Podcast Tuesday: "Sixty-Three Years Cool"

You're never too old to be cool. Or are you?

             

On Happy Days, Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) stubbornly clung to the music and fashions of the 1950s, well into the 1960s. The sitcom takes place over about a decade, but Fonzie is often hesitant to update his style to match the times. There are a couple of episodes of the show that deal with this, namely "Who Gives a Hootenanny?" from Season 10 and "The Spirit is Willing" from Season 11. In the former, Fonzie learns to cope with the fact that folk music is replacing good old-fashioned rock & roll; in the latter, he has a terrifying vision of what could happen to him if he doesn't stop living in the past.

Presumably, Fonzie had to deal with the social and cultural upheaval of the 1960s, '70s, and beyond. Even during the 11 seasons of Happy Days, he undergoes massive personal changes. At the beginning of the sitcom, his life revolves around motorcycles and "chicks," and he's only a few years (months?) removed from being a gang member and getting into rumbles in the back alleys of Milwaukee. By the end of the show, he is a professional educator, a local business owner, and an adoptive father. And he doesn't get into fights anymore. At least not as much.

But suppose our favorite mechanic had refused to change. Ever. Suppose he kept being the same juvenile delinquent punk he'd been in the 1950s because those were the greatest years of his life. In 2001, radio host Tom Scharpling and musician Jon Wurster gave us a worst-case scenario of how this might play out when they performed their legendary sketch "The Gorch" on The Best Show on WFMU. In this segment, Scharpling warily interviews a 63-year-old man from York, PA named Roland "The Gorch" Gorchnick (played by Wurster), who claims to be the real-life inspiration for Fonzie. Over the course of a half hour, this combative gentleman reveals himself to be a pathologically violent, antisocial human being.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we finally get around to talking about "The Gorch." This is an episode I've wanted to do for years. I really hope you enjoy it.

P.S. While editing this episode, I realized that The Gorch's memories are strikingly similar to those of American Splendor comics writer Harvey Pekar (1939-2010), who grew up on the mean streets of Cleveland in the 1950s. In one story, Pekar even names a thug who, like The Gorch, fought with chains! 

Podcast Tuesday: "Coping with the Happy Days Musical (Act 2)"

The Dialtones sing one of their many, many songs in Happy Days: A New Musical.

I watch a fair amount of product review videos on YouTube, and recently, a channel I follow called Freakin' 2 tested out some novelty Easter candies. Among the items being reviewed were those Dr. Pepper-flavored Peeps you may have seen at the supermarket. I was especially interested in these because I'd tried them myself a few weeks ago and found them to be a decent facsimile of the popular beverage. But I don't really drink a whole lot of Dr. Pepper, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

The host of the Freakin' 2 video reached this conclusion: "I think occasional fans of Dr. Pepper will probably like it, but purists may not be convinced."

Well, friends, that's exactly my reaction to Happy Days: A New Musical, the show we're reviewing this week on These Days Are Ours. If you've seen a handful of Happy Days episodes and have a basic grasp of the characters and their relationships, the 2007 stage musical will probably be satisfactory to you. It's pleasant enough and doesn't overstay its welcome. But if Happy Days is burned into your brain because you've reviewed all 255 episodes, plus the animated series, the stage version may seem slightly "off" to you.

In other words, Happy Days: A New Musical is the Dr. Pepper Peeps of musicals. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Listen to our review of Act 2 and find out!

Podcast Tuesday: "Coping with the Happy Days Musical (Act 1)"

The happy, happy cast of Happy Days: A New Musical.

When Howard Ashman and Alan Menken adapted Roger Corman's dark comedy Little Shop of Horrors (1960) as a stage musical in 1982, it was rather a novelty in the theater world. Stage shows based on movies weren't exactly unknown back then—think of Sondheim's A Little Night Music (1973), based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)—but generally the adaptation process went the other direction. Stage musicals became movies, not the other way around.

Nowadays, due to the success of movie-based shows like The Producers (2001), Hairspray (2002), and Spamalot (2004), it seems like every fondly-remembered pop culture property gets its own theatrical musical eventually. It's not surprising at all that Happy Days (1974-1984) would also get this treatment, especially since the long-running sitcom was already heavily influenced by the stage show Grease (1971). And so, in 2007, Happy Days: A New Musical debuted to generally positive reviews. It never reached Broadway but has become a rather popular choice for high schools and community theater troupes.

