Podcast Tuesday: "JD, Use the Forks!"

The Making of the Vice President: Owen Asztalos in Hillbilly Elegy.

Each nation, including our own, must cultivate a version of its history that it can live with. That means emphasizing certain facts, eliminating others, and just generally stretching and augmenting reality whenever necessary. The reconstituted origin story becomes a shared and beloved legend, a comforting fable we tell ourselves over and over again until it becomes truer than the truth.

Not only do we do this myth-making for our country, we do this for certain individuals who are important in our history: prominent politicians, inventors, businessmen, war heroes, etc. These folks are just as messy and flawed and contradictory as anyone else, but we somehow need them to be better than the rest of us, to be more, to rise above the foibles and follies that keep most of us down. So we essentially turn them into superheroes. And we all know every good superhero has a compelling origin story.

But what if you can't wait for others to turn your story into an inspiring myth? Well, then, you do it yourself. That's how we get books like 2016's Hillbilly Elegy, in which Ohio-born venture capitalist and Magic: The Gathering aficionado JD Vance tells us about how he overcame adversity to become the great man he is today. The bestselling book became Vance's springboard to a fast-rising political career, one that has taken him in short order from the Senate to the Vice Presidency and may one day make him Executive in Chief and Leader of the Free World.

Along the way, there was also a less-celebrated Hillbilly Elegy movie in 2020. Since that movie was directed by Happy Days alumnus Ron Howard, that makes it fair game for our podcast. This week, my co-host and I spend some quality time discussing Hillbilly Elegy and the politician who inspired it. If you'd like, you may join us by clicking the play button below.

Podcast Tuesday: "I Married a Phone"

Lynda Goodfriend and Henry Winkler on Happy Days.

    

Richie Cunningham is like a ghost who haunts Happy Days during its eighth season. Actor Ron Howard departed the series (and the leading role of Richie Cunningham) after his contract expired in 1980, but the long-running sitcom bravely tried to carry on without him. What other options did they have? The writers couldn't treat Richie like they did Chuck Cunningham, i.e. pretend he never existed. Richie was too integral to the show by then. How would Happy Days handle Richie's onscreen absence?

There was no single answer to this question. The producers had several strategies. Naturally, even more of the show's attention shifted to the characters of Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Chachi (Scott Baio). In addition, new characters like Roger (Ted McGinley) and Jenny (Cathy Silvers) were added to the cast, along with a new gang of students at Jefferson High. But Richie did not vanish entirely from Happy Days. The remaining characters still talk about him frequently during Season 8, and he still even gets storylines occasionally. 

Case in point: "R.C. and L.B. Forever." In this memorable episode, Richie finally marries his longtime girlfriend, Lori Beth (Lynda Goodfriend). The script explains that Richie is stationed at a top secret Army base in Greenland and can't fly back to Milwaukee for the ceremony. Instead, Richie gets married "by proxy" over the phone, with Fonzie standing in for him! Ron Howard was apparently too busy to record even an audio-only cameo for the episode, so his character is represented entirely by that white Bakelite phone -- an inanimate object!

Does this work? Can you do a Richie episode without Richie ever appearing on camera? You can find out when we review "R.C. and L.B. Forever" on the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Glory Fades, Richie Dribbles"

Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard) prepares to lose the big game in "A Shot in the Dark."

During its fourth season, when it topped the A.C. Nielsen ratings, Happy Days focused increasingly on the character of Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli. The ultra-cool, motorcycle-riding mechanic, as played by Henry Winkler, captured America's imagination and became a pop culture phenomenon whose influence was felt far beyond the show. Kids imitated him on the playground, and there was a plethora of Fonzie merchandise on store shelves. It was Fonzie who almost single-handedly saved the show from cancellation after its rocky second season, and the producers rewarded Henry Winkler with more airtime than ever before. The third season saw the gregarious greaser move into the suburban Cunningham house, while the fourth season was essentially The Fonzie and Friends Show, starting with the epic "Fonzie Loves Pinky" three-parter.

As a result of these changes, the show's original protagonist, nerdy high school kid Richie Cunningham, became more of a supporting character and a foil to the Fonz. He was still important to the series, but he didn't excite the audience the way Fonzie did. Eventually, actor Ron Howard became tired of being Fonzie's "goody two shoes" sidekick and left the series for a prosperous directing career. In the eyes of many fans, Happy Days never quite recovered from Howard's departure.

But even during the Fonzie-crazed fourth season, there was still room for the occasional Richie story. Case in point: "A Shot in the Dark," in which the red-headed honor student becomes an unlikely star on the Jefferson High basketball team, only to have the newfound glory go to his head. That's the episode my co-host Peter and I are reviewing on this week's brand new installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. We hope you'll give it a listen.

Exciting new venture: A 'Happy Days' podcast!

A new podcast for a classic show!

Happy Days was one of the seminal shows of my TV-addicted youth. My family and I tuned into new episodes every Tuesday night on ABC, and I caught up with the reruns, airing under the name Happy Days Again, in syndication. I also followed the spin-offs, like Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley. Hell, I even tried to watch Joanie Loves Chachi and Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. Who didn't know Richie Cunningham, Arthur Fonzarelli, Ralph Malph, and the other denizens of 1950s Milwaukee? I can still remember being thrilled when Ronny Howard and Henry Winkler guest starred on Sesame Street.

So I quickly said yes when my cohost sked me to cohost a new Happy Days podcast. Our show is called These Days Are Ours, and we'll be going through the classic Garry Marshall-produced series episode by episode. In keeping with Happy Days tradition, new episodes of These Days Are Ours will be posted on Tuesdays. The first episode should be posted on October 2, 2018.

In the meantime, you can check out the show's official website and Twitter account.

UPDATE: Our first episode has been posted. Find it here.