Happy Days

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

Template:Infobox television 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) Richie's younger sister Joanie and, during the first season, Richie's older brother Chuck (a character that would abruptly disappear during the second season, with no explanation given). 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.

Contents

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Cast

  • Cunningham family
  • 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 (Donny 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.
  • Eugene Belvin (Denis Mandel) - twin brother of Melvin Belvin. Also a nerd.
  • Bobby (Harris Kal) - friend of Chachi and Joanie seen in episodes after Richie and Ralph left the show
  • Ashley Pfister (Linda Purl) - Divorced Mother who becomes Fonzie's Steady Girlfriend (1982-1983)
  • Heather Pfister (Heather O'Rourke) - Ashley Pfister's daughter (1982-1983)
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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 role 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 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 were filmed using a single-camera setup and a laugh track. For later seasons the show was a three-camera production in front of a live audience, giving these later seasons a markedly different style.

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 favorite. "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 management 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 show's title remained unchanged.

Later seasons saw the addition of other characters. Roz Kelly was first brought in as Pinky Tuscadero 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 Tuscadero 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 pornographic movies and later died from complications due to HIV.

During the first two seasons a few actresses were brought in as potential long term girlfriends for Richie. Laurette Spang 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 (Lynda Goodfriend), a former classmate from Jefferson High. Coincidentally Linda Purl returned to the Happy Days fold in season ten as Fonzie's girlfriend Ashley Pfister.

The most major character changes occurred after season four with the addition of Scott Baio as Fonzie's cousin, Chachi Arcola. 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 Delvelcchio 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 Delvelcchio.

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

After Ron Howard (Richie) 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 of acting as counterpoint to Fonzie, from Richie.

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, niece 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, involved Fonzie performing a water ski jump over a shark on September 20, 1977 during the show's fifth season. 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 later coined to express such criticisms about popular culture phenomena in general. While the Fonz's literal shark jump gave rise to the phrase, many fans consider "Happy Days" to have endured multiple turning points, occurring both before and after the stunt in question. Of particular note are the fire that destroyed the original Arnold's Drive-In and the departure of leading man Ron Howard, both of which occurred long after the notorious stunt involving the shark.

Seasons 1 and 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. Released as a single in 1976, "Happy Days " by Pratt & McClain cracked the Top 5. The show itself finished the 1975-76 television season #1, ending the five-year Nielsen reign of "All in the Family".

Before the 1997 re-release of the 1994 Paramount movie Andre, a Paramount Family Favorites promo played with a 1997 version of the Happy Days theme.

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Episodes

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

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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 early/mid 1960s Milwaukee, though the two starring characters eventually moved to Los Angeles, 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 but also appeared on Happy Days in the episode where Chachi sells his soul to the devil's nephew. 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.