A few years ago, my cohost suggested we cover the Happy Days musical on These Days Are Ours, but I've been putting it off for some reason. Now that we've finished all eleven seasons of the sitcom and both seasons of the cartoon, it feels like it's finally time to cover the stage show, which has a book by Garry Marshall and songs by Paul Williams. That's an impressive pedigree. Does the show live up to it? This week on the podcast, we try to answer that question as we review Act 1.

Podcast Tuesday: "Journey to the Center of the Fonz"

This week, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) goes underground on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

We've all been trained by science fiction to think that outer space is mankind's ultimate goal. There's a whole universe out there, just waiting for us, and we should explore it. That make sense. When our own planet (inevitably) blows up or becomes uninhabitable, we may even have to move to outer space so that humanity can continue. The problem is that getting to outer space is currently quite expensive and difficult, and space is really not hospitable to human life anyway. That doesn't stop us from dreaming, though. 

Every once in a while, a sci-fi author will give us an alternative to exploring outer space. There's so much of our home planet that we haven't explored yet, namely the oceans. A lot could be happening down there, like talking fish people or sunken cities or whatever. That's why we have shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, SeaQuest DSV, Sealab 2020, Sealab 2021, The Man from Atlantis, and even Snorks. The sea is not quite as enticing to us as outer space, but it's (potentially) pretty darned interesting anyway. 

Another alternative to outer space is the strange, vast world that exists beneath the surface of the earth, right below our feet. I don't think there are too many stories about this topic, but some famous ones do exist. The movie The Mole People (1956) comes to mind as an example, as does Below the Earth's Surface (2008). Let's not forget The Phantom Empire (1935) and Unknown World (1951). The granddaddy of them all is Jules Verne's novel Voyage to the Center of the Earth (1864), which has been adapted to film numerous times, most notably in 1959 with James Mason.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we are reviewing the episode "It's All Downhill from Here," which is the Happy Days version of a "hollow earth" story. Was it worth the trip? You can find out below.

Podcast Tuesday: "It's Like Treasure Planet... But on an Island!"

Fonzie (right) duels with Blackbeard as Cupcake looks on.

When I was growing up, our entertainment options were relatively limited. There was no internet or streaming in the late '70s and early '80s. Home video and cable existed way back then (sort of), but nobody had them yet. At least not in our neighborhood. We really were dependent on the three big TV networks to see movies that were no longer in theaters. It was a big deal when Walt Disney would show its older films as part of The Wonderful World of Disney. I still have fond memories of making my way through the entire Herbie series starring Dean Jones and Buddy Hackett. My whole family watched those.

But even better than Herbie was Disney's Treasure Island (1950), based on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 novel of adventure on the high seas. So taken was I by this tale of pirates, parrots, and buried treasure that I had my parents read me the original novel as a bedtime story. I was particularly obsessed with the character of Ben Gunn, the bearded old hermit who has been marooned on an island for three years. For a while there, I would go around the house pretending to be Ben Gunn, imitating the voice of actor Geoffrey Wilkinson from the Disney film.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, I get to revisit my Treasure Island days. We're reviewing "Bye Bye Blackbeard," a pirate adventure in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his pals travel back to the 1700s, assist a treasure-seeking maiden named Lucy Primrose, and match wits with the dastardly Blackbeard. There's even a Ben Gunn-type character named Uncle Horatio.

You can find out what we thought of "Bye Bye Blackbeard" by listening to the latest episode of our podcast. And guess what? You won't need a treasure map to find it because it's right here.

Podcast Tuesday: "End of Days"

(from left) Lynda Goodfriend, Ted McGinley, Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, Tom Bosley, Cathy Silvers, Erin Moran, Ellen Travolta,
Scott Baio, Marion Ross, and Francis Bey in the Happy Days finale.

When we started These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast in 2018, I honestly did not think we would make it through all eleven seasons and 255 episodes. I mean, that's a lot of Happy Days to get through. And it's not like I was an obsessive fan of the show, even though I watched it frequently as a kid and checked in with the reruns on Nick at Nite and MeTV occasionally as an adult.

