The passing of Cindy Williams this week brings the curtain down on one of the two greatest female-buddy comedy acts of the 20th century. Television, the medium that largely defined the second half of that century, presented us with the wild antics of Lucy and Ethel in the 1950s and 60s, and in the 1970s and 80s the female-buddy comedic genre was taken over by Laverne and Shirley.
Both pairings were brilliant and presented situational comedy that often relied more on visual situations than it did on dialogue. Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up with the production line as they wrapped candy, for instance, was a classic, or Lucy when she was stomping – and throwing - grapes, or Lucy as she gradually got drunk while making a commercial for Vitameatavegamin. In each of those scenes it was the actions of the characters which provided the belly laughs!
A lot of the action in Laverne and Shirley revolved around them smooching with the boys without becoming involved in actual sex, or in things happening on the production line at the Shotz Brewery where they were blue collar employees. In one very memorable scene Shirley tried to teach Laverne to drive in their living room through using various household food items and products as components of the car. That was very funny visual stuff, and well worth a visit to YouTube.
Vivian Vance (Ethel) passed away in 1979 when ”Laverne and Shirley” was at the height of its popularity (1976-1983), and Lucy followed a decade later in 1989. Penny Marshall, who played Laverne DeFazio so adroitly, died in 2018, and now her buddy, Cindy Williams (Shirley Feeney), is gone, too.
Thanks for the laughs ladies. The four of you were brilliant!
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