Live HistoricSee what matters.

Series · ABC · 1976

Pass it on

Laverne & Shirley

46Watch it awake.

They are funny because the shift is real, and they will not ditch each other to get off it.

The review

Two roommates run a bottle line at a Milwaukee brewery and want a better life, provided they do not have to leave each other. The slapstick is what people quote. Under it the jobs are actual jobs, and the wanting is a little bigger than the gag. It came off Happy Days and for a while drew more of the country than the diner did.

I watch it for the paycheck and the loyalty, not for a lesson about a family. There is no child here and no vow beyond the roommate kind. The jokes get wide. Even so, a house that only sees glamorous work can use a half hour where the next life has to be imagined from a line that does not stop. The gag is not a calling. It is a shift with a friend on it.

Journal

Keep Laverne & Shirley in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 46. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Piety and Republic and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

All in the Family

60 instead of 46

All in the Family is still a comedy show, and it scores 60 instead of 46. What you gain is republic: A neighborhood's prejudices get said in a living room the whole country watched.

The eight

8
Industry
They work a brewery bottle line, and the paycheck is not pretended away.
4
Household
Two roommates who will not split are a bond, not a marriage or a child.
3
Piety
No higher claim pulls them off a scheme; loyalty to each other is the limit.
5
Courage
They risk staying together when a better life would be easier apart.
2
Republic
Milwaukee is a backdrop; they do not owe the city anything on screen.
5
Temperance
Slapstick is the candy, but the shift itself is not an endless hunger.
6
Truth
The friendship holds, and the gags do not cancel the fact of the job.
4
Stewardship
A little ambition is left, plus a friend, and not much for anyone after them.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Laverne & Shirley · 46IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Series · ABC · 1964

Pass it on

Bewitched

46Watch it awake.

The marriage is real. The magic is the shortcut the show cannot quite give up.

The review

A man marries a woman who can rearrange the world with a gesture, and she agrees not to. The agreement is the marriage. Her mother thinks the agreement is absurd, and most episodes prove the mother tactically right and morally beside the point: the gesture is faster, and the faster thing is not what she promised. Darrin is sometimes a thin character. The vow is not thin.

It was near the top of the ratings in the middle of the decade, a country's joke about power in a suburban kitchen. I would let a child watch one and then say the sentence the laugh skips: the magic is the cheat, and the cheat is funny because we want it. Do not let the twitch become the way a house thinks problems end. One evening is plenty to see the pattern.

Journal

Keep Bewitched in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 46. Yours can differ.

The glance

Piety and Courage and Republic are the thin ones.

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

58 instead of 46

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is still a comedy show, and it scores 58 instead of 46. What you gain is republic: A neighborhood with a name and a history.