"Fonzie the Salesman"

This aired in the usual slot, the night after the anniversary show.  It's much better than the Laverne & Shirley episode where the girls sell door-to-door, although the "Jack sells encyclopedias" Three's Company episode is better, partly because Jack also gets an offer to be a nude model.

• Ralph is much more bribable than Richie, no surprise.
• I appreciate that they're still using his flame-covered yellow car.
• Apparently, they're going to retcon Howard's backstory even from what it was earlier in the season.  Instead of him opening the hardware store at 20 (when he was 25), he instead got out of the Army, after three years as a cook during the War (presumably coming home on leave to impregnate Marion once or twice), and didn't know what to do with his life.  But he wandered into a hardware store to buy a plunger and found his calling.  He worked his way up from stockboy to owner.  (I don't imagine Mother Kelp was thrilled about a son-in-law who was a stockboy with two or three small children and Marion to support.)
• Bob W. Hoffman was an Old Man before but now is only a Middle Aged Man,
• Pretty Lady Heather Lowe would be Brenda, one of Jack's sexiest dates on Three's Company (and accidentally get felt up by Suzanne Somers).
• The dialogue-less tag with her plays like something from the silent era or maybe burlesque and it teeters on sleaziness but doesn't quite get there.
• It's strongly implied that Fonzie's going to use his new cot at the garage for makeouts+.
• Richard Stahl plays Van Alden, the new owner of the garage, in a very cartoony "rich man" sort of way, making his appearance on the first Laverne & Shirley episode feel understated in comparison.
• The incomparable Dick Van Patten was making the rounds on TV and in movies at this time, about a year before Eight Is Enough, from playing the proto-Doc in the first Love Boat TV-movie to guest shots in both The Shaggy D.A. and Freaky Friday over at Disney.  He fits in perfectly to the tone of Season Three HD, as someone else Fonzie can rebel against, a loan officer from Howard's lodge.  He'd return the following season, for the two-parter where Richie (finally!) graduates from high school.
• Dave Duclon would write one more '76 HD episode, and four for L&S.