anthony franciosa played carmine ragusa on laverne & shirley.
anthony franciosa played carmine ragusa on laverne & shirley.
who played carmine ragusa on laverne & shirley?
anthony franciosa
laverne & shirley (originally laverne defazio & shirley feeney) is an american television sitcom that played for eight seasons on abc from january 27, 1976, to may 10, 1983. a spin-off of "happy days", "laverne & shirley" followed the lives of laverne defazio (penny marshall) and shirley feeney (cindy williams), two friends and roommates who work as bottle-cappers in the fictitious shotz brewery in late 1950s milwaukee, wisconsin. from the sixth season onwards, the series' setting changed to mid-1960s burbank, california. michael mckean and david lander co-starred as their friends and neighbors lenny kosnowski and andrew "squiggy" squiggman, respectively; along with eddie mekka as carmine ragusa, phil foster as laverne's father frank defazio, and betty garrett as the girls' landlady edna babish.
laverne & shirley
at the start of each episode, laverne and shirley are skipping down a milwaukee street, arm in arm, reciting a yiddish-american hopscotch chant: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 schlemiel! schlimazel! hasenpfeffer incorporated," which then leads into the series' theme song, "making our dreams come true" performed by cyndi grecco. the hopscotch chant is from penny marshall's childhood. for the first five seasons, from 1976 to 1980, the show was set in milwaukee (executive producer thomas l. miller's home town), taking place from roughly 1958–59 through the early 1960s. shotz brewery bottle cappers and best friends, laverne defazio and shirley feeney, live in a basement apartment, where they communicate with upstairs neighbors lenny and squiggy by screaming up the dumbwaiter shaft connecting their apartments. also included in the show are laverne's father, frank defazio, proprietor of the pizza bowl, and edna babish, the apartment building's landlady, who would later marry frank. shirley maintained an off-again on-again romance with dancer/singer/boxer carmine ragusa. during this period, characters from "happy days" and "laverne & shirley" would make occasional guest appearances on each other's series. during the fifth season, the girls went into the army reserve, and they contended with a tough-as-nails drill sergeant named alvinia t. plout (vicki lawrence). while their time in the army reserve was brief in the live action series it did inspire an animated series with the duo in the army contending with their immediate superior, a commanding pig named sgt. squealy who was voiced by ron palillo (best known for his role as arnold horshack on "welcome back kotter") who is always threatening to report them to sgt. turnbuckle (voiced by kenneth mars).
laverne & shirley