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| Erin Moran on Happy Days. |
Happy Days is not usually thought of as an innovative or experimental series. And for good reason: it's a very safe, predictable, mainstream show, meant to appeal to the widest possible audience. Many of its viewers were young children who simply wanted to see their hero, ace mechanic and ladies' man Fonzie (Henry Winkler), in action. Producer Garry Marshall was not really interested in pushing the limits of the prime time sitcom, at least not this time around. (He and director Jerry Paris had both previously worked on the more daring The Dick Van Dyke Show.) The only way Happy Days truly stands out from its competitors is that it's set in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Over on CBS, meanwhile, M*A*S*H (the other big 1950s-set show of the era) was constantly testing the boundaries of the sitcom genre. The very subject matter, i.e. the Korean War, meant that violence and bloodshed were major elements of the series. The plots freely mixed comedy with drama, sometimes veering into outright tragedy. Stories didn't necessarily come to a tidy resolution after 30 minutes. And the producers were even experimenting with the very form of the half-hour comedy, sometimes formatting episodes as pseudo-documentaries or dream sequences. Aesthetically, Happy Days and M*A*S*H were polar opposites.
But Happy Days did occasionally break out of its rut and do something unusual. There are the history episodes, for instance, like "The First Thanksgiving" and "The Roaring Twenties," where we get to see what the characters would look and act like if they'd lived in other times. There are musical episodes like "Be My Valentine" and "American Musical," in which the actors get to show off their singing and dancing skills. And then there's "Home Movies," the two-part episode that starts Season 9. Not only does this one have a rare multi-story format, it's all presented as a home movie that Joanie (Erin Moran) is sending to Richie (the absent Ron Howard). It's about as M*A*S*H-like as Happy Days ever gets.
But does that mean it's any good? Find out on the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.