User Reviews

Stanley's (Dom DeLuise) new girlfriend Marsha (Pat Finley, Ellen Hartley from "The Bob Newhart Show") comes over to have dinner and meet the family. Marsha lives alone, which gives pause to Stanley's mother (Kathleen Freeman). Marsha does the dishes for his mother and Stanley builds up to ask her to marry him. She says crazy about him too, but doesn't want to rush into anything. She wants to be sure, so suggests they live together first. Stanley reluctantly agrees to the forward idea and wonders how he will be able to tell his mother. The tired "Do I have a son, or don't have a son?" routine is finally squandered in this episode as Stanley doesn't give in. Mom: "That's the first one of those I ever lost." He arrives at Marsha's apartment increasingly nervous. "The world is changing fast," Marsha assures him, and sitting here in the 21st century that line certainly remains true. Nevertheless, the topic is still fairly controversial today, even if more people are living together unmarried. For a script of its time, it was brazenly bold to tackle the issue. When Stanley makes a discovery in her apartment, I think the payoff of the plot is right. While not a particularly funny episode, I think to this point in the series it is one of the better scripts.