Top Stupid Things about the 'Happy Days' TV series (1974-1984)

A season two episode features the 1956 election, while a season three episode centers around Elvis being inducted into the Army, which took place in 1958. So if each season counts as at least one year, they should have been up to 1966 at minimum by the series finale. Laverne and Shirley's final three seasons all took place post-1964, as their Los Angeles apartment had a large Beatles poster on the wall. But there's really no way to reconcile the timeline and the anachronisms in both series, I don't think.

 

The 9th season premiere took place in the fall 1962. That means that the last season took place in the spring of 1965. So they did a decent job in moving the timeline forward.

 

I remember watching a comedian back in the day ( 80s) and the comedian called out Winkler in the audience to do an Fonzie “ ayyyh” and when the cameras panned to him, he was pissed. Very uncomfortable moment. Winkler had a real chip on his shoulder about his type casting back then. He’s much more cool about it today. Man I’ll never forget that poor comedian’s embarrassment.

 

There's an interview with Winkler, fairly recently, where he's asked, "Do you feel you were type-cast?"

He responds, "I AM type-cast".

 

Ha! Yeah I could understand his frustration at the time for sure. He rose above the type cast ashes in the end and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy

 

He does seem like a super-nice guy, but I have to think that success went to his head for a while in the mid- to late-70s. Anyway, he seems to have dealt with it better than most. He was quite a pot-head, apparently, back in the day....

 

I can relate to the last part

 

This one isn't really Happy Days' fault, but it's still a stupid thing about it.

 

For me, the issue with the show was that they seemed to forget that it was set in the 1950s. The early episodes had a focus on being in the 1950s, but as the series progressed it could have been set in the present.

 

He can be seen as a long-hair in the musical number "The House that Jack Built" in the PBS series "The Great American Dream Machine" from 1971.

 

is that original Jan or bogus Jan?

 

The 70s was just full of really bad sitcoms, and ABC led the way, with so many cheesily bad shows that I refused to even watch an ABC show for like 10 years.

 

It's fake Jan.

 

Some of the catch phrases were part of the show's charm, but at some point enough is enough. I still enjoy the early seasons a lot.

 

This was a time when once-successful shows became television institutions--so much so that they wouldn't get cancelled even when they've been running on fumes for several seasons.

It's unthinkable now, and while a lot of people complain about modern tv, the industry' refusal to keep shows going past their use-by tv is something I welcome.

 

i loved the first 2 seasons, after that? eh

 

Tread carefully?
Why?
Some things are best left to certain people.

For instance, I could buy the desert boots, tweed jacket, turtle neck shirt, dress slacks, and the 1968 Mustang as seen worn and driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt.
I would fit in those clothes pretty well and I can drive the Mustang like they did in the movie too...but...
After all that I would still be a doofus in a cool guys car and clothing.

Jimi Hendrix wears a bandana around his leg...works for me.
Chachi Arcola wears a bandana around his leg...not so much.

 

Charlton Heston explained that away quite easily when he said that English is the language of film.

 

I'm almost certain that during the credits of one of the seasons, it shows them celebrating the new year of 1965.

And, "Laverne and Shirley", they had a standee of the four Beatles (mop-top era) so it was probably '64/'65 on their show too.

 

Don't you know all greasers (or wanna be greasers) from Milwaukee, WI are Italian?

 

I seem to recall they offered Henry Winkler his own show as Fonzie. I think he refused - possibly to support the current Happy Days cast. So they changed the show to make it the Fonzie Show. You can’t fight Big Brother.

 

Yeah, the dropoff between Arnold and Al was enormous.

Looked up why Pat Morita left the show - he was offered a chance to star in his own sitcom Mr T and Tina. Which apparently lasted about five episodes.

I didn't know until today that Morita returned to Happy Days as Arnold in the 1982-83 season. By that point I had long ago stopped watching the show.

 

Oof, you're bringing back bad memories!.....

 

This entire account is like you're narrating my life in the late 1970s (at around the same age as you). I distinctly remember the damn demolition derby episode with the hair dryer stunt, and asking the same question: where did it plug in? My family also watched this together, and we hung on until around the infamous shark jump episode before giving up.

 

Reading the comments on this video. Someone said, "Pumping the Shark"