Podcast Tuesday: "The Top 5 Episodes of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang"

Scenes from various episodes of the '80s animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Rather like Joanie Loves Chachi, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang occupies a place of infamy in the Fonzieverse. Why did we even need an animated version of Happy Days? Why does it feature a talking dog and a "future chick" with magic powers? Why are the characters traveling through time in a flying saucer? The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang seems like another example of the Happy Days franchise completely selling out and betraying its own origins as a sweet, simple show about 1950s nostalgia. File it alongside that time Fonzie jumped over a shark in Season 5.

But, over the course of doing These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast since 2018, I've learned a few surprising things. Joanie Loves Chachi, though totally disposable, is a competent, occasionally amusing sitcom. The "jump the shark" episode is actually a lot of fun if you don't take Happy Days seriously (and you shouldn't). And even The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang has its redeeming qualities.

This week, my cohost and I go over our respective picks for the Top 5 episodes of the animated series, and we talk about our overall impressions of the show and its characters. It'd be awfully nice if you would join us.

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonz of the Baskervilles"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) meets Sherlock Holmes in Victorian London.

Contemporary critics may see the animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang as a disappointment or even an outright failure because it "only" lasted 24 episodes between 1980 and 1981. Apparently, to be successful by modern standards, a show has to accumulate many dozens of episodes spread out over numerous seasons. The live-action Happy Days, for instance, ran for 11 seasons and 255 episodes. Now that's an impressive run! Its cartoon counterpart didn't survive nearly so long.

What people overlook is that it was the norm at Hanna-Barbera from the 1960s to the 1980s to produce only a handful of episodes for each of its series and then rerun those same episodes over and over for years. Long-running series like The Flintstones and The Smurfs were the exception, not the rule. The original Scooby Doo, Where Are You? only ran 25 episodes from 1969 to 1970. Jabberjaw and Hong Kong Phooey ran 16 episodes apiece. Josie and the Pussycats ran 31 episodes, but that's only if you count Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. Wacky Races only ran 17 episodes, and that got two spinoffs! By those standards, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang did respectably.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we arrive at the final episode of the animated series, entitled "Give Me a Hand, Something's Afoot." This time, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his friends travel to 1894 London and meet the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes (Henry Polic II). If you were hoping for an epic Sherlock/Fonzie team-up, however, this episode may be a bit of a letdown. The characters do meet, but they don't really work together for long. The famous detective's archenemy, Professor Moriarty, is here, but Holmes' sidekick, Dr. Watson, is mysteriously absent.

Does this mean "Something's Afoot" is a bad episode, though? Listen to the latest installment of the podcast to find out!

Podcast Tuesday: "Wisconsin Fonzarelli and the Chest of Wonders"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is menaced by snakes on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Timbuktu. It's one of those faraway places I've been hearing about since childhood, but I never really knew where it was or what happened there. Well, now, thanks to The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, I at least have some idea. Timbuktu is a city in the West African nation of Mali, and it became a center of both trade and learning in the 1100s. The city lost its influence over time, due to various wars and invasions, plus the shifting of trade routes. But Timbuktu still exists today, and its rich history is currently being cataloged and preserved. 

Isn't that interesting? There's only one thing that could make the city even more interesting, and that's if the cast of Happy Days somehow managed to materialize there in a flying time machine, accompanied by a "future chick" and a talking dog. And wouldn't you know it? That's exactly what happens in the November 1981 episode "All This and Timbuktu."

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that episode and the effect it's had on our lives. We sincerely hope you'll join us for what should be a frank and eye-opening discussion.

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonzie Circumnavigates His Own Cool"

Ralph (Don Most) screams at God from inside a loving cup.

Due to a lack of time and money, I travel very rarely these days. The last time I even left the state of Illinois was in 2023, when I visited relatives in Indiana for Christmas. And that's just one state over! But it's probably for the best that I stay put. I am, to be frank, not good at traveling. Everything about it discombobulates me. I also dislike being confined to any mode of transportation, like a train or a car, for an extended period of time. I start to feel confined and claustrophobic. I don't know how people deal with those monstrously long flights to Australia or New Zealand. I'd lose my mind.

Fortunately, there are plenty of domestic and international travelers who post about their adventures online, and I can live vicariously through them without having to go through customs. There are also numerous movies and TV shows about this topic, including the episode of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang that we're reviewing this week on our podcast. In "Around the World in 80 Ways," which originally aired in November 1981, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his companions have to win a race around the globe so that they can claim a solid gold loving cup that happens to contain their time machine, which has been shrunk down to the size of a toy. How did the time machine get in there? Does it really matter? What matters is that Fonzie and friends visit New York, Paris, Shanghai, and more.

