAVERNE: "I'd rather trust all the guys I go out with, even if it means I get hurt fifty percent of the time. So when that one special guy does come along, I'll be able to see him nice and clear. 'cause well... if I'm listenin' for lies all the time, how am I ever gonna hear the truth?" – SEASON 7, EPISODE 15: AN AFFAIR TO FORGET

Portrayed by actress-director Penny Marshall, Laverne Marie DeFazio was born sometime in 1938 in Brooklyn, New York. The daughter of Frank - a first-generation American, one-time door-to-door brush salesman, restaurateur and eventual politician - and opera-loving housewife Josephine DeFazio, Laverne was raised in Brooklyn until her mid-to-late childhood - just long enough to develop memories of her neighborhood. The DeFazios moved to Milwaukee while Laverne was still a child, and this is where Josephine died. How or why is never explained canonically, nor is the exact date, but it’s an early abandonment that changes Laverne’s life completely.

In school, she met and bonded with Shirley Feeney, and they become best friends after being kicked out of the Brownies together. In high school they joined a girl gang called “The Angora Debs”, and by senior year they've begun to dress identically. It's natural, therefore, that they end up living their post-graduation lives side-by-side, doing the same job for the same paycheck and sharing a bedroom, for an elapsed twelve years. When the show opens, Laverne’s about eighteen years old, and by the time we leave her, she’s almost thirty.

Laverne portrays herself as a serious-minded straight-shooter. Her initial hope is one of survival; and hey, if she gets to make out with a cute guy, all the better. As the show goes on she begins to involve herself in ideas that don’t simply project survivalist instincts. Her career ambitions change, and at times she aspires to be a showgirl, a Broadway dancer, an actress, a folk singer/songwriter, and finally a space suit tester - a job that she finally seems to find satisfying. Ultimately, she ends up working security at Vikings Stadium. In the romance department she thinks she knows what guys want out of her (“A few laughs, a little fun and some vo-deo-do-do”) and doesn’t see any harm in enjoying it, yet when she over indulges – as in the extreme example provided in season 8's “A Monastery Story” where she drunkenly salutes Buddy Holly with an apparent gang-bang on an aircraft carrier - she turns to religion for absolution. And so she lives her life, half-hedonist, half-penitent, her dating life a reflection of her choices - frequently and to extremes, her partners are cops and firemen or crooks and bikers. She nearly marries a sailor twice – the second time after he’s become a rich businessman – but can’t go through with it because he doesn’t give her goose bumps; she nearly becomes engaged to a noble fire fighters but loses him in a four-alarm blaze. Ultimately, sadly, Laverne never canonically meets “Mr. Right”.

With some exceptions, when Laverne gets together with a man she loses the ability to see herself as an individual person and often judges her self-worth by what they think of her. Deluding herself that “this one is the right one”, she commits a series of risky acts in the name of love, among them becoming an accessory to robbery. In the California years she doesn’t quite research the lives of her beaux’s before throwing herself into a date and ends up with a series of sleazebags, some of them hiding their marital status. Her secret romantic streak is revealed in the episode “An Affair To Forget”, when she explains to Carmine that she dates around frequently to make sure she doesn’t miss out on "The Right Guy".

A lot of the anxiety Laverne seems to experience about getting married stems from the way her father, Frank, feels about marriage. He harps constantly at his daughter about settling down and giving him grandchildren, and Laverne reacts to that pressure by doing everything but.

Post-canon Laverne’s life is hard to pin down. Further information can, believe it or not, be tracked down in the failed Marshallverse sitcom Blansky’s Beauties. In the episode “Nancy Remembers Laverne”, an entirely alternate version of Laverne’s history is offered, in which, in 1967, Laverne has to make a fateful decision between moving to Las Vegas to work as a showgirl or staying in Milwaukee. She apparently stays in Milwaukee with her friends in this version of canon (the episode was filmed during season two of Laverne and Shirley, which explains the deviation in canon). The last bit of post-canonical information offers a sadly ironic twist; a reunion skit during the 20th Anniversary Laverne and Shirley Reunion Special reveals that Laverne married four times and gave birth to five children. In this version of canon, she is single and living with Shirley again in Milwaukee, doesn’t get along with two of her kids and is working security at football games. With no real info about her husbands, this tidbit has only made the Good Ship Lavenny sail on the longer. After all, it’s never revealed who fathered those kids…

