By Tracy Brown
Los Angeles Times
Some of Penny Marshall’s favorite “Laverne & Shirley” episodes will air on MeTV as a tribute to the late actress and director.
Marshall played the spirited Laverne DeFazio opposite Cindy Williams’ Shirley Feeney on the beloved sitcom. The pair were best friends and roommates who worked on the assembly line at the Shotz Brewery in Milwaukee.
According to MeTV’s Tuesday announcement, Marshall recalled her favorite episodes during a 2015 interview with the network.
The “Happy Days” spinoff debuted in 1976 and ran for eight seasons. The series stood out for depicting the lives of working-class women.
Penny’s brother and the show’s executive producer, Garry Marshall (who died in 2016), once said that viewers at the time “were dying for somebody that didn’t look like Mary Tyler Moore or all the pretty girls on TV. They wanted somebody who looked like a regular person.”
MeTV will air six of her favorites, as well as two holiday-themed episodes, on Sunday starting at 2 p.m. local time.