But does that equal a good half hour of television? Only one way to find out: listen to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Oy, Canada!"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler, right) confronts a villain on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Cartoons are educational! And I don't just mean the ones that are trying to be, like The Magic School Bus or Tennessee Tuxedo. I mean pretty much all the cartoons we grew up on, including Looney Tunes and the collected works of Hanna-Barbera. Like it or not, you did learn some stuff while watching those, if only through osmosis. Looking back, we were introduced to classical music, opera, and even important names and events from history while watching the adventures of Bugs, Daffy, and the rest.

But it goes beyond that. Cartoons have also served as a great museum of show business history. Long before I knew who Peter Lorre, Jimmy Durante, Mae West, and Humphrey Bogart were, I'd seen parodies of them in old cartoons. And it's through cartoons that I was introduced to the trope of the top-hat-wearing, mustache-twirling villain. Characters like these appeared in silent films of the 1910s but trace their lineage back to stage melodramas of the 1840s and 1850s! So latter-day cartoon characters such as Snidely Whiplash and Dick Dastardly have quite a heritage.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we review an episode called "Perilous Pauline" that takes place in the late 1800s in Canada. It draws on both the silent films and the stage melodramas I mentioned earlier. But is it any fun? Let's find out together, huh?

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 8: In the Malph of Madness

Here, we see how comedy is subjective.

What, you thought we were getting through this without some Happy Days content? If you've been following this blog at all for the last few years, you know that I've been the co-host of a Happy Days podcast since 2018. We're currently making our way through an early '80s animated spinoff of the long-running sitcom called The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. 

On the cartoon version of Happy Days, Don Most reprises his role as Ralph Malph and is there to serve a few basic functions, namely to be the show's resident coward (a la Shaggy from Scooby-Doo) and to crack corny jokes. Rest assured, he does plenty of both. His "comedy" tends to provoke groans from his friends and outright anger from his enemies. The latter is depicted above. The angry fellow in the middle is again something I found through Comics Outta Context. Anyone know who he was or where he originally appeared?

Podcast Tuesday: "Rome (If You Want To)"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) enjoys Rome.

If you were doing a time travel show and had all of history to play with, where would you send your characters? Caveman times? The far future? Ancient Egypt? The Old West? Hanna-Barbera's animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (1980-81) did all of those and more in its first season. It took until Season 2, however, before Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his pals finally got to Ancient Rome.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're talking about that episode, "There's No Place Like Rome." It features most of what you'd expect: togas, lions, chariots, centurions, a colosseum, etc. You want men in skirts? You got 'em. Speaking of which, the show has used real historical figures occasionally, including Cleopatra, but this time they substitute a fictional character called Julius Maximus for Julius Caesar. The plot of "No Place" has Maximus trying to conquer some unnamed walled city and marry the king's daughter against her will. Naturally, his plans go up in smoke when Fonzie and friends arrive in their flying time machine.

Does this episode get a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Find out below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Love in a Cold Climate"

There's a lot going on here, right?

It's now been more than two decades since I was a teacher. It's the only job I ever actually trained to do, and I completely failed at it. I was beyond terrible. After just a few miserable years of "teaching" English and Spanish at the junior and senior high school level in the early 2000s, I crashed, burned, and bailed. Since abruptly leaving education, I've been staggering blindly through the professional world with no game plan whatsoever. Out of necessity, I take literally whatever work comes along just to keep up with my rent and other bills. It's a stressful way to live, but fortunately, I still have some free time to write articles about Ed Wood and cohost a podcast about the sitcom Happy Days. 

Should I have stuck with it? I don't think so. For the first few years after my teaching career ended, I would have occasional nightmares that I was back in the classroom, losing control of my students, and I would wake up in the middle of the night in a total panic. Happily, that went away over time. I don't really think much about my days as an educator anymore... unless something triggers a flashback, that is. 

I had such a flashback this week when my cohost and I reviewed a 1981 episode of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang called "Fjords and Sorcery." The episode is rooted in Norse mythology, and it brought me back to the sad days when I actually had to teach a mythology class to bored, hostile high school kids. I have no background in mythology, so I really knew no more about the subject than they did. So did those experiences color my opinion of the episode? You can find out below, and I hope that you do.

