Happy Days Season 11 theme song version

This is the Season 11 theme of Happy Days...



...and boy, is it awful.

I mean, I like the earlier version of the song (it's a classic) but this performance and arrangement is the pits. I guess they wanted to change it to make it fresh, but it came out all wrong.

It looks like an 80's sitcom, not something set in the 50's (60's?).

 

Well the show had already Jumped the Shark by then so it was only natural that the theme song do the same.

 

Ted McGinley ruined sooo many shows in the 80s.

 

Seriously? The THEME SONG is your issue?

This song always sucked anyway. They added the saxes, I guess. I think the show was in about 1965 now, the saxes would have been a little passe. As would Fonzie. Laverne and Shirley recognized the Beatles. They would have been too old to care about them, but at least they moved the show on a bit.

Joanie Loves Chachi seemed set in the genuine 1980s with the two of them singing power ballad type songs.

Who watched this show? What were the plots like? I guess Fonzie was finally too old to be macking on high school girls. I think he was dating a woman with a kid by this point. Potsie, why are you still there? Ted McGinley... you deserve everything the Internet has thrown at you.

Erin Moran and Scott Baio came skulking back from their failed spinoff. Luckier than the Ropers, I guess. Erin Moran... sorry. With Scott Baio, the joke's on us. Blech. Where's Al? And Ellen Travolta? The producers should have been forced to take back the entire cast.

Marion Ross, I respect. She would do character parts before and after this show, nothing like this role. As for David Doyle, surprised he isn't wearing his aviator shades in the opening credits.

Now as for Winkler... I have the utmost respect for the national treasure that is Jump The Shark. So much so that our dear president Donald Trump should declare a national emergency and force Winkler to be buried under a headstone showing Fonzie jumping a shark. I don't care if Winkler would rather be cremated. This thing has gotten bigger than all of us. Also, the headstone should be erected while Winkler is still alive, and he should be forced to go see it. At that point he is free to either continue living or be buried on the spot.

 

"As for David Doyle, surprised he isn't wearing his aviator shades in the opening credits."

I love this as Doyle could have stepped in for Tom Bosley, and no one would have batted an eye!

 

Yes. The kid was the late Heather O'Rourke from Poltergeist. "They're here."

 

Barry Zuckercorn would sue you for that

 

Why did Donny Most leave? It's not like he was a high in demand talent at the time

 

I give Ted credit. Ted (and his wife) has been able to sustain a decent living in LA and Hollywood thru the years. That is not easy to do for anyone in LA let alone actors. My former in law who was an extra for a few years in LA says low end apartments, trailer parks, etc are full of old actors who had bits and pieces of jobs on many shows/films thru the years. That is why he decided after 10 years to move on to something else.

 

Why would he stay? He left because Ron Howard left. Anson Williams staying was pathetic. Who needs Richie's friends without Richie?

The show was pathetic without Richie. That whole opening credit sequence is depressing. Why does anyone need to watch more stories about these characters? Especially several seasons?

 

I worked on the show for the last couple of seasons, and the Paramount exec and I watched a lot of episodes with our hands half-covering our eyes. I'd mutter whenever Scott Baio had a scene where he had 1980s hair in a show set in the mid-1960s, which made absolutely no sense. The producers did try to convince him to conform, but it never happened.

I interviewed Anson Williams a few years later for a series of articles I wrote on Steven Spielberg (because Williams was in an early 1970s Spielberg TV show), and he was one of the nicest, most gracious actors I've ever met. He told me several times, "I'm the luckiest guy in Hollywood, because I got pretty far with only a very modest amount of talent." I think he held on to Happy Days out of loyalty to Garry Marshall and because it was a pretty easy gig by that point (for a good chunk of cash). The Laverne & Shirley set was a lot more chaotic and hostile, just rotten people.

Those were terrible, terrible shows, but there was worse stuff to watch in the 1980s. (Take Small Wonder, please.)

 

The internet meme of Fonzie jumping the shark is ironic because the show itself didn't Jump The Shark until a few seasons after that episode aired.

 

It was still okay for awhile after that episode aired (or episodes? It was a two-parter, wasn't it?), but I can see where people are coming from when they say the "Fonzie jumping the shark" episode *is* when it "jumped the shark".... I mean, c'mon: the whole idea of him ski-jumping over a shark *in his leather jacket* was one of the dumbest moments in the earlier years of that series.

 

Yeah, but the show didn't deteriorate into totally unwatchable garbage for awhile after that. That was just one single stupid moment.

 

I remember this season as a kid but I really don't remember much about it. I do remember thinking even as a kid that it did not look like the 50's anymore. Don't think I could sit thru this or The Dukes Of Hazzard as an adult and you are right that theme song for season 11 is terrible!

 

The shark jump was near the beginning of season five — the show went on for six seasons after that!

 

So would Bob Loblaw.

 

The show was bad by that point but Joanie was looking real good.

 

I couldn't even watch the whole thing and had to shut it off after 37 seconds.

 

A smart idea!

 

Did The Lettermen ever make an appearance on Happy Days? I know they were on Sha Na Na's show.

 

Thank you!

 

Today is the first I ever heard that version of the song, I stopped watching the show before the last season. Come to think of it I stopped watching shortly after Chachi showed up in the series, I couldn't stand him.

Still can't.

 

Oy...that Season 11 Theme, STINKS!!!! Better they should have gone back to "Rock Around The Clock".

 

After the first two seasons, ABC demanded the show be retooled. Marshall, figuring the show was going to be cancelled, decided to make it as ridiculous as possible, never for a minute thinking Fonzie and his super powers would actually succeed.