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| Ted McGinley and Henry Winkler on Happy Days. |
During its seventh season, the normally-edgeless Happy Days did a couple of mildly risqué episodes ("Burlesque," "Joanie Busts Out") to compete with NBC's relatively racy The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, starring Claude Akins as a bumbling Southern lawman. Ultimately, the innuendo-laden Lobo was vanquished by Happy Days, but Akins and company had given the long-running ABC sitcom its strongest competition since Good Times back in Season 2. Happy Days soon returned to its inoffensive normal self, but not before being scolded by television critics for (briefly) becoming too smutty.
Happy Days faced an even more serious threat in Season 10 when NBC moved its rip-roaring new series The A-Team to Tuesday nights. How would ABC respond to this fierce rival? Would Happy Days start doing more action-packed stories to lure back former viewers? This may seem like a far-fetched idea, but don't forget that Happy Days had already done a number of stories with stunts and action scenes, including "Fearless Fonzarelli" (Season 3), "Fonzie Loves Pinky" (Season 4), "Hollywood" (Season 5), and most especially "Westward, Ho!" (Season 6), which featured a bull-riding competition and an out-of-control wagon.
The TV landscape was a-changin' by 1983, and action shows were in vogue. While Happy Days was getting outpaced by The A-Team on Tuesday nights, its spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi was getting clobbered by Magnum P.I. on Thursday nights. I don't know if this was purely a coincidence, but Happy Days aired one of its more action-heavy episodes, "Wild Blue Yonder," shortly after The A-Team moved to Tuesdays. The plot of this one has Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Roger (Ted McGinley) boarding a small plane that crashes in the mountains, leaving them stranded in a snowy wasteland. By Happy Days standards, this is pretty high octane stuff.
But does that make for a good episode? You know how to find out -- listen to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.