Lenny Kosnowski


Lenny, Circa Season 1
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Laverne – I’m a pretty deep guy.” – LENNY, EPISODE 6, SEASON 2, LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Portrayed by actor/writer/singer/musician/etc. Michael McKean, Leonard “Lenny” Kosnowski was also born some time in 1938. Though Lenny's New Jersey accent is never completely explained away in canon, there is fanon assumption that he's an Atlantic State native (Michael McKean conceived the character as coming from his home state when he created Lenny at Carnegie Mellon University). There's inference in a few episodes that Lenny's mom was physically abusive (as revealed in Season 4's "A Visit To The Cemetery", he carries a photo around of her shoving his head through the bars of his playpen), and ultimately she abandons the family on Lenny’s fifth birthday, literally leaving him alone with his cake. Lenny tends to put a bit of a rosy glow on his childhood, which seems by his every account to have been somewhat deprived. He, his father and sister lived on or below the poverty line – he says that he “got his lunch money from the teacher” in the season 5 episode “Testing, Testing”, and reveals his only childhood toy was sauerkraut during season 6's "The Dating Game" – and on top of that his social graces were somewhat lacking (he spent an entire year out of school with a case of ringworm, as revealed in season 1's "A Nun's Story"). It's not surprising that Lenny ultimately had only one friend from childhood to call his own - Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman. Exclusively friends throughout their childhoods, the twosome were occasionally joined by Hector Kestenbaum in chasing after Laverne, Shirley and the various other Angora Debs during high school.

After living with his sister post-graduation, Lenny took a commercial truck driver's test and became a delivery driver for Shotz, working once again beside Squiggy. From that moment on, he's never without his best friend - they move in together, taking a fourth floor apartment in the girls building, form the band "Lenny and the Squiggtones", and often finds himself the guinea pig for Squiggy's many failed get-rich-quick schemes. Though Squiggy often manipulates Lenny, and he often ends up with the short end of the stick when it comes to their friendship, Lenny would do anything for his best friend.

When the premise change occurs in season 6, Lenny and Squiggy are offered huge promotions and raises at Shotz – ones they were set to take until Laverne and Shirley trick them into moving their stuff cross-country to California in the ice cream truck they’ve bought for their upcoming summer vacation. On their first night in Burbank the boys get lucky with a couple of “senoritas” and decide to stick around, getting an apartment in the same complex the girls inhabit and opening a combined talent agency/ice cream vending business (Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank, or STAB). The boys are surprisingly successful in this business, holding on to the services of several acts. But the fruits of their labors never arrive; after Michael McKean exercised a contractual out to make “This is Spinal Tap”, Lenny disappears physically from the canvas for the majority of season 8. The last time we see the character, he’s drunkenly walking across a desert in Arizona during “Please Don’t Feed The Buzzards”, having lost his chance at making a fortune with a bottle of Napoleon Brandy by sharing it with Carmine, Squiggy and Frank in the middle of a Nevada desert.

In the romance department, Lenny is willing to make any leap of faith he needs to make things work. Though he had flirtations and affairs with a variety of women we meet glancingly – from prison matrons to manicurests – only three women outside of Laverne pose long-term threats to his heart. The first is Amy Babbish, Edna’s developmentaly-disabled daughter, whom he develops feelings for briefly in the season 3 episode “The Slow Child”. Lenny is so naive that he doesn’t realize the truth about Amy’s impairment until Squiggy calls her a ‘dummy’ to her face while they’re out on a date at the Pizza Bowl. This makes Amy run away crying, which so enrages Lenny that he nearly comes to blows with his friend. But no one trusts Lenny with Amy – most especially Edna, who fears Lenny will violate her daughter. It’s Amy, yearning for her first kiss, who plants one on Lenny – and he’s the one who’s left stunned by the experience. Edna rips the twosome apart, but after a heart-to-heart with the girls Edna realizes she’s denied her daughter an important experience. Lenny and Amy eventually share a tender slow-dance at the girls’ Saint Patrick’s Day party with Edna looking on approvingly, but the relationship – perhaps inevitably – couldn’t go further and was never mentioned again.

His time with Amy is a turning point for Lenny as a person – it’s proof that he's not just out to "get something" off a woman, that can treat a woman with respect, and that he can handle the complex situation in which he finds himself with maturity and grace.

He develops a crush on Cowboy Bills' waitress Sabrina Bouche in "Sing Sing Sing" and, amusingly, his bashful and tongue-tied reaction to her mirrors his earlier attraction to Laverne. Though he eventually wins Sabrina's attention through a Hoot Night performance with Laverne, we never see the girl again.

