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| Ted McGinley and Teddi Siddal on Happy Days. |
Ted McGinley gets a bad rap. Yes, he was on a number of long-running TV series when they were in their final seasons -- their death throes, if you will. In addition to his role as preppy dork Roger Phillips on Happy Days, Ted was on The Love Boat, Dynasty, and Married... With Children when those shows were on the way out. But was this handsome California actor the Grim Reaper of Prime Time? Ratings Kryptonite? A bad luck charm? No, not at all. TV shows inevitably age and decline in popularity (and profitability), causing networks to cancel them. It happens. All those shows I just mentioned would have gone off the air anyway, even if Ted McGinley had never been born.
Besides, Ted is a pretty decent comic actor when he's given the right material. I loved his work as gold digger Jefferson D'arcy on Married... With Children, for instance, and he's even pretty decent on Happy Days. He had the unenviable task of filling in for the departing Ron Howard, but he handles it with aplomb. In a way, his very presence on the show is a tribute to Ron's importance. The producers realized that there needed to be someone "square" to serve as a foil to the ultra-cool Fonzie (Henry Winkler). Enter McGinley.
This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about "Hello, Roger," the Season 8 episode that introduced the world to Ted McGinley and Roger Phillips. We hope you'll join us.