Happy Days (ABC tv show)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by jason88cubs, Jul 8, 2018.

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  1. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    Grand_Ennui wrote the following as part of a post:

    Height was one of the reasons that Henry Winkler was chose to play Fonzie, but not because he was too short but because he was roughly the same height as the other male actors. Micky Dolenz (of the Monkees) was in the running to play what became Fonzie but he was passed on because he was too tall.
     
  2. jason88cubs

    jason88cubs Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Us
    If Happy Days took place today the writers would probably have the Fonz nail Mrs. Cunningham and Mr Cunningham try to murder him
     
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  3. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    That's not as strange as it seems considering recent television re-imaginings. Examples:

    • 1313 Mockingbird Lane (The Munsters): Among the changes they made was to explain why Marilyn lived with the Munsters (per Wikipedia she's there to keep her mother [Lily's sister] from eating her).
    • Riverdale: Combine the Archie characters with Twin Peaks.
    • Afterlife With Archie (comic book): They combine the Archie characters with a Night Of The Living Dead situation (due to a forbidden spell to bring Hot Dog back to life after he is accidentally run over and killed by Reggie, Riverdale is overrun with flesh eating zombies led by a zombie Jughead). The series has a very subdued art style that is far from the standard Archie house style that has been used for decades.
    • Wacky Raceland (comic book): The racers are doing they best to win a race in an Mad Max-type world where the ultimate winner is promised entry into Utopia by the mysterious Narrator. The classic Wacky Racers are reimagined as lethal fighters (the cover of one comic shows data printouts for Penelope Pitstop [who is very good at killing with a knife], Dick Dastardley, Peter Perfect, and Muttley listing them as extremely dangerous) who are allowed to cheat and fight, but not kill, each other.
    Based on what I've seen, it seems that many classic series are being taken in new, and darker, directions (I recently purchased a comic called Black Lightning & Hong Kong Phooey (who is shown to be a serious, no-nonsense and very effective martial artist, unlike in the cartoon, who holds his own against two deadly DC martial artists).
     
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  4. willy

    willy hooga hagga hooga

    Did the Hooper triplets ever appear or were they just mentioned?
     
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  5. bekayne

    bekayne Senior Member

    No. Nor the Polaski twins either.
     
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  6. halfjapanese

    halfjapanese Gifs moider!

    Keep hope alive!
     
  7. willy

    willy hooga hagga hooga

    Fine memory: Fonzie's face when Richie called him "Bucko". Does anyone recall which episode that was?
     
  8. Sam

    Sam Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
    I agree! The original episodes were shot outside and had an "American Graffiti" feel to it. Turned into a joke once they had Fonzie going "Heyyyyyyyy" every 5 minutes. Just like Good Times had JJ going "Dy-no-mite!" every 5 min. Happy Days has not aged well for me, and I find it hard to watch any but the earliest episodes.
     
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  9. misterdecibel

    misterdecibel Bulbous Also Tapered

    I think they were in Richie's brother's room, Pottsie unfolds a Playboy centerfold and says "Wouldn't you like to see a tight sweater on THAT!"
     
  10. BEAThoven

    BEAThoven Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    For clarity, don't most of the superior episodes feature the Fonz wearing a windbreaker instead of the better-known leather jacket? ;)
     
  11. swandown

    swandown Under Assistant West Coast Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    If Happy Days took place today, the Cunninghams would be drug dealers, the Malachi Brothers would be the cops trying to bust them, and Fonzie would be the ethically-torn undercover agent whose job was to bring the Cunninghams to justice but ends up helping them escape capture because he cares about them too much.

    Also, he would have nailed Joanie, not Mrs. C.
     
  12. bekayne

    bekayne Senior Member

    Bag was the drug dealer. That's why they called him Bag.
     
  13. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    'Tis true...
     
  14. jason88cubs

    jason88cubs Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Us
    I still cant figure out why The Fonz got mad at teh Malachi brothers when PINKY got out on the hood of her car
     
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  15. carrick doone

    carrick doone Whhhuuuutttt????

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    It's true - we can't compare HD to anything better than what was on at the time.

    On Fonzie himself. I don't know if this has been said so forgive me if it has.
    I totally get that Fonzie is a cartoon but he didn't start as a cartoon and I knew guys who were like him. Not everyone had the trajectory that we imagined was Ritchie's and that was kind of the point of his character. The original idea of Fonzie was not that he was a hoodlum - others called him that. He was a guy who dropped out and liked to work on bikes and was considered cooler than kids who stayed in school. Remember the dinner scene from season one I presume where Mr. Cunningham asks him what he wants to be later in life? He states he wants to be a cop and the punch line is that he said it was because he would get paid to ride motorcycles! Fonzie is that guy whose life didn't follow the same path others did and didn't have grand North American ambitions. And that made him cool. Us kids watching were doing Ritchie's life but we wanted to do what Fonzie did.
     
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  16. Kyle B

    Kyle B Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    A lot of Happy Days after this first two seasons is unwatchable. Don’t get me started on that season when Joanie and Chachi left, and they were replaced by yet another niece and nephew, plus Linda Purl and her annoying kid. I remember my father looking at the opening credits that year and saying, “I think it’s time to end this.”

    When there were good moments in those later seasons, they were more dramatic. Ron Howard returned for an episode in the last season where his character got to say goodbye (he unexpectedly left in between seasons 7 and 8, so he never got a farewell episode then). That’s one worth catching. There’s another one where the Cunninghams consider moving and Fonzie is hurt because they don’t talk to him about it and he has come to consider them to be his parents.
     
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  17. James Slattery

    James Slattery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island
    Its really 2 different shows. The first 2 seasons, which are very good, and the remaining seasons, which were very popular.
     
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  18. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    What I noticed is that in the early seasons they made attempts to make it seem like they were in the 1950s. As the series progressed it seemed like the whole 1950s aspect of the show was forgotten.
     
  19. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    I remember around 1976, my Social Studies teacher criticized HAPPY DAYS for some bad values he felt it reflected, and a classmate took the mickey out of him by arguing "they just want to show people what life was like in the Fifties". The teacher practically blew up over that! My classmate knew what he was saying was rubbish, but loved getting this teacher's goat.
     
  20. DaleClark

    DaleClark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    Members only jacket
     
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  21. ROFLnaked

    ROFLnaked Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    The early "1950s" episodes have that great charm. Whenever I see either Joanie with that @1980-looking perm or the mere presence of Chachi, I make like a sledgehammer on the remote control.
     
  22. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    The show became totally lame around the time that the actors stopped bothering to wear their hair in an authentic '50s style.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2020
  23. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I worked on Happy Days for the last couple of seasons. I can remember an episode where I looked at Scott Baio's hair, and I shook my head and told the producer, "jesus, can somebody tell this kid it's supposed to be 1962?" The producer agreed and said there had been countless disagreements between the actor and Garry Marshall, but Marshall opted to just let it go because the ratings were good and "Chachi" was a very popular character. I think at that point, they were too busy counting the residual money to be concerned with how accurate the hairstyles, dialogue, costumes, and props were.
     
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  24. Big Jimbo

    Big Jimbo Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    For the 1984 Robert Redford film “The Natural” about baseball in the 1930s, the producers hired Cliff Kachline from the Baseball Hall of Fame as an adviser. Kachline later wrote an article in the “New York Times” about his experience to bring historical accuracy. He said he pointed out to the producers that the manager and the coach (Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth) had mustaches and no one in baseball had a mustache in the 1930s. The producers thank him but said since these were two veteran actors, he wasn’t going to ask them to shave.
     
  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    I liked both!
     
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