Laverne and Shirley - Psychiatric Patients

At various points in my life, I've come across the "fact" that in some southeast Asian country (Korea, Singapore, somewhere), that prior to each airing of an episode of Laverne and Shirley, a disclaimer appeared stating that the women were escapees from an asylum. I've seen this claim in various "ain't it neat" trivia snippets here and there, and maybe in the margins of an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

IMDB doesn't mention it, and I can't google it up. But, it's out there. Oooooh, it's out there. Has anyone ever heard of this besides me? Am I, in fact, an escapee from an asylum?

-D. Dodge "The First D. is for Dementia" Silver

[TrishDaDish]

I wonder if this is based on that one Christmas episode where they visit a psyche hospital and put on a show for the patients to cheer them up.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by ddsilver

At various points in my life, I've come across the "fact" that in some southeast Asian country (Korea, Singapore, somewhere), that prior to each airing of an episode of Laverne and Shirley, a disclaimer appeared stating that the women were escapees from an asylum. I've seen this claim in various "ain't it neat" trivia snippets here and there, and maybe in the margins of an Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
...

That sounds familiar to me, too, but then we also have several of the Bathroom Reader series (ObUL: a great vector for transmitting urban legends) so I probably read it in the same place you did.

Nick

I misunderstood. I figured that you had to be a Psychiatric Patient to like Laverne and Shirley.

[snopes]

I think this item was a made-up "fact" originated by one of the many sites that offer humorous (and fictitious) bits of trivia.

Here's an early (1998) version, posted to USENET by someone who's a member of this message board:

During much of the '80's, your correspondent noticed occasional reports in
the news about episodes of the TV sitcom "Laverne & Shriley" (itself a
spinoff from "Happy Days," it will be recalled) airing in Thailand
required to be prefaced by a warning before every episode proclaiming to
the effect of the following:

"The title characters in the following programme are actually escapees
from an insane asylum...."

(This at the insistence of the government censors, and under prodding from
Buddhist religious leaders, who were reportedly upset about the notion of
two unmarried women sharing the same apartment -- which was found to be not
exactly in keeping with Buddhist religious teachings. Or so we've been
told.)

Can anyone shed light on this story?

- snopes

I find that highly questionable. The Thai Buddhists are incredibly tolerant about everything. Women and men share apartments all over Thailand, even sharing the same room. what was a living room during the day is a bedroom at night. I say this is total bunk.

[Towknie]

On a tangent to this, when the X-Files was on, there was that thing in the beginning of each episode that read something along the lines of "The truth is out there." Whoever translated this for Korean television put the subtitle of "This is a true story." I was highly amused.

[Simon Says]

I remember hearing when I was a kid (early 1980s) that when they tried to release Laverne & Shirley in some Asian countries that the show was a failure until they re-released it under the premise that the characters were retarded.

This was the reason my mom gave us for not letting us watch the show. I don't know where she'd heard it. This usenet thing probably comes from that, but I don't know where this version originated.

I don't think I believed any more then than I do now.