I thought I'd tap out after a few seasons. We'd go from recording every week to every other week, then once a month, then once every few months, then not at all. And then, like with so many other things in my life, I'd just forget about it and pretend it never happened. That's the way I am with most things: enthusiastic at first but quick to lose interest.

And yet, here we are. My cohost and I have now watched and reviewed all episodes of Happy Days, including the two pilots. What now? All I can tell you is that the podcast is not over. One way or another, These Days Are Ours will continue its mission.

In the meantime, here's our review of "Passages," the two-part Happy Days finale from 1984. We'd be awfully pleased if you'd listen to it. In addition to reviewing the episode, we give our closing thoughts on Season 11.

Podcast Tuesday: "Happy Days Jumps the Bunny"

Anson Williams and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

"Fonzie's Spots" is, hands down, the most mysterious episode of Happy Days. A clip from it, featuring Chachi (Scott Baio) and Roger (Ted McGinley) hitting each other in the face with pies, was part of the opening credits for all of Season 11. This suggests that the episode was in the can as early as September 1983. But the full episode wouldn't reach American audiences for quite a while!

Interestingly, the episode began airing in England as early as January 1984. There are records of "Fonzie's Spots" playing in Liverpool, Lincolnshire, Devon, and several other places during the first few months of 1984. By April, it had even reached Australia. But it still hadn't aired in America. Was ABC intentionally shelving this one?

As I stated last week, the eleventh and final season of Happy Days was a scheduling nightmare. The show premiered new episodes from September 1983 to January 1984 but then disappeared from the ABC schedule altogether during February and March. Finally, in late April, the show returned for a brief three-week run, culminating in the intended series finale, "Passages."

After "Passages" aired on May 8, 1984, there were five Happy Days episodes that had not yet been broadcast in America. ABC burned off four of them ("So How Was Your Weekend," "Low Notes," "School Dazed," and "Good News, Bad News") in June and July 1984. That left one additional episode: the notorious "Fonzie's Spots." As far as I can tell, ABC never aired this one in prime time. It may well have premiered in syndication.

Why did ABC not want to broadcast "Fonzie's Spots"? What was it about this episode that they wished to hide from viewers? Find out the shocking truth on this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Good News is That Chachi Has Diabetes"

Scott Baio and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

Happy Days is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Believe it or not, it's been half a century since the first episode of Season 1, "All the Way," originally aired on January 15, 1974. Wait, don't most sitcoms debut in September or so? Well, yes. Let me explain.

The first(ish) episode of Happy Days.

Garry Marshall's nostalgic sitcom debuted in January because ABC initially had so little faith in it. Like The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, and All in the Family, Happy Days was a midseason replacement that defied expectations and became a long-running hit. In fact, one of the cast members of All in the Family, Rob Reiner, cowrote "All the Way." That may seem like a random pairing to us (Meathead and Fonzie?), but remember that Rob's father, Carl, was Garry Marshall's mentor and friend and that Rob was married to Garry's sister, Penny, from 1971 to 1981.

Now, a total nerd might claim that Happy Days had its true 50th birthday two years ago, because the earliest pilot for the series ("Love and the Happy Days") aired as an episode of the ABC anthology series Love, American Style on February 25, 1972. The network passed on that pilot, only changing its mind when the movie American Graffiti (1973) and the stage musical Grease became successful. The Happy Days series that ran from 1974 to 1984 was heavily influenced by both Graffiti and Grease and bore only a passing resemblance to the 1972 pilot. That's why I'm fine with calling January 15, 1974 the birthday of Happy Days.

So we know when the show began. But when, exactly, did Happy Days end? That's much trickier to pin down. The eleventh and final season of the show was a total mess in terms of scheduling, bouncing around from night to night and even vanishing from the schedule for weeks. I consulted the invaluable book The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh to make sense of it all.

Happy Days aired (to great success) on Tuesday nights at 8:00 from January 1974 until September 1983, when the veteran series was rudely transplanted to 8:30 to make room for a new sitcom, Just Our Luck. When that show failed miserably, the coveted 8:00 berth went to another freshman series, Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders. Happy Days stayed in the 8:30 slot until January 1984, when it was booted from the schedule altogether so that ABC could cover the Winter Olympics. Even when the Olympics were over, however, Happy Days remained on hiatus. Its old time slot went to yet another new show, Norman Lear's A.K.A. Pablo starring Paul Rodriguez.