A third relationship occurs in California and further gives us a glimpse of his inner workings - . During “Love Is The Tar Pits” in Season 6, Lenny dates a college coed named Karen Caldwell for several months – when she leaves for New York on a grant, he expects to follow her there and move in together. Karen dumps him over the phone (where Lenny is unfortunately in public at Cowboy Bills); when she rejects him, Lenny displays his tendency to embark on bombastic moments of hysteria by having a dramatic breakdown right in the middle of the restaurant. His relationship with Karen, however, also brings out a positive feature in Lenny's make-up; his heretofore underplayed intellect. Lenny turns out to hold a surprising knowledge of the La Brea Tar Pits, which causes Karen to declare he has great potential. It’s potential that remains tragically unrealized.

Lenny likes to play the loner and talks of clinging to his bachelorhood forever, but whenever the opportunity for love comes his way he's almost instantly ready for some sort of commitment. He favors big romantic gestures but, like Laverne, enjoys the hormonal strings-free relationships that come his way. Perhaps his instant desire for commitment links back to his desire for the family he lost when his mother left?
Post-canon Lenny is just as hard to pin down as post-canon Laverne; Reunion Show Skit Canon says he works for the reality game show Island of Doom with Squiggy, which means they probably never left LA…

Together:


First Appearance Together, The Society Party, Season 1 Episode 1

LAVERNE: “Yanno that special feeling a guy gets for a girl?”
LENNY: “Yeah – I got that for you.” - SEASON 4, EPISODE 18, LENNY’S CRUSH

Lenny and Laverne first encounter each other during the first episode of the show, “The Society Party.” Trying to get fancy dresses to wear to the titular party – where they’ve been invited by Fonzie – the girls decide to butter up their old acquaintances Lenny and Squiggy. While Shirley coyly tries to flirt with Squiggy, it’s Lenny who selects the reluctant Laverne, saying “So I guess I get you!” She responds by poking him in the chest, the inverse of Shirley’s coy finger-walk up the front of Squiggy’s body. This reflects much of their interaction in the first season – Lenny flirts with Laverne, asking her for dates, and Laverne hangs back, apparently somewhat repulsed by her memories of their high school days.

A big turning point in this stalemate occurs during the episode “Hi Neighbor,” when the boys move into the girls’ building and fight, forcing Squiggy to sleep on the girls’ couch. There’s only so much of the guy they can stand, however, and Shirley nudges Laverne into going upstairs and coaxing Lenny into taking Squiggy back. There behind closed doors, the two of them reveal hints of personality we’ve never suspected they owned – Lenny’s surprising streak of independence, which he expresses by buying a jacket in Chinatown accidentally reading “One Wolf” instead of “Lone Wolf”; Laverne’s willingness to patiently listen to his problems. Though she tells Lenny that Squiggy is his “only friend”, Laverne helps him sort through his problems and gets the boys back together.

During the tag scene, Laverne makes herself alone with Lenny. It turns out she’s taken his jacket and sewn on the missing “L”, a cursive one from her own signature stash. He’s so grateful that he grabs her and plants a big kiss on her mouth – though she runs out of the room in horror, it's a step in a peaceful direction for them.

Things change even more during season 2, starting with the episode “Look Before You Leap.” When Laverne worries that she’s pregnant after experiencing nausea a few months after blacking out during a wild party at the Brewery, Lenny and Squiggy flip a coin to decide “who should volunteer to be (her) husband,” in Lenny’s words.

LAVERNE: So you lost, eh?
LENNY: No, I won.

After offering to marry her to give her baby a name – declaring that he’ll “practically never hit (her) or nothing – besides, (he) likes her..” – Laverne gently turns Lenny down, declaring that it isn’t fair for the two of them to embark on a marriage of convenience. But, she declares, he’s a “swell guy and a great friend.” Far from treating him like the man she could barely stand to touch the season before, she hugs him warmly.

That warmth is often challenged or discounted or traded on for favors - in “Guinea Pigs”, Laverne nuzzles up to Lenny to get a spot at a the testing lab where he works, nibbling on his neck to make him crack (he returns the favor by trying to peep at her while she’s changing in the back of his truck after triumphantly working herself to death to get the cash she’d wanted for a new party dress). It's a pattern between Laverne, Lenny, Squiggy and Shirley; occasionally the girls will use their wiles on the boys to get favors from them – the boys will in turn try to manipulate make-out sessions with the girls. Everyone on all sides responds well to “no”, so it all seems to be in fun.

In “Hi Neighbor, Book II,” the girls go out on a double date with the boys after Squiggy’s sure thing stands him up. It’s quite interesting to watch how Laverne behaves in this situation – still reluctant to be out on a date with Lenny, yet having a bit of fun. They argue like an old married couple at dinner, with all of the fondness that infer. At the end, the boys beg for a good night kiss, and while the Shirley/Squiggy embrace is clearly played for comedy, Laverne and Lenny’s kiss lasts…and lasts…and lasts. She releases him gently - his reaction is euphoric.

