"Potsie Quits School"



When I thought of the HD college years, this was the episode I remembered best, maybe because it's one of the few to actually take place in a classroom, but I couldn't have told you what season it was.  As with "Fonzie Gets Married," the title is a tease.  Potsie wants to quit school because his science teacher is a bully, but his friends, especially Fonzie (maybe because he's a former drop-out who went back, although to high school rather than college), help him learn the subject with the delightfully cheesy "Pumps Your Blood."  So I'm going with a B, and it's a better season finale than I would've hoped for.

Notes:
  • Joanie got an A in Gym , a B in another subject, and then C's, but Howard was also a C student in high school, as it turns out.
  • Lorrie Mahaffey makes her final appearance as Jennifer Jerome, who is concerned about Potsie but too innocent to understand how they could study Anatomy at Inspiration Point.  (He's just about as innocent, a far cry from the Potsie of four or five seasons ago.)
  • Potsie is considering becoming a psychologist.
  • Lori Beth is very flirty with "Sizzle Lips" in this episode, even in the classroom.
  • Mr. Rudi, the traveling boot salesman, was the final role for James Millhollin, who among other things played the hotel clerk in the Brady Bunch pilot.
  • James P. Dunne would write four more HD stories, as well as a couple for Joanie Loves Chachi.
Happy Days in Season Six ranges from this B down to C-, averaging out to C+ once again, although I feel like the second half is better than the first.  There are times that the show feels a little weary and stale, but I can also see why I remember it somewhat from the time, when I was in fifth grade.  America definitely wasn't bored yet, since it was a steady anchor for the Tuesday Night line-up, coming in at #3 in the ratings, while Laverne & Shirley was #1, and Three's Company was #2.  (Taxi was #9, but 9:30 was usually past my bedtime.)  Meanwhile, Mork & Mindy aired on Thursdays and tied with Happy Days for #3, and the Garry-Marshall-produced (but not "Fonzieverse") Angie followed M & M and placed #5.  Despite his inability to force a Vegas-showgirl-centered sitcom on America, or make disco magic with Makin' It (February to March '79, and, yes, the theme song was the big hit), Marshall was a late '70s success story.

The '80s were around the corner of course, and ABC got cocky and stupid about scheduling, but that is a story of and for another time....

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