Podcast Tuesday: "A Nice Pair of Cupcakes"

The future chick Cupcake (Didi Conn) meets her exact double on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

I'm sure you've heard the theory that, somewhere in this world, there is a person who looks exactly like you. Same facial features, same hair, same body type, etc. There may even be more than one such person. The scientific validity of this is dubious at best, but it's still fun to think about. And it's a great plot device for writers, which is why it has turned up in so many movies, TV shows, plays, novels, short stories, etc. Two lookalike characters could intentionally switch places with each other, or one could simply be confused for the other and get into all kinds of wacky predicaments. Everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Mark Twain has had a go at this kind of story.

The sitcom Happy Days was not exactly immune from clichés and stock situations, but they never did the classic "doppelganger" plot, unless you count the fact that actor Al Molinaro played two characters: amiable restaurateur Al Delvecchio and Al's rarely-seen brother, Father Delvecchio, a Catholic priest. Have no fear, though. The animated version of Happy Days did this type of story at least twice. In Season 1, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is mistaken for an outlaw in the Old West. Then, in Season 2, Cupcake (Didi Conn) meets her own double in 19th century Siam.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we talk about that Season 2 episode, appropriately titled "Double Jeopardy." As usual, we talk about a bunch of other stuff, including Peter Lorre's career and whether or not all the races will blend into one by the 25th century. We'd love it if you would join us.

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: "Fonzie Needs Boats! Fonzie Needs Boats!"

Fonzie and Dr. Solo don't seem to get along terribly well on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Ostensibly, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (1980-81) is a show about time travel. Fonzie (Henry Winkler), Richie (Ron Howard), and Ralph (Don Most) travel haphazardly from one era to another in a constantly-malfunctioning flying saucer, accompanied by "future chick" Cupcake (Didi Conn) and a mischievous dog named Mr. Cool (Frank Welker). Their ultimate goal is to return to 1957 Milwaukee. I say the show is "ostensibly" about time travel because it's really more about hopping from one literary form to another (Westerns, horror stories, swashbucklers, etc.) and seeing how the characters fit in. I call it genre travel.

But in its second season, the show did an episode that is neither time travel nor genre travel: "Time Schlep." Here, the gang find themselves in the Bermuda Triangle on a remote island that lies outside of the time-space continuum. Time has stopped here; it's not any particular year on this island. They encounter a mad scientist (voiced by Rene Auberjonois), a damsel in distress, a giant gorilla, and an evil robot, but the story does not fit into any convenient category. We are figuratively and literally in uncharted territory this week.

Does that make for a better or worse episode? Both? Neither? Find out by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. You know how to do that, right?

Podcast Tuesday: "Village of the Damp"

Fonzie (Henry Winkler) woos an underwater lass on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Suppose the worst happens. Let's say the ocean levels continue to rise, the atmosphere becomes unbreathable due to pollution, and outer space proves impractical to colonize. What do we do then? I'll tell you what: we build underwater cities, that's what! Big, futuristic cities under giant see-through domes. Personally, I can't wait. Science-fiction has been teasing us with this fantasy for too long. Let's make it happen. I'm tired of being a landlubber. I don't even lub the land all that much.

According to The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, however, this won't become a reality for a long, long time. The September 1981 episode "Kelp!" is set in the far-distant year of 3718 A.D. By then, according to Cupcake (Didi Conn), some humans have adapted themselves to living underwater. Their skin is blue, they farm kelp, and they can communicate telepathically. Sounds good to me. But what's really interesting here is that not all humans live this way. There are still some "surface dwellers," including a power-mad industrialist named Seatax who wants to deplete the ocean of all its gold. It's up to Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his pals to defend an underwater community called Aqua City and its lovely female mayor from Seatax and his goons.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days, we talk about "Kelp!" and our general feelings toward life underwater. It is our sincere hope that you will join us

Podcast Tuesday: "Throw Out Your Hands, Stick Out Your Tush"

The Three Musketeers confront Fonzie on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

In 1981, ABC gave The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang a second season, bringing the series' overall episode total to 24. That may not sound terribly impressive, but it's pretty good for a Saturday morning series of this vintage. Let me put this in perspective. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (1969-1970)—a beloved series that launched a lucrative multimedia empire, let's not forget—ran for only 25 episodes. Other classic HB series, like Jabberjaw (1976) and Hong Kong Phooey (1974), only got one season apiece. 

A game-changer at NBC.

And this phenomenon wasn't limited to just Hanna-Barbera. Sid and Marty Krofft's signature series, H.R. Pufnstuf, ran just 17 episodes. In those days, networks tended to order just a handful of episodes of children's shows, then rerun those episodes over and over for years. I say all of this because I want people to stop saying The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang was a failure because it didn't run 100 episodes. It did remarkably well, in fact.

