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| Henry Winkler (right) threatens Ron Howard on Happy Days. |
Admit it. You are not listening to These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Almost no one is. I know this because our podcast host, Libsyn, heartlessly forces me to look at our miserable download statistics every time I post a new episode. Considering how much time and effort goes into this podcast, those low numbers can be disheartening. Some weeks, our audience barely breaks double digits. When the podcast was new in 2018, we averaged about 30-40 listeners per episode. I naively thought we would grow from there as the show got better. We didn't. I mean, the show did improve, in my opinion, but our listenership didn't. Instead, the audience for These Days Are Ours has slowly but surely eroded. Eventually, I will be the only listener left.
I suppose I have to decide whether I'm okay with that. I can take some comfort in the fact that I've done everything I can to make These Days Are Ours a well-produced, informative, entertaining show. And I've also done what I can to promote the show across social media and the blogosphere, including writing these weekly articles. The audience just isn't responding. Unfortunately, since we get little to no feedback, I don't know whether it's the topic (the ABC sitcom Happy Days) that people don't like or something about the podcast itself they don't like. As it is, it feels like I'm taking the episodes and dropping them down a deep, dark well where they make a very distant splash and are never heard from again.
That being said, we have a new episode this week, and it's another one I'm very proud of. It's a review of the Season 5 episode "Our Gang" from February 1978. Like so many sitcoms, ranging from The Dick Van Dyke Show to The Simpsons, Happy Days decided to do a prequel episode to show us what its characters were like before we got to know them. This script depicts the fateful first meeting of nerdy Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) and tough guy Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler). It's a very entertaining episode, and we had a good time reviewing it. I hope our enthusiasm translates into an enjoyable podcast.
Here's the episode. Please, for the love of all that is decent and holy, listen to it. Literally all you have to do is press the play button. It's that triangle right there. Go ahead. Click that play button. Please. Please. Thank you.