Happy Days finally returned to Tuesday nights on ABC from April to May 1984 for a brief run of episodes that included the two-part series finale, "Passages." But ABC had a handful of unaired episodes left over from the hiatus. These ultimately aired on Thursday nights at 8:00 from June to July 1984. According to The Complete Directory, that's where the Happy Days story ends. 

Looking back through old newspapers from 1984, I have concluded that the original run of Happy Days finally came to a halt on July 19, 1984 with the episode "Good News, Bad News" in which Chachi (Scott Baio) discovers he has diabetes. And, in case you haven't guessed by now, that's the very episode we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Is this episode worthy of being the true finale of Happy Days? You know how to find out! (In case you don't, it's by clicking the play button below.) 

Podcast Tuesday: "By the Power of Fonzie, I HAVE THE POWER!"

Scott Baio and Erin Moran on Happy Days.

There's something going on with Chachi (Scott Baio) in the eleventh season of Happy Days. Quite simply, this young man is in serious trouble, lacking direction, purpose, and any semblance of structure in his life. A year earlier, he'd been living in Chicago and pursuing his dream of being a professional musician with his girlfriend Joanie (Erin Moran). But Joanie decided to give up music, move back home to Milwaukee, and pursue a teaching career.

This is where things start to spiral downhill for Chachi. His music gigs seem to dry up, and Joanie dumps him just a few weeks after returning to Milwaukee. He's unemployed and doesn't go to school, so he has a lot of free time on his hands. His days revolve around Arnold's, the local hamburger joint owned by his cousin Fonzie (Henry Winkler). Chachi plays on the Arnold's softball team and makes some half-assed attempt at helping Fonzie run the place, but he is not compensated for this. It's not clear where Chachi is living during this time, and he seemingly has problems getting food. This forces him to beg for meals at Joanie's house.

Chachi's woes are in the background for most of Season 11, but they come to the forefront in "Social Studies," an episode in which Fonzie attempts to help Chachi move on from Joanie. (It doesn't go well.) You can find out what we thought of this episode by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. 

Podcast Tuesday: "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like the Fonz)"

Michael Leon and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

Viewers may not realize that TV networks occasionally air episodes of their favorite shows out of order. Producers, even very successful ones like Garry Marshall, have little to no control over this. If a network executive wants to switch the order around, maybe because he thinks a certain episode will perform better during a particular week, he'll do it. Continuity be damned.

For the most part, this isn't a problem for a series like Happy Days, where the episodes are generally self-contained and serialization is minimal. But things got out of hand during the show's final season in 1983-84. One of the major arcs of the season involved Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Roger (Ted McGinley) working at Patton, a tough vocational school populated by stereotypical hoodlums and thugs. Thanks to ABC's odd scheduling decisions, there were several brief mentions of Patton on Happy Days before any of the episodes about the school had even aired! And then, in "You Get What You Pay For," Joanie casually mentions teaching at Patton, even though she didn't start until "Kiss Me, Teach" a week later.

All this shuffling around by ABC led to two "very special episodes" about Patton being aired back-to-back: the aforementioned "Kiss Me, Teach," in which Joanie is almost sexually assaulted, and "The People vs. The Fonz," in which Fonzie is (falsely) accused of hitting a student (guest star Michael Leon). And the latter is exactly the episode we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. You can find out what we thought by listening to the podcast below:

Podcast Tuesday: "Am I My Brother's Brother?"

Henry Winkler and Michael Holden on Happy Days.

As late as Season 11, the writers of Happy Days were not afraid to make major changes to the canon. I think TV shows were more casual about continuity in the 1980s than they are today. The December 1983 episode "Arthur, Arthur" makes two bold additions to the legend of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler). First, he has a long-lost brother named Artie (guest star Michael Holden). Second, their deadbeat father Vito is dead, having drowned while at sea. All this in one episode!