However, on September 12, 1981 (my sixth birthday, incidentally), NBC debuted a Saturday morning series that would definitely buck the trend: The Smurfs (1981-1989). Peyo's iconic little blue creatures had been extremely popular in Europe for years, even getting their own movie and topping the UK pop charts, but they didn't hit in America until they got their own Hanna-Barbera series in the '80s. They quickly made up for lost time, however, and The Smurfs became a nationwide pop culture sensation. And NBC didn't just make a small handful of episodes this time. They let the show run for nine seasons and 256 episodes. That's one more episode than the live-action Happy Days (1974-1984).

As it happens, the first episode of The Smurfs aired opposite the second season premiere of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. The latter is a Three Musketeers parody called "The French Correction." And that's exactly the episode we're reviewing on this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Check it out below!

Podcast Tuesday: "Grecian Kid Stuff"

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!

Podcast Tuesday: "Futurelli"

The Controller (Alan Oppenheimer) menaces Fonzie (Henry Winkler).

It's a losing game trying to predict the future. Science fiction writers and filmmakers have been getting it wrong for decades. The makers of The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang apparently tried to hedge their bets. This early '80s Hanna Barbera animated show gives us wildly different visions of what the future will be like. Maybe one of them will come true!

One of the show's main characters, Cupcake (voiced by Didi Conn), hails from the 25th century and is supposed to be a typical, if clumsy, human of that time. She has magic powers, shoots rainbows from her fingertips, and travels around in a flying saucer. I guess, based on her name, that cupcakes still exist a few centuries from now. That's nice to know. But Cupcake doesn't know what horses are, so apparently they're going extinct in the next few centuries. Bummer.

One of the first episodes of the series, "May the Farce be with You," is set in the year 2057, which is just a few decades away! In it, a race of sinister andtroids plan to destroy the earth. Luckily, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) shuts them down just in time. According to The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, we are basically going to be living in a Star Wars (1977) universe by the 2050s. 

And then we come to this week's episode, "Science Friction," set in the year 3057. All the Star Wars stuff is over by this time in history, and we're experiencing the future from The Time Machine (1960) instead. The humans live above ground in constant fear of underground-dwelling mutants called Krolacks. And there's a mean android named the Controller (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer) who's pulling the strings. How do Fonzie and his pals react to all this? Find out by pushing the play button below for the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. 

Podcast Tuesday: "Fonzalot"

Merlin (left) and King Arthur meet the Happy Days kids.

Suppose you were on a game show and you had 60 seconds to blurt out as many things associated with King Arthur as you possibly could. What might you come up with? You'd probably say that he was a legendary English king who lived sometime during the Middle Ages in a place called Camelot. He had a famous round table. He went looking for the Holy Grail. He slayed dragons. He jousted. He had a special sword called Excalibur that he either got out of a stone or out of a lake. (Definitely one of those.) You might also mention some of the other characters in his story, like Lancelot and Guinevere and Merlin.

The good news is, you couldn't really give a wrong answer in a situation like this. The exploits of King Arthur have been told for about a millennium through poems, songs, plays, novels, and more, but there is no definitive or canonical version of his story. Writers have been putting their own spin on the material for centuries, adding characters and plot elements to suit their mood or their purpose. While these stories were originally an attempt to record actual British history, they have long since entered the realm of the fantastic and impossible. As I see it, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) is as valid a take on Arthurian legend as any other.

It was inevitable that The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang would do an episode about King Arthur. Theirs was called "Gone with the Wand" and originally aired in January 1981. Just like Walt Disney's version of Arthurian legend, The Sword in the Stone (1963), "Gone with the Wand" features an adolescent Arthur and a bumbling, bearded Merlin. I think, for the purposes of children's entertainment, it's safest to focus on this era of King Arthur's story. You can avoid some truly dark material, including adultery and incest, that way. Not to mention prodigious violence.

You've probably guessed by now that "Gone with the Wand" is the focus of this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. And it is. What did we think of this story set vaguely in the Middle Ages? Find out by listening to the podcast below.

Podcast Tuesday: "Amazon Women on the Earth"

Cupcake (Didi Conn) and Fonzie (Henry Winkler) confer with an Amazonian queen (June Foray).

This week on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his time-traveling pals find themselves stranded in the sweltering Amazon jungle, thousands of miles from their hometown of Milwaukee. And that's not the worst of it! They're captured by a tribe of fierce warrior women (whose leader is voiced by Rocky & Bullwinkle star June Foray) and threatened by a couple of treasure-seeking smugglers (one of whom is voiced by ventriloquist Paul Winchell). 

