#sticom

season 5 episode 16

Laverne & Shirley

S1E6: Falter At The Altar

ESC | Behind the Scenes 2

S1E6 - “Harrison B. Harding of Camp Crowder, MO”

Original air date: November 6, 1961

Episode recap

A man shows up at Rob’s office unexpectedly. His name is Harrison B. Harding and he says he knows Rob from the army. He says he knows Laura too. Rob doesn’t remember him but acts like he does.

Harrison insists on taking Rob to dinner. Rob calls home and Laura has already started a roast. Rob invites Harrison and his wife to his house for dinner.

Harrison and his wife come for dinner. Rob still can’t remember him. Rob and Laura excuse themselves to the kitchen. Rob begins to worry Harrison is a con man. Richtie joins the Hardings in the living room. Rob and Laura eavesdrop to see if the boy can pick up any intel.

Harrison starts asking Richtie where his dad keeps his watch. Richtie takes the Hardings to the bedroom to show them his parents jewelry. Rob starts a series of phone calls to the police to report a robbery.

The Petries move to the living room. Rob opens the brown paper bag Harrison has been carrying since he saw him at the office. The bag is full of jewelry. They eavesdrop from the living room the conversation in the bedroom. Harrison takes Rob’s watch and tells Richtie to keep it a secret.

Everyone comes back to the living room. Harrison reveals himself to be a jeweler and finally starts offering all sorts of army details that proves he is not a con man. He worked the projector at the army hall where Rob MC’d events. Harrison was even there the night Rob and Laura met. Rob suddenly remembers him. Harrison takes out his jeweler lense thing and fixes the engraving on Rob’s watch which is why he was being so secretive about it. It’s been bothering him for years that he messed up the engraving.

The police show up but Rob sends them away. Somehow the night ends up with everyone laughing and having a good time and not awkward at all.

Everything is about me

When the four of them, Rob and Laura and Harrison and his wife, got together, they were so dressed up. Then men were in suits, the women in dresses and heals. Laura blew everyone away with her outfit as always. But everyone looked nice.

I have been spending a lot of time at the soccer fields lately. Our three kids have practice over four nights over two different fields. Then the weekend brings games.

I dress like a slob. T-shirt. Baggy shorts. Comfortable walking shoes.

This seemed normal to be for the past while. And I didn’t talk to many people anyway, just walked around with my AirPods in.

But now our youngest two are on travel teams and we are getting to know the parents better. So I am talking to people, making strong acquaintances, potentially a friend or two.

And when I look around, some parents are actually dressed OK. Not for 1960s sitcom dinner party standards. But in a nice casual or nice active wear kind of way. 

(One dad overdoes it in the hipster direction, but at least he doesn’t look like a slob.)

And I realize I can do this. It’s not like I even have to spend a ton of money on clothes. Just wear something respectable. And I’m now realizing that work from home since March 2020 has devolved my work attire which bleeds over to slob wear at the soccer fields.

I need to present a better image.

Episode observations

Life before cell phones

Harrison just pops in at an old friend’s place of business unannounced and expects to be seen. Presumably now they’d have one another cell phone numbers and text. Or at least reach out via socials and arrange something.

Clothes and fashion

This blog would probably be better if it was just pictures and commentary on Laura’s outfit each episode.

Vocabulary lesson

Harrison keeps calling Rob “you dog” or “you old dog” as a term of endearment. I assume the dawg/dogg slang of the ‘90s to present evolved from this 1961 usage, but I can’t be sure. And I’m not John McWhorter, so I’m not going to research it.

Best joke/funniest moment

After Harrison leaves Rob’s office, and Rob tells Buddy and Sally he doesn’t remember Harrison from the army, Rob starts thinking out loud of where he might know him. Buddy says with a straight face, “hey, maybe he was one of the enemy.”

Definitely Buddy’s best joke so far. Might be my favorite joke of the series so far.

Other assorted thoughts on life in the 1960s

Laura says she hates to waste food, but the 2021 version of this story definitely involves them going out for dinner rather than hosting at home. Laura would save the roast in the fridge to microwave the next day. And it wouldn’t be a roast, it’d be chicken. And she probably wouldn’t have even starting cooking the chicken yet because she was just going to do some 30-minute recipe, so she’d just save the ingredients for the next day. And she was never going to cook that chicken and was were planning on getting takeout the whole time. And the kids have soccer practice and there’s no way they could go out to dinner on moments notice anyway. OK, I’ve tied myself into knots on this one.

The police show up to a suburban home pretty quickly to check up on a possible robbery. Seems highly unlikely nowadays.

Final thoughts