Podcast Tuesday: "The Curse of Rogers Hornsby"

Henry Winkler with a beard on Happy Days.

What was Happy Days going to do without two of its core characters, straight arrow Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) and practical joker Ralph Malph (Don Most)? The show had a longer-than-usual time to ponder that question, since an actors' strike delayed the start of the 1980-81 television season. The producers had a twofold solution to their dilemma: bring in some new characters and redefine several of the existing characters.

Some of that restructuring would have happened anyway, even if Ron Howard and Don Most had stayed with the show. The initial focus of Happy Days was on teenagers and high school, a logical choice since the sitcom was aimed at younger viewers. But Richie, Ralph, and their pals had long since aged out of adolescence by Season 8. They, along with Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Potsie (Anson William), graduated from dear old Jefferson High back in Season 4.

In Season 8, Happy Days introduced some new Jefferson High students and made Fonzie one of their teachers, so he could act as a mentor to the next generation. That starts to kick in with the episode "Live and Learn," in which Fonzie gets off to a rocky start as an auto shop teacher to a gang of wacky misfits, including Eugene (Dennis Mandel) and Bobby (Harris Kal). It's at this point that Happy Days starts to resemble its old Tuesday night neighbor, Welcome Back, Kotter.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about "Live and Learn" and the changes that the show was going through in its eighth season. Join us, won't you?