And our heroes have to deal with other typical jungle problems, too, including carnivorous plants, quicksand, and rickety rope bridges.  If all this sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, remember that this episode, "It's a Jungle Out There," premiered in January 1981, six months before the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). So Hanna-Barbera beat George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to the punch.

This is certainly an action-packed story. In fact, there's so much going on in this episode that I was overwhelmed the first time I screened it. It just seemed like 25 minutes of random chaos and noise to me. But I screened it a second time and was able to glean some kind of story here. Were my efforts worth it? Find out by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "Me, a Pharaoh?"

Fonzie canoodles with Cleopatra on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Was Cleopatra hot? More than most historical figures—Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Benjamin Franklin, etc.—Cleopatra VII (69 BC-30 BC) is often discussed in terms of her sexuality and attractiveness. To this day, documentaries about the Ptolemaic queen play up her romantic relationships with Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony, and there's usually a segment in which we see a 3D reconstruction of her face while various experts debate whether she'd be considered attractive by modern day standards. It seems an ignoble fate for this once mighty queen. But, hey, at least we're still talking about her.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing the 1981 episode "The 20,000 Drachma Pyramid," in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and his pals travel to ancient Egypt and witness the coronation of an 18-year-old Cleopatra. But Miss Cleo has numerous obstacles to overcome on her way to the throne: a scheming priest, a vengeful mummy, and even a disappearing river! Luckily, the Happy Days kids are there to solve all of these problems for her. Naturally, there are major sparks between Fonzie and Cleo, and it all culminates in what I'd deem a rare interracial kiss on 1980s network TV.

But does any of this mean "The 20,000 Drachma Pyramid" is a good episode and worth 25 minutes of your time? Find out by listening to the podcast below!

Podcast Tuesday: "Must Be the Season of the Witch"

Fonzie, Mr. Cool, and a witch on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

In many ways, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (1969-1970) was a major breakthrough for Hanna Barbera. Not only was the show a ratings success and the beginning of a multimedia empire that is still going today, it reached a teenage audience beyond just the grade schoolers who normally watched Saturday morning TV. Little wonder, then, that HB attempted one Scooby clone after another in the 1970s and '80s, including Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw, and Goober and the Ghost Chasers.

It took me a while to realize that The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang is essentially another Scooby wannabe, imitating the original show almost character for character. Instead of leader Fred, we have Fonzie (Henry Winkler). Instead of ditzy Daphne, we have Cupcake (Didi Conn). Instead of nerdy Velma, we have Richie (Ron Howard). Instead of cowardly Shaggy, we have Ralph Malph (Don Most). Naturally, we need a humanlike animal mascot. Instead of Scooby or Scrappy, we have Mr. Cool (Frank Welker). And the gang needs a flashy mode of transportation, so instead of the Mystery Machine, we get the time machine.

The episode that made me realize this was "You'll Never Get Witch," in which Fonzie and his pals travel to Salem in 1692 and get caught up in the witch trials. The only thing to distinguish it from Scooby-Doo is that it features the Happy Days kids. Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Find out when you listen to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

Podcast Tuesday: "I Never Drink... Milkshakes"

Cupcake, Fonzie, and a vampire on The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

On December 20, 1980, just in time for Christmas, The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang aired the episode "The Vampire Strikes Back," in which our heroes travel to Transylvania and meet a vampire named Count Wolfgang von Wolfenstein (voiced by sitcom veteran Henry Polic II). Such are the vagaries of TV scheduling. Maybe the episode wasn't ready in October or something. Besides, kids are already bombarded with Christmas-themed animation in December, so maybe a story about monsters and mad scientists would make a nice change of pace. And The Nightmare Before Christmas was still 13 years away.

As unlikely as it sounds, this madcap mashup of Happy Days and horror ends up being one of the most entertaining episodes of the animated series. There are a few spooky episodes of the live-action Happy Days series -- "Haunted," "Welcome to My Nightmare," and (arguably) "Fonzie's Funeral" -- and they're a lot of fun, too.  I may be prejudiced, though, because I love horror movies so much, especially the Universal classics from the 1930s and '40s. "The Vampire Strikes Back" takes a lot of tropes from those films. I guess, if you were a kid watching this 44 years ago, it would all be new to you.

Anyway, you can hear what my cohost and I had to say about "The Vampire Strikes Back" by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. And because I'm such a nice guy, I've embedded it below so all you have to do is push play.