During "Lonely In the Middle", Laverne turns to Lenny for support when she fights with a recently-promoted Shirley. Though he's only half-interested in her story (the smutty romance novel she had been reading is much, much more interesting), she unburdens herself to him, in turn kissing the injury he incurred while putting together a sign.

Kisses aside, the twosome are together more often then not, spending time together when there isn’t the required “favor” involved. During “Buddy, Can You Spare a Father?” and “The Slow Child,” they go grocery shopping together; they do their laundry together during “Guinea Pigs”. Though Laverne is mildly annoyed by Lenny during the shopping excursion, she seems to enjoy being with him - for example, during “Honeymoon Hotel,” they willingly spend an evening watching "From Here To Eternity" together. This episode presents a defining scene for the friendship; while sharing a bowl of popcorn, Laverne turns to Lenny and says “there isn’t any butter on this…” he cuts her off, responding in a teasing high-pitched tone, “there isn’t any butter!” Lenny then goes to her kitchen, gets a stick of butter and a knife, and then – in a typical display of comedic selflessnes – coats each kernel of corn before handing them to Laverne, piece by piece.

If in season 2 they began to see each other as friends, by season 3 they could call each other close friends. As presaged in Season 2’s “Lonely In The Middle,” Laverne would go to Lenny for advice whenever Shirley is out of commission. For instance, when she’s misled to believe that her best friend's died during “Shirley’s Operation,” she turns to Lenny for an embrace; when they find her friend alive but ailing and escort her to the operating theater, Laverne grabs Lenny’s hand and they say to each other soothingly, “It’s going to be okay.”

This is the season where Lenny seems to peg Laverne as his ideal woman – she’s the only one he wants to present to the Duke (and all of Milwaukee society) when he receives an invitation to attend a debutante ball in (what else?) “The Debutante Ball”. Though Laverne’s big romantic moment of the night seems to be her dance with the Duke, Laverne and Lenny have a really nice time together for once – with none of the reluctance they held during the date in “Hi Neighbor Book 2”.

The second-to-last episode of the season – “2001: A Comic Odyssey” - comes in the form of a dream – Laverne is spurred by her father’s concern for her marital state to imagine herself as an overweight cake-addicted senior who’s still a virgin and still living with Shirley. Lenny comes to her door – having literally lost his wife years ago – and he and Squiggy propose marriage. Laverne’s not at all reluctant about marrying Lenny, but because Lenny and Squiggy are a package deal thanks to Squiggy’s melancholia Shirley is forced to make it a double wedding. Ultimately, Shirley's unable to go through with the wedding and Laverne and Lenny are forced to part, quite unwillingly. As the majority of the episode takes place inside of Laverne’s subconscious, very interesting things about Laverne’s buried feelings for Lenny can be derived from the action here.

In Season 4, their relationship is at its most complicated. They alternate between gentle teasing (He presses an icy beer mug to the back of her neck during a Valentine’s Day party in “Date With Eraserhead.”) and big brotherly/big sisterly protectiveness (after being forced to make a date between Laverne and their brutish foreman, it’s Lenny who is overwhelmed by a guilty conscious and drags Squiggy to her place to save her in “The Bully Show”). On two occasions, the depth of their bond shows up very clearly. The first time, Lenny recounts the story of his mother’s abandonment to get Laverne to visit her mother’s grave for the first time in “A Visit To The Cemetery”. In a scene of emotional passion, Lenny admits to Laverne that for a time he hated his mother and felt himself a loser, and suggests that maybe she hates her own mother for leaving, too. Lenny hits too close to home, and she slaps him across the face, an act of violence that makes her break down (“I don’t hate you,” she admits. “The only person I hate is myself…”). Lenny’s streetwise intelligence shows up here, and his advice - the advice Shirley couldn't give her - works; Laverne goes with her father to see her mother’s resting place.

Another episode that takes us far into the past, “Laverne and Shirley Move In” flashes back to the girls’ first days in their apartment. Here we find out that Lenny and Squiggy have been chasing them for a very, very long time, perhaps since they figured out what exactly what makes the bees buzz.

The buzzing of those bees are ignored again when the girls put off going out with the boys on a promised date to the Teamster’s Annual Fish Fry and Moonlight Mud Fight to date a couple of veterinarians in “Dinner for Four”. The girls get rejected, putting them in the same place they’d just placed the boys; recalcitrant, they promise them anything – which leads to the boys dragging them into their bedroom to attempt a makeout session. The boys deservedly get beaten up for their troubles.

