"The Best Man"

This April 23rd episode is one of the stronger ones of the first season (a B), and it's more focused on Howard than Richie, who's more of an observer.  I like that the message about bigotry is not simplistic, and even Marion and Howard recognize their own prejudices.

Other thoughts:

• Howard and his Army buddy met twelve years ago, during WW II, presumably placing this in the '55-57 range.
• Howard and Marion have been married twenty-one years, and a recent episode implied that he was a virgin (or at least nervous) on their wedding night, so Chuck is twenty at most.
• Howard had what sounds like a flirtation but not an affair with a cute nurse during the War.
• I assume it's meant to be ironic that Richie corrects Fonzie for saying "blacks" rather than "Negroes," since the latter was the more respectable term before the '60s.  (And it was and is "colored" in the extant NAACP.)
• Potsie and Fonzie are absent.
• Howard says his family "isn't that talented," but of course there would be some putting-on-a-show episodes later in the run.
• This is the only Happy Days episode written by Joel Kane, who also did one for The Brady Bunch, among other series.