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| Fonzie (Henry Winkler) meets a sorceress on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. |
One of the most anxious nights of my childhood happened circa 1985 when a local TV station—probably WKBD in Detroit—announced that it would air the film Clash of the Titans (1981) as part of its Friday night lineup. Ads for the movie ran frequently during the station's weekday cartoons, which I watched routinely after school, and I was hyped for the upcoming broadcast. You know how impressionable kids can be. Clash of the Titans became all I could think about.
I'd been a little too young (just five years old) when the film was originally released, but I was now ready for the action and thrills of this Greek myth-inspired blockbuster and its wonderfully hideous stop-motion creatures. I'd been going through a Greek myth phase at the time, and my parents had even rented a VCR so we could screen Jason and the Argonauts (1963) for my birthday. Based on the ads, Clash of the Titans looked like Jason on steroids. I couldn't miss it.
But there was a problem! You see, Friday nights were when my family and I would go out to dinner and spend quality time with each other. That's a lovely tradition, but I couldn't bother with family togetherness when Perseus, Medusa, and a robot owl were waiting for me at home. Today, I could just DVR Clash of the Titans or stream the movie whenever I wanted, but such options were not available to me in 1985. So I just tried to eat as quickly as I could and hurry my family through dinner as much as possible. No one was happy with me. As I remember it, we got home just as the film was starting. I may have missed the opening credits, but I saw the rest of the film, and it blew my mind.
This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing an episode called "Greece is the Word." It, too, is based on Greek myth, and it is even less faithful to those stories than Clash of the Titans. But does it make for a good episode? Let's find out together!