The ultimate episode for Lavenny ‘shippers is, and will always be, “Lenny’s Crush.” It seems at first to dispel the notion of the ship ever working out – when Squiggy tosses Lenny out of their apartment for the night, Lenny worries about his ability to attract the opposite sex. Laverne tells him that all he has to do is find a girl he’s got things in common with and she’ll be the one for him. Lenny realizes Laverne has a lot in common with him and invites her to the following day’s company outing to a Milwaukee Braves baseball game. She agrees and he gives her an awkward kiss (“You don’t kiss bad, neither,” Laverne declares). The following morning, we find out Lenny's stayed up all night to write her a song, and, declaring his love, sends Laverne into a panic. At the ballgame, he treats her like a princess, buying her everything under the sun; she flirts with another guy, causing Lenny to be beaten up. Later and alone at her apartment they have everything out violently:

LENNY: Be my girlfriend
LAVERNE: I can’t be that.
LENNY: Okay. Then be my wife.

She rejects him, he throws a tantrum, and - after she drags him from his hiding place beneath her coffee table - she convinces him that it's best for them to stay friends. Classic ship sinking, right? It would be, were it not for the tag scene. In it, Laverne, Shirley and Squiggy are playing animal, vegetable and mineral in the girls’ apartment when Lenny bursts in with his date, Bridgett. He announces that he needs the apartment tonight, winking at Laverne and giving her the “okay” sign. The second he’s gone, Laverne turns anxiously away and says, immortally, “I don’t think she’s good enough for him.” Shirley accuses Laverne of seeking to lead him on again, and Laverne looks awfully guilty and curiously anxious for someone who just wants to be friends with the guy…

The entire experience seems to enrich their relationship, however; when Lenny is pushed out his apartment window by Squiggy and breaks his leg in season 5’s “You Pushed Me Too Far,” Laverne’s the only one who’s deeply concerned about him. She spends a lot of time doing favors for him. Lenny returns the favor by dressing in drag to help the girls scare a group of tough kids infesting their old Angora Debs gang in “Bad Girls” (this is another amusing instance, visited previously in season 2’s “Good Time Girls,” where it’s revealed that Laverne and Lenny fit into each other’s clothing). In “You’re In The Army Now,” Laverne and Shirley do what the title says – and are placed in the same reservist unit as Lenny, who made the rank of Private in season 1, adding another parallel to Lenny and Laverne's lives. Their simultaneous hitches in the Army are revisited in "You Oughta Be In Pictures," where Lenny daringly suggests the three of them get to know each other in a new way - and when Shirley rejects him, he focuses all of his attention on Laverne. She misleads him into believing they're going to go for it and start undressing; he does the same. Lenny's down to his underwear before they realize what's happening and Laverne throws him out.

SHIRLEY: I wonder where he gets his underwear...
LAVERNE: Aww gee - why'd you bring that up for, Shirl? Now I'm gonna be up all night thinking about it...

In the “Fourth Annual Shotz Talent Show”, the girls manage to sneak a rock n roll review past their boss, who scrapped their first idea for a patriotic theme – Laverne and Lenny do a bit of high-voltage flirting during the final big number.

In “Beatnik Show,” Laverne again has to turn to Lenny when Shirley goes off the rails – he comforts her when Shirley becomes so entrenched in her “cool” lifestyle that Laverne worries they’re growing apart. It's Lenny's encouragement that keeps Laverne hanging on until Shirley snaps out of her Kerouacian daze.

Laverne often finds herself wrapped around Lenny’s finger – he convinces her to teach him how to dance in “The Right To Light” by “Putting his little head on (her) shoulder,” which is something he does physically during “The Diner” when he finds out his Uncle Laszlo has died and he’s inherited the man’s run-down diner. It’s actually sort of curious that Lenny doesn’t play a bigger role in “Why Did The Fireman…” when Laverne loses her near-fiancé in a blaze; Lenny is, however, the one who tries to break her the bad news.

A whole lot changes when the show shifts gears going into season 6; it loses a lot of its innocence, and the characters seem to grow up and into slightly more cynical people. This is exemplified in “The Road To Burbank,” an episode that still causes discomfiture in the fandom. The girls and the guys are trapped together in a seedy room at the Royal Cactus Motel, where the boys may or may not have tried to forcibly make out with the girls. A lot of people have trouble accepting this episode canonically; Lenny has always, for instance, understood “no” with Laverne, and to have him ignore it throws darker shades onto him; Laverne, who’s always been able to fight him off before actually being afraid of him also is pretty chilling. The entire incident is played for burlesque comedy, at least, however some find it a troublesome episode. The episode ends with a whispered "I'm sorry" from Lenny to Laverne.

