Podcast Tuesday: "We Have Nothing To Fear But OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING OVER THERE?"

Erin Moran in Galaxy of Terror (1981).

The actors on long-running sitcoms can get antsy sometimes. Playing the same character every week, year after year. Same jokes, same stories. It gets old after a while. Worse yet, the public gets the idea that playing this one character is all you can do. There is no surer career-killer than being typecast in a sitcom role. And so, TV actors tend to glom onto whatever movie offers come their way. Anything to prove they have a little range.

During his seven-season run on Happy Days, for instance, Ron Howard appeared in Eat My Dust (1976), The Shootist (1976), and More American Graffiti (1979) as well as the made-for-TV movies Huckleberry Finn (1975) and I'm a Fool (1977). He also directed the made-for-TV movie Cotton Candy (1978) and the feature film Grand Theft Auto (1977). Meanwhile, Ron's costar Henry Winkler stayed for all 11 seasons of Happy Days but still managed to find some extracurricular acting work, like the movies Heroes (1977) and The One and Only (1978), plus the made-for-TV movie An American Christmas Carol (1979).

But what of young Erin Moran, who played Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days? People may think that this sitcom and its spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi were the only major projects Erin ever worked on. But her resume is more diverse than that. For instance, between the eighth and ninth seasons of the show in 1981, Erin acted in a sci-fi thriller called Galaxy of Terror produced by Roger Corman, who had previously produced both Grand Theft Auto and Eat My Dust.

As you may have already guessed by now, we are reviewing Galaxy of Terror on this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Hit the play button down there to learn more.