"Arthur, Arthur" is a follow-up to a Season 6 episode called "Christmas Time" in which Vito himself (played by '50s rocker Eddie Fontaine) appears unexpectedly at Fonzie's doorstep but never actually identifies himself. Throughout the entire series, Fonzie deals with severe abandonment issues stemming from the fact that Vito ran out on him when Fonzie was still a toddler. With the specter of death looming over Happy Days in 1983, it was necessary to give our favorite mechanic some sense of closure. Even if it means just learning Vito is dead.

This is a milestone episode, and we have a lot to say about it in the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Escargot-A-Go-Go!"

William Sumper (center) and Henry Winkler (right) on Happy Days.

Happy Days was not big on serialization. It was a "status quo" sitcom that emphasized tidy endings and problems that could be solved in half an hour. And yet, by virtue of being on the air for eleven seasons, Happy Days was forced to evolve and adapt. Some actors left the show. Other actors joined the show. Everyone grew up or grew old. The TV industry changed. And gradually, little by little, Garry Marshall's nostalgic little sitcom mutated into something other than what it had been. An episode from 1983, like the one we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, barely resembles an episode from 1974.

I think the character that changed the most over eleven seasons was Fonzie (Henry Winkler). In Season 1, he was a mysterious, taciturn, and vaguely threatening figure—a greaser hoodlum who dropped out of school to hang out in the parking lot of the local hamburger joint. Garry Marshall thought of him as Happy Days' answer to Gary Cooper. But the show quickly domesticated Fonzie, having him move into the Cunninghams' house and essentially join their family. He got his high school diploma and became a respected member of the community, even returning to his former high school to teach, a la Welcome Back, Kotter. And we learned plenty of things about Fonzie's background and even got to know several of his relatives.

Fonzie's personality also changed over those eleven long seasons. At first, Fonzie's personality was defined by the single adjective "cool." That was Fonzie—tough, unflappable, aloof, and unknowable. But once Fonzie was housebroken, so to speak, he became a real motormouth and showed that he was often a nervous wreck behind his "cool" façade. That's certainly the case with Season 10's "Nervous Romance," in which Fonzie blunders his way through a date with his classy new girlfriend, Ashley (Linda Purl). All hell breaks loose when the two lovebirds go to the snootiest French restaurant in Milwaukee, the humorously-named Quail and Snail.

Does "Nervous Romance" make the grade? Or is this a misfire? Find out by listening to the podcast below!

Podcast Tuesday: "Sleeveless in Milwaukee"

Ted McGinley and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

Beauty standards change from decade to decade and not just for women. It applies to men, too. Take Happy Days, for example. The popular sitcom happened to come along during the 1970s when a new kind of male sex symbol was dominating pop culture. Instead of the tanned, blond-haired, quasi-Aryan hunks of a previous generation (think: Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue), we were getting earthier, quirkier film and television stars whose names and faces often reflected their ethnic background (think: Jewish or Italian). This was the decade of John Travolta, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, and more. 

In other words, it was a perfect time for Jewish-American actor Henry Winkler as Italian-American mechanic Arthur Fonzarelli. Henry definitely didn't look like Paul Newman or Robert Redford, let alone Tab Hunter. He was short of stature and slight of build. He didn't have a lantern jaw or perfectly symmetrical facial features either. In some early publicity pictures, he even has a slight unibrow! But it was the 1970s and Henry's look fit the times. There's a whole episode of the sitcom Taxi about this change in the male beauty standard. Fair-haired, traditionally handsome Bobby (Jeff Conaway), an aspiring actor, sees all the good roles going to guys like his buddy Tony (Tony Danza), a dark-haired Italian-American.

I've noticed a repeating pattern in 1970s pop culture regarding male stars. Producers will often pair a light-haired "pretty boy" actor with a dark-haired, more earthy type. That way, I guess, all the bases are covered. Think of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford in Star Wars, David Soul and Paul Michael Glazer in Starsky & Hutch (1975-1979), Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men (1976), John Schneider and Tom Wopat on The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985), and, yes, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler on Happy Days (1974-1984).