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Trivia

  • Jerry Paris who co-starred on the Dick Van Dyke show and directed several episodes of that series directed all the episodes for Happy Days (from the third season on).
  • The first two seasons of the series also featured Chuck, the Cunninghams' eldest child and Richie's older brother. The character was little more than a superfluous one, as he was usually used in scenes where he was "on his way to basketball practice." In fact, Chuck was originally a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on a basketball scholarship.
The character of Chuck Cunningham was written out during the series' second season, and no explanation was ever given. Chuck was never referred to; scripts from later seasons suggested the Cunninghams had two, not three children. However, in the sixth-season Christmas episode, "Christmas Time," Fonzie – recalling his first Christmas with the Cunninghams – tells Chachi that "Chuck was away at college."
In a Happy Days reunion show from 2005, the cast mentioned that Chuck had won a scholarship to the "University of Outer Mongolia" to play basketball, as a sort of an inside joke to the cast and writers. Such a situation - of a character disappearing with little or no explanation, then subsequent scripts continuing as if the character had never existed - has become known as Chuck Cunningham syndrome.
An officially circulated blooper from the final episode has Mr. Cunningham raising a glass to the entire cast and saying "to Happy Days." After taking a sip, he blurts out in mock surprise "wait, where's Chuck?!"
  • 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. The leather jacket soon became trademark attire for Fonzie, leading to ABC to relax the Fonz's dress code. The jacket is now on display at The Smithsonian Institution.
  • Happy Days became one of the first series to have early seasons in syndication 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.
  • 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. It also boosted the career of highly-aclaimed academy award nominated director Spike Jonze.
  • 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. Although Howard wanted to concentrate on films, and was weary working on another television show, this appearance changes his mind and led to his accepting the role of Richie in the Happy Days pilot.
  • The first season of the series was released on DVD in August 2004, though sales have been sluggish and, as of mid-2006, no followup has been announced.
  • 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." In the Happy Days 30th Anniversary Reunion Henry Winkler suggested that there was an immediate surge in library card registration by school children. The American Library Association's FAQ states that there is no way to prove or disprove Winkler's assertion, since records of that sort are not consistently collected.
  • The first two seasons used a laugh track and a single camera. One episode of the second season (in which Fonzie 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.
  • The first two seasons featured a radically re-arranged set for the Cunninghams' home. From third season on, to accomodate multiple cameras and a studio audience, the set was redesigned into the classic configuration familiar to most viewers. However, the second season episode mentioned above in which Fonzie is engaged, was shot on the old set but with multiple cameras.
  • CBS programming head Fred Silverman scheduled Good Times directly against Happy Days during their respective second seasons in an attempt to kill the ABC show's growing popularity. However, he was named president of ABC in 1975, and so was given the task of saving Happy Days during its third season (which saw a rapid increase in ratings). This explains Happy Days' appearing in the Top 20 for the 1973-74 and 1975-76 seasons, but being completely absent from the Top 30 in 1974-75.
  • In 2005 the Happy Days theme tune and main characters were used in UK Citroen car advertisements.
  • Don Most was originally cast to play the part of Potsie Weber. The Ralph Malph character was added to the show after producers decided to cast Anson Williams as Potsie.
  • Marion Ross and Anson Williams are the only cast members who stayed with the show from its pilot, an episode of "Love, American Style", throughout its run.
  • Another television dad, Harold Gould ("Rhoda") was cast as Howard Cunningham in the "Love, American Style" episode sub-titled "Love & the Happy Days".
  • Family Guy creator and former Hanna-Barbera cartoonist Seth MacFarlane proclaimed on the late night talk show Too Late With Adam Carrolla that The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang was the worst cartoon ever made. The show's tentative connection to the Happy Days sitcom, along with one of Hanna-Barbera's most grating animal characters (a scruffy Fonz-alike named "Mr. Cool") certainly puts it in the running for this dubious honor.
  • The animated sitcom Family Guy makes frequent references to Happy Days. In one episode of the show, pudgy patriarch Peter Griffin disguises himself as a high school student, then punches a jukebox in the hopes of turning it on and impressing the other students. Instead, he shatters the jukebox's glass display case and badly injures himself. Other episodes call Richie Cunningham's sexuality into question and portray the Fonz as the messiah of a religion devoted to Happy Days.
  • Henry Winkler and Tom Bosley are the only two actors to appear in every episode of the series. However, Marion Ross and Anson Williams are the only two actors to be involved with the series from the "Love, American Style" episode until the series finale.
  • Tom Hanks appeared in an episode in which he played a character looking for revenge on Fonzie for pushing him off a swing when the two of them were in the 3rd grade. When Tom Hanks states his challenge "The Fonz" was set to be given a community leader award. This is another example of Fonzie's change from rebel to someone you could look up to.
  • The Fonz was a big fan of vegetables when he ate dinner at the Cunningham house. Many said this was an attempt by the show's producers to get kids to eat their vegetables by having the Fonz as a big advocate of that type of food.
  • Most of the characters referred to Howard and Marion Cunningham as "Mr and Mrs. C". The one exception was Ralph Malph frequently would call Howard, "Howie". The Fonz also referred to Joanie as "Shortcake".
  • When Ralph Malph would tell a joke, he would always say "I still got it!"
  • Happy Days still remains one of ABC's longest-running sitcoms (11 seasons), and one of the longest-running primetime programs in the network's history.
  • For the majority of the series, Mr. Cunningham drives an old 1946 DeSoto, but in the 1982 season he sells it in favor of a "sportier" 1962 Studebaker Lark. The Lark was used in the show opener for the remainder of the show's episodes.
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External links

it:Happy Days fi:Onnen päivät sv:Gänget och jag

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