Happy Days Appreciation Thread

[The Toyroom]

You need to go on Cash Cab .

My kids tell me that all the time...Jeopardy too...but I digress....

Why do you even know this ?.

Because I was watching an episode and I saw Lynda playing "Kim"...clearly knowing that she was "Lori Beth" when Richie was in college I had to investigate.

Gary Marshall also used her in his Happy Days' spin-off "Blansky's Beauties", along with Scott Baio. When "Blanksy's" bombed, Gary brought them in to Happy Days as regular characters (I've known that for years BTW, BK, having watched "Blanksy's" when it originally aired. Caren Kaye was HOT! )

[The Toyroom]

Also, seems like most if not all of Garry Marshall's shows are always very whitebread --

Not sure if I'd call Marshall's shows "whitebread"....just standard for the time. In fact Norman Lear seemed to be the only producer at the time that was pushing African-American and Hispanic culture and ethnicity in his various shows.

Eventually you'd have the multi-racial casts of characters on "Barney Miller" and "Welcome Back, Kotter" and so on.... (although those were sorta stereo-types...)

[Earth 2 Chris]

Here's a good question: What color was Fonzie's leather jacket?

I used to think it was black when I was a kid (like the Mego). Then I realized that sometime it looked like a real dark brown. I've seen a few episodes on The Hub where it looks to be a dark brown, but not very black-ish. Last night, they aired the 3rd anniversary clip show, and in the framing sequence, Fonz's jacket looked olive-drab!!!

It was very jarring to go from this jacket in "the present" to old flashback clips where his jacket looked black or dark brown.

Now, I know the answer is they had multiple jackets, but why didn't they at least try to keep the color consistent on them? There were multiple General Lee cars on the Dukes, but I never noticed a great variation in color (although I know there were variations, such as the grills, bumpers, etc.).

Chris

[david_b]

Dark Brown, since the networks were SO against Winkler wearing leather at first, hence the windbreaker during the first year. They wanted to 'soften' the impact..

The 'olive drab' look was due to the lighting.. If you look at vintage Galactica shots, with the right lighting brown will take a dark olive look (it's evident even in some pictures in the bubblegum card series and the book 'Encyclopedia Galactica').

I still don't know why Mego went with the black coat over the brown, other than it does make the figure more more 50ish.

david_b

[Mikey]

Well Fonzie's jacket is a WW2 bomber jacket - like Bob Crane wears in Hogan's Heroes, right ?

If so, than it should be brown for sure... or maybe not

His is hard to tell too

[kingdom warrior]

The addition of Sticks to the original cast would have significantly changed the premise of the show -- if it was done in true life style.

Because it's the 50's the race issue would most definitely have to be dwelled upon almost every time he's in the scene -- and if it wasn't it would have made the show totally unbelievable and unrealistic.

It could be possible to add Sticks and keep the show light but it would be a tough job for the writers.

Also, seems like most if not all of Garry Marshall's shows are always very whitebread -- so now that I think about it the sticks episode was probably not a backdoor pilot.

But, he would be an interesting addition to Happy Days if they did it right.

Sticks became a porn star in the 80's I guess he had his own happy days.......

[Earth 2 Chris]

I thought the jacket color may be the lighting, but it was so different, I'm thinking they used a lighter jacket than usual. All of the scenes with this jacket were shot on the Cunningham living room set. Surely they had a lighting set-up they stuck with for each main set?

Anyway, it looked really weird, and pretty un-cool.

Chris

[HardyGirl]

Sticks became a porn star in the 80's I guess he had his own happy days.......

I remember him as "C.C." from the Krofft's Supershow's "Wonderbug". RIP John Anthony Bailey.

[The Toyroom]

I'm loving the names of some of the Fonz's steady chicks:

Paula Petralunga
The Polaksi Twins
The Hooper Triplets
The Aloha Pussycats

[Earth 2 Chris]

I managed to catch the classic Christmas episode "Guess Who's Coming to Christmas" on the Hub. Well, it was the revised version with the later segment where Fonzie is telling the story to Al, but at least I saw it. Probably one of the best Christmas episodes of any ongoing TV series!

Chris

[The Toyroom]

Just saw Henry Winkler shilling for a Reverse Mortgage company on TV...hard to believe the Fonz is at retirement age ....

[Earth 2 Chris]

Winkler was born in 1945 I think, so he's 65 now. He was older than I thought when he first played Fonzie on Happy Days. He was almost 30!

Chris

[The Toyroom]

Winkler was born in 1945 I think, so he's 65 now. He was older than I thought when he first played Fonzie on Happy Days. He was almost 30!

And Tom Bosley was just 47 when Happy Days started...Makes you feel old doesn't it...

[VintageMike]

My favorite show..ever. Nothing else is even close. It's shame that they killed season 2 by changing the music on theDVD trying to save money. The other seasons are fine though. To me the "Jump The Shark" moment was clear, Arnold's burning down. That's when the show stopped caring about it's time frame although there is still stuff I like after it it wasn't the same.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Anyone catch last night's 2nd episode on the Hub? It guest-star Reb Brown, Captain America in those 70s TV movies. That boy was BIG. Probably one of the most appropriately built super hero actors ever.

Chris