All of this less than two episodes later when Laverne and Lenny are seemingly again the best of friends, rolling across the floor of her father’s tilting trailer in “Fifth Anniversary”. In “Sing Sing Sing” she encourages him to pursue Sabrina Bousche, a waitress at Cowboy Bills he has a crush on, and he encourages her to sing despite her terrible voice. They duet together on the Michael-McKean-penned The Look which encapsulates much of their on screen interaction musically; boy chases girl, girl avoids boy. They’re so into each other that when Sabrina comes up for Lenny’s autograph he doesn’t notice until Laverne points her out.

The seventh season shows them in the best light (Laverne dresses up as a gymnast after accidentally offending the wife of Lenny’s client by making out with a guy in “The Most Important Day Ever”) and the worst (Lenny takes to calling Laverne “easy” frequently). The most interesting example is “Moving In”, during which Laverne does the titular thing with a boyfriend and Lenny encourages her not to give up her fantasy of being a wife and a mother. He says "if I loved a woman...REALLY loved her...I'd ask her to marry me." She confesses that she thinks he’s a “terrific man” and, once again, takes his advice. In “That’s Entertainment,” a fantasy operetta sequence depicts “Brunhilde” (Laverne) sparking and marrying “Leonard Feather” (Lenny).

The eighth season has, ultimately, very little to recommend it. Among the many things we never get closure to is the Laverne/Lenny interplay. In “The Mummy’s Bride” Lenny makes a final proposal to Laverne in the hope of winning a “which girl’ll marry first?” bet with Squiggy ("We can be in Las Vegas by midnight"). In “The Note,” they go to Frank’s lodge together, and she rejects his offer of a dance. Their final interaction occurs in the episode “Death Row.” Laverne is stuck in jail and may be executed for her part in (accidentally) abetting a bank robbery – the boys are there because it’s conjugal visit day. The boys both lunge toward Laverne and end up kissing each other. Eyes closed, Lenny proclaims dreamily to Squiggy, "I toldja she kisses good!”

The characters never meet in canon again.

The Manifesto:

Kiss #1 – “Hi Neighbor”

LAVERNE: Lenny’s always liked me a little… - EPISODE 18 SEASON 4, LENNY’S CRUSH

Short version: all of those proposals help. Long version: neither of them will ever do any better than being together with someone they have a lot in common with, someone they have deep feelings for and someone who – despite it all – “doesn’t kiss too bad.”

Practically speaking, as Lenny says, they ‘have a lot in common’. Both enjoy the same sort of music, movies, and playing the same sports, and they also share the same social, economical and religious backgrounds. When Laverne takes up the guitar in season 6 they develop a similar desire to write songs and play music publicly. Both lost their mothers at a young age, and both seem to have been drastically shaped by same. While some have argued that all of this simply makes them mirror images of each other, or perhaps too similar to be in love, one only needs to look at their general dispositions toward life to notice how different they truly are from each other.

Lenny is, by his general nature, sunny. He sees the best in everyone, and is occasionally oblivious to the darker sides of human nature. Nevertheless, he displays flashes of deep, frightening anger. Laverne is a realist, a cynic who displays flashes of innocent joviality. When they’re alone together, Lenny seems to get smarter and Laverne seems to get softer; she displays a tendency toward nurturing him, and he displays a straight-talking point of view when she becomes too emotional. He's weak, shy and introverted, coming alive when he has a guitar in his hands; she's extroverted and tough, only demure when she's bowled over by emotion. She could fight his every physical battle and he'd cheer her along the way. When together, they fix what’s broken in each other, and fill in the missing social tools the other lacks. They are, simply, very good for each other.

There are also the simpler moments: quiet things, like Lenny jumping up from behind Edna's trunk to scare Laverne in "Honeymoon Hotel" or him kissing her on the head in the same episode. They spend a lot of time joking around together in the background of scenes, and often tease each other like children on a playground, pulling and tugging the hair of the person they like because they're too shy to use words of love. They're very comfortable with each other - for two people who put on airs with people they pursue romantically, with one another they are their best, truest selves.

The biggest stumbling blocks people have regarding the ship is Laverne’s alleged lack of attraction to Lenny. Even her subconscious calls her a liar in this matter. She entertains the idea of marrying him on a few canonical occasions – on one occasion, when she thinks she’s about to be murdered during “Dog Day Blind Dates,” she even considers sleeping with him. By Season 8, where she’s not afraid to hug and kiss him, showing that it's a long, long way from season 1 and her initial reluctance. To psychoanalyze her dream in “2001”, perhaps she’s afraid that being with Lenny means dooming Shirley to being with Squiggy - a fate her friend would consider worse than death. Why she sees Squiggy and Lenny as an indivisible package is the most intriguing mystery, as she and Shirley could well be considered the same. Lenny's feelings for Laverne are, contrastingly, never called into question; they're perhaps best expressed when he tells Laverne if he loved a girl, he'd ask her to marry him - and by then he's asked Laverne to marry him twice, and will ask one more time before they part.