The 1980s in many ways marked a return to the values and aesthetics of the 1950s, with newly-installed president Ronald Reagan as the new Dwight Eisenhower-esque father figure to the country. Consequently, the traditional hunks of that era made a comeback in popular culture. On Happy Days, this was marked by the addition of a new character, Roger Phillips, played by the muscular, athletic Ted McGinley. Producer Garry Marshall was specifically looking for an actor who looked like a bronzed California surfer. Ted filled that role nicely, at least once he got his hair dyed. (How Ted hated those humiliating visits to the beauty salon!) Happy Days was pretty shameless about promoting Ted/Roger as a sex symbol, putting him in short shorts or other revealing outfits as often as possible.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing Season 9's "Great Expectations," an episode that largely revolves around Roger. At one point, in order to make him more attractive to the ladies at a party, Fonzie rips the sleeves off Roger's shirt, revealing Ted McGinley's well-sculpted arms. It's like Fonzie is passing the torch to a new generation of male pinups.

Does this make for a good episode of the show in 2023, however? Find out by listening to our latest episode. It's available below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear"

John Hart and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

"It was before my time" is one of my least-favorite excuses for being ignorant. When you think about it, virtually everything is before your time. Even if we limit ourselves to just human history, that's about 200,000 years. The average lifespan in America is only about 77 years -- a mere blip on the radar. That means we've missed 99.999% of what humans have done. Why do we insist on limiting ourselves to the 0.001% that happens right in front of us during our exceedingly brief lives? The past has been recorded in many, many ways. We owe ourselves to find out about it while we're here.

Sure, much of human history has gone unrecorded or has vanished with time, but here's the miracle of popular culture: the memorable, noteworthy stuff (movies, TV shows, pop songs) tends to be archived and preserved for future generations. Much of it gets rereleased and re-rereleased and re-re-rereleased over a span of decades, well beyond the lifespan of its original creators. In the past, we had to rely upon physical media -- books, records, tapes, etc. -- but in more recent decades, we've been busy uploading all this stuff to the internet for instantaneous streaming. The past is more accessible than ever. Take advantage of it.

I'm saying all this stuff because, this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing "Hi Yo Fonzie, Away!" In this episode from 1982, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) finally meets his idol, the Lone Ranger (John Hart). Forty years ago, this mattered. Two major pop culture characters were being brought together in the same space at the same time.

Today, despite the many hours of media he has generated (mainly radio shows and TV episodes), the Lone Ranger is in danger of disappearing from the public consciousness simply because he isn't "relevant" anymore. (God, I hate that idiotic and much-abused word.) If people today know him at all, it's from his disastrous 2013 movie. That film didn't do well at the box office, so we consigned the Lone Ranger to the junkheap of history. Who knows? Fonzie himself may join him someday.

Before all that happens, refresh your memory by listening to the latest episode of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. It's available right now. Just click that play button below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonzie Has Richie's Baby"

Henry Winkler, an unnamed baby, and Lynda Goodfriend on Happy Days.

Some people just have to be the center of attention all the time, no matter the circumstances. You know the type—the bride at every funeral and the corpse at every wedding. On Happy Days, Milwaukee mechanic Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) is such a person. A shameless showboat, he thrives on attention and withers without it. He has to make everything about himself.

The Season 9 episode "Little Baby Cunningham" is a perfect example. The plot has Lori Beth (Lynda Goodfriend), wife of Fonzie's best friend Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard), giving birth to her first child. Since Richie is stationed in Greenland with the Army, however, Fonzie takes Richie's place, both in natural childbirth classes and in the delivery room. When Richie, Jr. is born, Fonzie is even the first to hold him! Through all these events, Fonzie carries on melodramatically, stealing focus from Lori Beth, who should be at the center of this story.

If all this sounds a little familiar, it's because Happy Days basically did the same thing in "R.C. and L.B. Forever," in which Fonzie stands in for Richie at the latter's wedding. Ron Howard left the show in 1980 after seven seasons, allowing costar Henry Winkler to take over the show completely. Well, except for Chachi (Scott Baio). Anyway, "Little Baby Cunningham" is very much a sequel to "R.C. and L.B. Forever." Once again, Fonzie replaces Richie during a major life milestone and hams it up shamelessly the entire time.

Does this make for a good episode or a bad one? Find out when we review "Little Baby Cunningham" on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. 

Podcast Tuesday: "8MM"

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.

Podcast Tuesday: "This Strange and Mournful Day"

Henry Winkler and Jains Paige on Happy Days.

