Happy Days

For the play by Samuel Beckett, see Happy Days (play).

Happy Days
Created by	Garry Marshall
Starring	Ron Howard Henry Winkler Marion Ross Erin Moran and Tom Bosley
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	255
Production
Running time	approx. 0:30 (per episode)
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	January 15, 1974 – September 24, 1984

Happy Days is a popular United States television sitcom that originally aired between 1974 and 1984 on the ABC television network. It presented an idealized version of life in late 1950s and early 1960s America.

Happy Days centered on the life of a middle-class family named the Cunninghams, who lived in suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The family consisted of Howard, a hardware store owner and the family patriarch; Marion, a homemaker and the family matriarch; and the couple's teenage children, Richie (who had an optimistic if somewhat naïve outlook on life) and Richie's younger sister Joanie. As the series went on the story focus often shifted to additional characters, notably those of Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, who was originally portrayed as a local thug but soon became a friend to Richie and the Cunningham family, and Fonzie's cousin Chachi, who became a love interest for Joanie Cunningham. The long-running show also resulted in several spinoff shows, several of which were highly successful in their own right.

Cast

• Cunningham family

• Howard (Tom Bosley) - Husband and hardware store owner.
• Marion (Marion Ross) - Wife and homemaker.
• Richie (Ron Howard) - Son and high school student. The protagonist for the first six years of the series. The character was written out of the show, leaving to join the United States Army, after Ron Howard decided to leave the show to pursue his desired (and ultimately highly successful) career as a director, rather than an actor.
• Joanie (Erin Moran) - Daughter.
• Chuck (Gavin O'Herlihy, Randolph Roberts) - Elder son written out of series with no explanation.

• Others

• Arthur "Fonzie" / "the Fonz" Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) - First written in as a minor character, but became hugely popular, and made a series regular.
• Charles "Chachi" Arcola (Scott Baio) - Fonzie's younger cousin. Eventually married Joanie.
• Warren "Potsie" Weber (Anson Williams) - Richie's friend.
• Ralph Malph (Don Most) - Richie's friend. Left with Richie to join the army.
• Matsumoto "Arnold" Takahashi (Pat Morita) - First owner of diner (1975-1976). Returned after Al Molinaro departed (1982-1983).
• Al Delvecchio (Al Molinaro) - Diner owner/cook (1976-1982). His twin brother, Francis (also played by Molinaro), was a priest and married Joanie and Chachi in the series' last episode. Al himself married Chachi's mother.
• Marsha Simms (Beatrice Colen) - Carhop in first season.
• Leather Tuscadero (Suzi Quatro) - Musician. Sister of Pinky Tuscadero.
• Pinky Tuscadero (Roz Kelly) - Former girlfriend of Fonzie.
• Jenny Piccolo (Cathy Silvers) - Joanie's best friend (1980-1983). Mentioned often in early episodes, but never appeared in person until the 1980 season. Jenny's father appeared in one episode, played by Silvers' real-life father Phil Silvers.
• Lori Beth Cunningham (Lynda Goodfriend} - Richie's wife (1977-1982).
• Luisa Arcola (Ellen Travolta) - Mother of Chachi Arcola. Wife of Al Delvecchio.
• Melvin Belvin (Scott Bernstein) - nerdy classmate of Joanie and Chachi.

History

Happy Days originated during a period of 1950s nostalgia in film, television, and music. It began as an unsold pilot called "New Family in Town," with Harold Gould in the roll of Howard Cunningham, Marion Ross as Marion, Ron Howard as Richie and Anson Williams as Potsie. When Paramount passed on making it into a weekly series, they recycled the pilot with the title "Love and the Happy Days" and presented on the television anthology series Love, American Style. In 1973, George Lucas asked to see a copy of the pilot to see if Ron Howard would be suitable to play a Kennedyian teenager in American Graffiti. He immediately cast Howard in the film, which became one of the top-grossing films of the year. Creator Garry Marshall and ABC reshot the unsold pilot and turned Happy Days into a series.

The first two seasons of Happy Days are markedly different from the rest of the series, as it was filmed with a laugh track, as opposed to being a three-camera live production.