It's also a mistake to assume all of this affection is one-sided. Though Laverne says over and over again that she's only interested in Lenny as a friend, she spends a lot of time touching him rather intimately, cuddling and cosseting him. He provides an occasionally-literal hiding place when things become to difficult for her to manage. For Lenny, who a ninety-nine times out of a hundred behaves as if Shirley doesn't even exist and addresses all of his comments directly to Laverne, she might just be the center of his universe; for Laverne, he is her slowly-emerging weak spot.

Ultimately, there’s a subtle beauty that these two have together – surprisingly subtle, since the show is the soul of broad comedy. They’re each other’s soft spots, each other’s warm place, each other’s protective shadow. It’s a pairing that works well because they just plain get along so well and could conceivably live together for a very long time.

FANNON:

Kiss #3, Lenny's Crush

Three minutes until Sea Hunt began. A decent hickey only took a minute. - SHOTZETTE, MARKED

The Laverne/Lenny pairing (ship name: Lavenny) was from the first emergence of the Laverne and Shirley fanfiction fandom in 1998 the most popular written 'ship. Of the over a thousand fics hosted at knapp-street.org, over a third of them are Laverne/Lenny 'centric.

The first known prose Laverne/Lenny 'ship fic is "Mother's Day" by Squeaky. Multiple scriptfics have been lost to the maw of time, so the ultimate origin of the pairing in fandom is unknown.

The ship is so frequently written that some folks consider the pairing itself a cliche. A common theme in fics containing the pairing involves Laverne "waking up" to Lenny's feelings for her.

The 'ship is old enough to have some delightful cliches attached to it - usually ones involving them pursuing their love of music together, or the two of them defying the expectations of her father or Shirley and getting together. Another involves them taking over the running of Laverne's father's restaurant enterprises. Some folks have a lot of fun playing with Lenny's royal status (he's 54th in line to the Polish throne). Due to their boisterous and active libidos, smut is a common theme. They're often written - perhaps due to Laverne's canonical five children - as having a large and occasionally unplanned family.

QUOTES:

LAVERNE ON LENNY: “You’re a real sweet guy, and a great friend.” SEASON 2, EPISODE 6, LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.

LENNY ON LAVERNE: "You're pretty, and you're smart, and you happen to be the classiest girl I know." - SEASON 3, EPISODE 21, DEBUTANTE BALL

LAVERNE: “Friends are forever…like me and Shirl, like you and Squig…like you and me.” SEASON 4, EPISODE 18, LENNY’S CRUSH

LENNY: "You hate me."
LAVERNE: "No you big dope! I love you!"
LENNY: "You do?!"
LAVERNE: "As a friend."
LENNY: "BIG DEAL!" - SEASON 4, EPISODE 18, LENNY'S CRUSH

LENNY: "She's crazy about me!" - SEASON 5, EPISODE, THE BULLY SHOW

LAVERNE: "I happen to think you're a real sweet guy, Len." SEASON 4, EPISODE 18, LENNY’S CRUSH

Fic Recs:


LAVERNE: “Let it go, Len. They ain’t us. We’re lucky” –BOOKENDS: WE GATHER TOGETHER BY SHOTZETTE

Here are ten Laverne and Lenny –related fics, as recommended by me with assistance from the Laverne/Lenny pairing thread at the knapp-street.org forums. Warning, there’s a lot of repeat authors because we have a fandom of about seven regular writers. Ratings and warnings before links.

10: PG-13: Here By Hayley. A gorgeous little future fic. Laverne's finally got it right this time...

9: G The Arms To Carry Her Away and All The Way: By Ashley. Yes, a songfic mini-series, but a lovely, heart-gripping story. Lenny runs away, Frank considers his daughter's deep worry, and Laverne and Lenny meet up in a church to hash it out.

8: PG: Marked: By Shotzette: Lenny needs a hickey to back up a fib he's told. Laverne reluctantly obliges and finds herself more than intrigued by him in the long run.

7: PG: Those That Can…By Shotzette: Simple, very IC Lavenny in which Lenny tries to teach Laverne to play the guitar.