Some TV producers plan entire seasons of their shows in advance. They have grand, long-term plans in mind for their characters from the moment they dream those characters up. I don't think Garry Marshall was ever that way with his sitcoms. Especially with Happy Days (1974-84), he and his writers seem to be winging it completely, making it up week by week with very little thought toward the future. 

As a result, the show has a reckless, haphazard quality to it as it lurches through 11 seasons of stories. Yes, there are long-term developments in the characters' lives, but these changes happen largely by accident. Continuity is wobbly at best. (Chuck Cunningham, anyone?) Serialization is not really a priority here, except for the occasional two-parter or three-parter. Generally, Happy Days is meant to be enjoyed in individual, half-hour chunks. The episodes are self-contained. You don't really have to watch them in any particular order. ABC often showed them out of production order.

Let us consider the the fraught emotional background of the show's (eventual) main character, Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler). Over the course of several seasons, we ultimately learn that Fonzie was abandoned by both his mother and his father at an early age and was basically raised by his grandmother. But the details of this story keep shifting around, as if the writers never found a version that suited them. 

So why was this "orphan" element added to the character in the first place? I think it was to make him more sympathetic. Fonzie is depicted on Happy Days as being a more-or-less invulnerable tough guy with quasi-supernatural powers, so this tragic backstory gives him some much-needed vulnerability. He's a tough guy, sure, but he has some weaknesses, too.

A crucial episode in the series is "Mother and Child Reunion" from Season 8. As the title suggests, Fonzie meets his long-lost mother Angela (showbiz veteran Janis Paige), now a world-weary waitress at a disreputable diner. He doesn't set out to meet Angela; it just sort of happens by chance. And Angela might not even be Fonzie's mom. The script leaves this open to interpretation. And even this story is self-contained: Angela is never seen or heard from again.

So what did we think of "Mother and Child Reunion"? Find out by downloading the latest installment of These Days are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonzie IS the Law!"

Scott Baio and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

As Happy Days progressed over its 11 seasons, the nostalgic sitcom's focus shifted more and more to Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler), the ace mechanic and ladies' man who lived with the very square Cunningham family. After the ABC series' nominal lead actor, Ron Howard, left the show in 1980, Fonzie completely took over, even being top-billed for the last four seasons. Fonzie's popularity largely rested with young children who looked up to him as an ultra-cool, almost supernatural role model who could do just about anything. As a result, Fonzie's vices were either toned down or eliminated. He drank his milk, ate his vegetables, and obeyed the law. The former bad boy became a goody two shoes.

But Fonzie still had his flaws! Case in point: the season 8 episode "The Sixth Sense," in which the leather-jacketed mechanic wrongly judges Frankie (Steven Ford), a new fry cook at Arnold's, to be untrustworthy after only meeting him once. When Fonzie's money is apparently stolen, he naturally accuses Frankie of the crime and tells the fry cook to leave town. Which Frankie does. Only later does Fonzie learn that the cook was innocent and that Joanie (Erin Moran) and Chachi (Scott Baio) had actually taken Fonzie's money... for wholesome, understandable reasons. Naturally, Fonzie feels terribly about this. Did his vaunted "sixth sense" let him down this time?

What surprises and galls me about the episode is that Fonzie's original suspicions are ultimately proven correct. Frankie didn't steal Fonzie's money, true, but he did swipe some other money from Arnold's, so Fonzie was right to threaten him and chase him out of Milwaukee. And the show treats this as a happy ending! To me, this is a terrible moral. Judging people on first impressions with no evidence is the very soul of prejudice, and it's horribly irresponsible to have Fonzie -- a hero to kids, let's not forget -- modeling such reckless behavior. Fonzie is only "saved" at the end through sheer coincidence and luck.

But does this mean that "The Sixth Sense" is a bad episode? You can find out by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Mopey Dog"

Dr. Joyce Brothers guest stars on Happy Days.

Gary Cooper: man of few words.

The Fonz started out as a tough guy of few words. Producer Garry Marshall has said that one of the inspirations for the famous Happy Days mechanic (memorably played by Henry Winkler) was taciturn Western star Gary Cooper. In Fonzie's earliest appearances from the first season in 1974, he has an air of mystery and even danger around him. Maintaining an air of cool detachment at all times, he keeps his conversations with nerdy Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) short and to the point. You get the sense that Fonzie has more important things to be doing.