The early Happy Days episodes centered around Richie and his teenage friends, Ralph Malph and Warren "Potsie" Weber, dealing with the troubles of being teenagers in 1950s and early/mid 1960s Milwaukee. During the first season, the character of Arthur "Fonzie" / "the Fonz" Fonzarelli started to become a fan favourite. "The Fonz," as Arthur was usually called by everyone (except for Marion, who called him "Arthur"), was originally meant to be a local high school drop out and only occasionally seen. However, the Fonz proved popular with viewers, and was soon given more and more screen time by the writers, becoming a permanent member of the cast in the second season credits. The "Fonz" quickly became the show's most popular character. When the ABC brass considered changing the name of the show to "Fonzie" the cast including Henry Winkler who played the role of The Fonz protested along with Producer/Creator Garry Marshall and the brass left the show name as is.

Later seasons saw the addition of other characters. Roz Kelly was first brought in as Pinky Tuscadaro slated to be Fonzie's long term girlfriend. Commercials for the subsequent season even began promoting Kelly's new character, but when discord occurred between her and the cast and producers, her character was dropped; it was only mentioned briefly in two subsequent episodes, one where her sister Leather Tuscadro came into town to start a fresh life from reform school, and when Fonzie was out of town at a demolition derby with Pinky. Another character, Sticks Downey, was also supposed to be added to the cast as a new member of the gang at Arnold's but the character never caught on and only stayed for a few episodes. The actor playing Sticks Downey went on to a career in adult films and later died from complications due to AIDS.

During the first two seasons a few actresses were brought in as potential long term girlfriends for Richie. Laurette Spang (later of Battlestar Galactica fame) was Richie's girlfriend Arlene in a couple of first season episodes. Later in the second season Linda Purl was brought in as Richie's girlfriend Gloria. Neither caught on storywise and Richie did not have a steady girlfriend until he went to college and met Lori-Beth Allan (Linda Goodfriend), a former classmate from Jefferson High. Coincidentally Linda Purl returned to the Happy Days fold in Season Ten as Fonzi's girlfriend Ashley Fifster.

The most major character changes occurred after season four with the addition of Scott Baio as Fonzie's cousin, Chachi. Originally the character of Spike, mentioned as Fonzie's nephew was supposed to be the character that morphed into Chachi.

Al Molinaro was also added as Al Delvelchio the new owner of Arnolds after Pat Morita's character of Arnold moved on (his character got married). Al Molinaro also played Al's twin brother Father Delvelchio.

Linda Goodfriend joined the cast as a minor character Lori-Beth Allen and became a permenant member of the cast between seasons 8-10. The character would marry Richie.

After Ron Howard (Ritchie) left the series Ted McGinley joined the cast as Roger Phillips the new Phys Ed teacher at Jefferson High and nephew to Howard and Marion. He took over the role counterpoint to Fonzie from Ritchie.

Billy Warlock joined the cast for a couple of seasons as Roger's brother Flip. The character didn't really catch on and Warlock left the show.

Crystal Bernard joined the cast the same time as Billy Warlock and after Erin Moran and Scott Baio's departure into their own show "Joanie loves Chachi. Bernard's character was K.C. Cunningham, neice to Howard and Marion. When Moran and Baio returned after their series flopped in the ratings, Bernard along with Warlock left the show.

The show also took more and more liberties with both the time era it took place in (fashions and hairstyles contemporary to the show's 1970s and 1980s production years started to show up on the show's characters) and with the tone of the episodes, as Happy Days' latter seasons started to feature more and more outlandish plots. The most famous of these plots, and of the show's entire run, is a storyline involving the Fonz performing a water ski jump over a pool containing a shark. In later years, this has often been cited by critics as the point where it became obvious that the series had already passed its peak of quality and popularity; the phrase jumping the shark was eventually coined to express such criticisms about popular culture phenomena in general.

Seasons 1-2 of the series used an edited version of "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets as the opening theme song. This edited recording, as of summer 2004, has never been commercially released, although the original 1954 recording returned to the American Billboard charts in 1974 as a result of its use on the show. Eventually, the show's closing theme song, "Happy Days," became a major hit in its own right and replaced "Rock Around the Clock" at the beginning of the show. The song "Happy Days" itself going through some small edits in subsequent seasons.