6: PG: Christmas in Milwaukee By OldTimeFan: It’s hard to pick a fic by this author for inclusion, since she does pull focus on Shirley/Carmine for the most part. This shares the bill with Squiggy/Shirley, but provides a fun outsiders-looking-in POV on them falling in love during the Holidays.

5: R: Whirlwind By Shotzette and OldTimeFan: Again splitting the bill with Carmine/Shirley, this features Laverne nearly marrying the aforementioned sailor Sal Malina until she realizes some very important things about Lenny.

4: PG: Cinderfella: By Shotzette: An alternate view of The Debutante Ball, with Laverne and Lenny becoming even more attached to each other…

3: PG: The Mother’s Day Series By Squeaky: Three fics, including “Banana Nut Cupcake,” “It Ain’t Possible” and “Mother’s Day”, which form the first real example of Laverne/Lenny fic on the net. Seminal work.

2: PG-13: Crushed: By Shotzette: Another simple “what if” scenario done brilliantly – this time, what if Laverne kissed Lenny back during “Lenny’s Crush”?

1: R: Bookends By Shotzette and Myself: Recommending a fic that I co-wrote last is a tad egotistical of me, but it's a favorite of mine. A series that follows Laverne and Lenny from childhood to late middle age, and eventually the lives of their children and grandchildren. Pretty romantic, but also counts as a family saga. Includes a tad of Laverne/Carmine and Lenny/Karen before we get to the main event.

RESOURCES:

Bashful and Annoyed, Ltd: Hi Neighbor

LENNY: It’s nutritious!
SQUIGGY: And delicious! – SEASON 4, EPISODE ELEVEN, LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY MOVE IN

EPISODES: The first three seasons of Laverne and Shirley are available on DVD in region 1. Unfortunately, there are no legal digital episode downloads available for the show, nor are any online services streaming it. However, here's a list of ten recommended episodes:

10: Moving In: Lenny convinces Laverne not to move in with her boyfriend by comparing her situation to that of ads for mail-away can openers. Only on LAS...
9: That's Entertainment: Carmine and Frank argue about popular music; fast-forward to the final segment - it's the closest we get to Laverne and Lenny getting together in canon.
8: Hi Neighbor: The genesis of Lenny/Laverne, the very first spark.
7: Debutante Ball: Laverne and Lenny have a good time when Lenny (54th in line to the Polish throne) presents Laverne to society.
6: Road To Burbank: A controversial but necessary episode - interesting for the sight of a teddy-sporting Laverne forcing Lenny to make out with her alone.
5: Hi Neighbor, Book 2: Watch Laverne and Lenny make out, and make out, and make out...
4: Sing, Sing, Sing: They're all over each other in this episode, despite the fact that he's pursuing another girl and she has anything but romance on her mind. "You wanna be a singer!" "I wanna be a singer, not a trampoline!"
3: Look Before You Leap: A rare "message episode" from the series, and proposal #1.
2: Honeymoon Hotel: Popcorn and a kiss on the forehead.
1: Lenny's Crush: much like a person singing the National Anthem, it confirms and denies everything about this 'ship all at once, but it's essential to get under the skin of the relationship.
OVERVIEWS AND RESEARCH: TV.com provides the best general resource for the show, along with episode summaries and some trivia. For a quick overview of titles, epguides.com is a good resource. Sitcomsonline.com provides some photos, lyrics to the themesong and background materials.

FICS/MAILING LISTS/MESSAGE BOARDS: knapp-street.org is the sole regularly-updating broad-reaching resource for fanfiction; it includes a message board and mailing list. All other fic sites are dormant, though fanfiction.net will get the occasional missing fic not archived here. The fandom is a small, convivial community of about seven regular authors, but we're always open to more people coming aboard. Please note that to avoid flooding by spambots during the busy holiday season, automatic account creation at the message board and approval at the mailing list are closed from early October through late February annually.

LIVEJOURNAL GROUPS:
General information group:
Icons:

Fic:

The fic groups is largely inactive, the fandom center for discussion being mostly on the message board over at Knapp-street.org.

PICTURES: knapp-street.org is putting together a publicity photo gallery and also hosts The Buttered Cocoon, a high-quality screencap collective. Google searches are also fruitful.

FANART: There is no centralized LAS fanart fandom, as far as I know.

Thank You’s:

56 seconds - Kiss #2, Hi Neighbor Book 2

LENNY: “As The Marquise De Sade once said, ‘my pleasure’!” - SEASON 5, EPISODE 15: YOU OUGHTTA BE IN PICTURES

Thanks to Shotzette and for reading this monster through and giving their thoughts. Also thanks to Emily for use of her screencaps to illustrate, and Lauren for use of her gathered lyrics.