What's Happening!!: The Burger QueenABC
November 20, 1976
Sitcom
DVD
B
This Orenstein and Turteltaub story was one of the two I most remembered the show for. (The other is the ABC sitcom homage in the final season. Oh, all right, and the Doobie Brothers two-parter is high on the list, too.) I mean, look at this guest cast:
- Robbie Rist, now 12, as John Stevens
- Dick Van Patten as Mr. Claxton
- David "Larry Tate" White as Mr. Reynolds.
Even at eight, I was impressed. (I'm not sure if I got the in-jokiness that Rist is playing an overexposed child star around the time that he became Ted Baxter's son and of course a couple years after his stint as Cousin Oliver.) Watching the episode now, I'm most struck by the catharsis offered by 10-year-old Dee directing her snark not just at hapless Rerun but at the white dudes in suits. Every time she says, "Jackass meat," the studio audience is delighted. Plus we get to see both Shirley and Rerun dress up as absent Mama. This is the first of four WH episodes directed by Dick Harwood.
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