Episodes

An episode guide to the series can be found at List of Happy Days episodes.

Spinoffs

Happy Days spun off four different live-action series: Laverne and Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork and Mindy, and Joanie Loves Chachi. The most successful of these spinoffs, Laverne and Shirley (co-starring Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall), also took place in 1950s and early/mid 1960s, though the two starring characters eventually moved to Los Angeles, California in the show's latter years. Joanie Loves Chachi was a short-lived show about Richie's younger sister Joanie and Fonzie's younger cousin Chachi's relationship. Robin Williams made his first appearance as "Mork" on Happy Days. Out of the Blue, a short-lived series about an angel who lives with a 1970s family, was an indirect spin-off, as the lead character of that series originated on Mork & Mindy. There was also an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera entitled Fonz and the Happy Days Gang which ran from 1980-1982. Animated spin-offs of Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy soon followed.

Trivia

• The first two seasons of the series also featured an older brother of Richie named Chuck in a supporting role. This character was written out of the series, with no real explanation. Originally he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on a basketball scholarship. However in subsequent seasons the character would not be referred to again and later scripts suggested the Cunninghams had only two, not three children. Although in a Christmas episode from Season Four Fonzie mentions to Chachi when talking about his first Christmas with the Cunninghams that Chuck was away at College. In a Happy Days Reunion Show the cast mentioned that Chuck had won a scholarship to the University of Outer Mongolia to play basketball. Sort of an in joke to the cast and writers. Such a situation of a character disappearing with little or no explanation, and then subsequent scripts continuing as if the character had never existed has become known as the Chuck Cunningham syndrome.

• Creative differences between Happy Days' producers and ABC helped boost the Fonz's popularity. ABC executives did not want a sympathetic character such as the Fonz to appear in a leather jacket, which they thought would make him appear to be a thug (The Fonz can be seen wearing a white jacket in early episodes). The compromise reached with the producers was to decree that Fonzie could only wear it if his motorcycle was in the scene, as a leather jacket is legitimate safety apparel for someone riding a motorcycle. The show's producers responded by placing the motorcycle in all of his scenes, even indoor ones. Although some first season episodes do show Henry Winkler wearing the leather jacket in interior scenes with no motorcycle in sight. The leather jacket soon became trademark attire for Fonzie, leading to ABC ultimately allowing the producers to let the Fonz wear his jacket permanently, even without the Fonz's motorcycle being present. The jacket is now on display at The Smithsonian Institution.

• Happy Days became one of the first series to have earlier seasons syndicated while the series itself was still producing new episodes (a common practice with long-running shows today). For a time, the syndicated version carried the title Happy Days Again (a common practice up until the 1980s for syndicated episodes of a show still in production to carry a different name).

• In 1995, the band Weezer recorded a music video for their song Buddy Holly, which featured the band playing on the original Arnold's Drive-In set mixed with footage from the series. The video begins with the band being introduced by Al Molinaro as Al Delvecchio, who announces: "Arnold's is proud to present Kenosha, Wisconsin's own Weezer!". The video featured footage from Happy Days episode #53 ("They Call It Potsie Love") as well as several other episodes. This video was included on the Microsoft Windows 95 installation CD-ROM as a demonstration of the new OS's multimedia capabilities.

• Ron Howard guest starred on an episode of M*A*S*H. Both Happy Days and M*A*S*H are 1970s sitcoms set in the 1950s.

• The first season of the series was released on DVD in August 2004.

• Arthur Fonzarelli was affiliated with a motorcycle gang "The Falcons" although in a Season One Episode it was mentioned that Fonzie was a former member of The Demons.

• The show demonstrated the powerful influence of television. In an episode filmed in the late 1970s, Fonzie (as part of his ongoing rehabilitation, so to speak) obtains a library card and declares, "Reading is cool." The following day, libraries around America were deluged with schoolchildren requesting library cards.

• The first two seasons used a laugh track and a single camera. One episode of the second season where Fonzi got engaged was filmed in front of a studio audience with three cameras as a test run for the third season. From the third season on, "Happy Days" was filmed in front of an audience with multiple cameras.

• In 2005 the Happy Days theme tune and main characters were used in UK Citroen car adverts.

External links

• Happy Days at IMDb
• Encyclopedia of Television