" All the Way"

It is Tuesday, January 15, 1974.  In the almost two years since the Love American Style episode, Ron Howard was in a little film called American Graffiti that was a surprise hit.  Fifties nostalgia is in and the time is ripe to make this series.  I am in kindergarten and the only show I'd watch as late as 8 pm. is The Brady Bunch on Fridays.  Without my help, the midseason replacement for Temperatures Rising will make it to No. 16 in the ratings, a very nice start.  I will see this episode when it hits syndication in a few years and the only line I will remember years later is Fonzie's (one of his few in his debut), "You played with her chest?!"

Like Richie, this episode is awkward and has growing pains, with no one really settled into their roles yet but showing potential.  I considered a B-, but the virgin-whore message is messed up even for the '50s, let alone the '70s, and while on the one hand I like that Mary Lou Milligan (the lovely Kathy O'Dare, who'd soon be a date for Peter Brady, as well as return here the next year as Lois) refuses to be slut-shamed (and she doesn't do more than necking anyway), it feels weird to have her just laugh off a male gym teacher hitting on her offscreen.  So I'm giving the episode a C+.

The setting is I'm guessing '55 or '56, although the most recognizable song on the thankfully intact soundtrack is Bobby Darin's "Splish Splash," from 1958.

Character notes:

• Richie is a junior and he and his friends are interested in cars, so let's say he's sixteen.  He's not much more experienced than the version we saw of him for 1952, apparently a bad kisser who knows nothing about how bras are fastened or unfastened.  As on LoveAS, he's chivalrous compared to his friends.
• Marion worries about Richie, as she will for countless more episodes.
• Tom Bosley as Howard Cunningham is calm and sensible, although irritable with Chuck.
• Gavan O'Herlihy, as Chuck No. 2, is a basketball-player who is repeating his classes (presumably at college) again, so a dumb jock I guess, rather than an agnostic intellectual.
• Thirteen-year-old Erin Moran isn't given much to do yet as Joanie No. 2, but it's a start.
• Henry Winkler as Fonzie is, as you probably know, not yet allowed his iconic leather jacket, but when he looks in the mirror and decides that he doesn't need to comb, he is acting out a moment that will be featured in later credits.  The first line of the episode is Richie's "Hi, Fonzie."
• Anson Williams is, as on LoveAS, trying to play the more knowledgeable friend, although it's pretty clear that Potsie didn't get that far with Mary Lou either.  His hair, which he wants to grow into a D.A. while his mother wants him to get a crewcut, is still odd.
• Donny Most as Ralph Malph is not yet the yuk-yuk comic coward, but we suspect that he's bluffing about his hickey.

I didn't spot her but apparently Lora Marie Taylor would go on to over sixty more appearances as Girl in the Booth at Arnold's Soda Shop (called Arthur's here).

Mel Ferber would direct one more episode.  Garry M. co-wrote with Phil Mishkin and, just this once, his own brother-in-law, Rob Reiner.