By Happy Days' fifth season, however, Fonzie had become an idol to children across America and was as much of a cheerful chatterbox as anyone else on the show. There was very little mystery and even less danger to the character by then. The gradual softening of Fonzie began with episodes like "Fonzie Drops In," "Fonzie's Getting Married," "A Star is Bored," and "Guess Who's Coming to Christmas," all of which exposed the character's vulnerable side. By 1978, with Fonziemania in full swing, the once-threatening greaser had become a veritable teddy bear in a leather jacket. He eats his veggies, pays his rent on time, gets his high school diploma, and even works with the police to stop a potential gang war in Milwaukee. The fourth season ends with Fonzie getting baptized as an adult into the Catholic church.

As all TV sitcom producers know, the surest way to soften a character is to have him interact with either kids or animals. Happy Days did both. Fonz became a mentor to his nephew Spike (Danny Butch) in the second season and cousin Chachi (Scott Baio) a few years later. The episode "Fonsillectomy" from October 1977, meanwhile, had Fonzie being stuck in the children's ward of the local hospital during Halloween and having to entertain a group of ailing tots. 

The March 1977 episode "Spunky Come Home" gave Fonzie the opportunity to interact with both kids and animals. The story concerns Fonz acquiring an adorable mutt named Spunky for "protection" from his many female admirers. Bumblers Potsie (Anson Williams) and Ralph (Don Most) promptly lose the dog, which is then found and adopted by a local kid named Wilbur (Erin Blunt). The finale has Fonz negotiating with Wilbur for Spunky's safe return. It's adorable... and a long way from where Fonzie started.

The prodigal pooch did not show up on Happy Days again for nearly a year. Spunky made his second and final appearance on the sitcom in Season 5's "Spunkless Spunky," which is the episode we're covering this week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. The plot has Spunky falling into a deep depression, forcing Fonzie to seek help from famed pop psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers (appearing as herself). Once again, Fonzie is put into a quasi-parental role. He even refers to himself as Spunky's father!

What did we think of "Spunkless Spunky"? You can find out right here:

Podcast Tuesday: "Joanie and the Gigolo"

Erin Moran and Tim Dial on Happy Days.

By early 1978, Happy Days was deep into its fifth season and one of the most popular shows on television. Only its own spinoff, Laverne & Shirley, had (slightly) better ratings. It could be said that Happy Days really helped turn ABC around to the point where the network could compete for advertising dollars with the juggernaut CBS, home of M*A*S*H and All in the Family. And to think -- just a few years earlier, ABC had nearly cancelled Happy Days because it was getting trounced by CBS' Good Times on Tuesday nights. That had certainly changed by 1978!

Evidence of Fonziemania!!!

How did Happy Days go from death row to easy street? One word: Fonzie. At ABC's command, Happy Days shifted its focus to Henry Winkler's ultra-cool, womanizing mechanic, elevating him from supporting character to star. Happy Days essentially became The Fonzie Show. The episode titles from Season 5 reflect this change: "My Fair Fonzie," "Fonsillectomy," "Fonzie the Movie Star," "Fonzie the Rock Entrepreneur," etc. This strategy had worked well in Seasons 3 and 4, so the show stuck with it for Season 5. Why fix what ain't broken?

But how many consecutive scripts can you write about Fonzie? Apparently, even Happy Days had its limits, because in January 1978, the show started focusing on its other characters. Scripts that month included "Potsie Gets Pinned," "Grandpa's Visit," "Marion's Misgivings," "Richie Almost Dies," and the episode we're reviewing on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast this week, "Joanie's First Kiss." The plot has the youngest Cunningham (Erin Moran) going out on a date with handsome high school senior David O'Dooley (Tim Dial), causing anxiety for her father Howard (Tom Bosley) and overprotective brother Richie (Ron Howard). Keep in mind, Fonzie does not disappear during these episodes. The writers always give him something to do. (Fonzie and Richie have quite an amusing scene together in "Joanie's First Kiss," for instance, demonstrating self-defense on a date.) He just isn't the character driving the plot during these shows.

What did we think of "Joanie's First Kiss"? You can find out by listening to the latest episode of our podcast right here!