Reliving Happy Days

I can remember cringing a bit at this time, but honestly, for Season Eight, it's not bad.  It's not good either though.  So C. A couple notes: Joanie and Roger are Irish on their great-great-grandmother's side, but he's Russian on his presumably paternal grandfather's side. Potsie refers to "the U.S.A." in 1600ish, but it is Fonzie telling the story. Fonzie quotes Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, in an episode presumably set in the spring of '63, a bit premature but oh well. Molinaro shows up as a priest, but I don't know if it's Al's brother,  L&S 's Father Gucci, or a random cleric. It's nice to see Goodfriend dance a bit again. J. Elizabeth Bradley has hardly any other IMDB credits, but her co-writer Dunne had done some other HD  scripts, including a couple musical ones. Season Eight of Happy Days ranges from D to B-, averaging out to a C.  It's not as terrible as I dreaded, but the loss of Rich...

This would be such a better episode without the crap with Fonzie's students (especially him not objecting to Eugene being bullied) and if he realized that whether or not the waitress is his mother, she should not be slapped on the butt by customers.  Still, the final scene with him and the waitress (played by veteran actress Janis Paige, then almost 60 but not looking it) is poignant.  So C again. Notes: Ray Girardin, who is the harassing customer Big Harold, previously was Sgt. Ryan. It's Spring during this episode that aired during May. Joanie and less surprisingly Potsie are both absent. Somehow Babaloo Mandel had never written an HD episode before, here co-writing with Fred Fox, Jr.  Mandel would do one more HD script that year. As the seasons pass, Fonzie's abandonment by his parents gets earlier and earlier, here with his father leaving when he was two, his mother when he was four.  It's fairly consistent that he was raised by his Grandma Nussbaum. Fonzie's mo...

A man and his wives I don't know, even though we've seen Marion jealous before (here with more reason), and even though Howard seems a mid naïve (or modest), I liked this episode more than many this season.  Maybe it was the further digging into Potsie's dysfunctional relationship with his father.  So C. Patricia Carr, who plays Fern Flagg, was married to Tom Bosley (from 1980 until his death in 2010), which adds an odd subtext.

While I of course wish that Richie was actually at his own wedding, this is probably the best episode of the season, for what it's worth, with some actual laughs, emotions, and energy.  So B-. Notes: Richie's middle initial is, as it was before, J., so shouldn't it be "R.J. and L.B. Forever," or maybe "R.J.C. and L.B.A. Forever"? Potsie gets to sing at the wedding. Ralph not only dances with Richie at shindigs on base, but he tried to go AWOL by sending himself home to his mother. Richie was supposed to have to stay in Greenland for a year when this first came up months ago, but now it's going to be another year. Howard shoots down the idea of Chachi marrying Joanie, but he later tells his high school senior that she's "next."  And, yes, three seasons later, Howard would play father of the bride. Jenny has a catcher's mitt to catch the bouquet, so she still hopes to marry young, despite the "marriage" with Fonzie. LB's...

In a nod to continuity, Chachi still hopes to get a basketball scholarship, and here he's offered a dubious one.  I found Fonzie very naïve, and using Roger as the authority on scholarships felt condescending.  So C-. Notes: Jenny has an unseen brother who wrestles alligators. In the previous episode, Potsie was very excited to be announcing Jefferson High basketball games, which he does again here, and which is symbolic of the pathetic role this once central character has been reduced to. Joanie has been a cheerleader for many seasons now, so maybe she does deserve a scholarship for it. Director Jerry Paris is listed at IMDB as uncredited in the role of the Doctor.  I wonder if he had to fill in at the last minute.  Anyway, it's not as memorable as when he heckled Richie at the 1956 political rally.

A Very Special episode about epilepsy, with characters we'll never see again, so C-. Notes: Chachi is hoping to get an athletic scholarship, so I guess studying in the cabin wasn't much help. We finally get to see Roger as basketball coach, his ostensible reason for being at Jefferson High and on the series. Someone really should do an intervention with Clarence the cook.  Week after week, he goes further off the rails. Raymond Guth returns as Mr. Gampolo the janitor.

This episode is another that has potential, but it's so unfocused, without any real payoff or conclusion, that I have to go with a C. Notes: This episode does fill in some of the backstory that's been missing on both Potsie and Lori Beth this season: Potsie has been living on his own since Ralph joined the Army. He's behind on rent and is about to be evicted. He'll have to move into his parents' garage. He's still in college, as is Lori Beth. She has a worldly roommate named Courtney, who is interested in Potsie, and I thought the story was going to be about their romance, but it's more about the impact on his ambitions and how this affects Fonzie. Roger is looking for an apartment, since Howard and Marion treat him like a nine-year-old, but he doesn't want to move in with Potsie because he'd have to sleep on the couch like Ralph did. Although I could've sworn the apartment was furnished, Potsie is moving everything out, including the refrigerato...

One of those Rashomon -ish episodes so beloved by '70s and '80s sitcom-writers, this is another C+.  It is nice that Potsie gets something to do, and gets the girl.  I don't really have any notes, other than Fonzie really wants Chachi to be the first person in the family to go to college.

I feel like there's a good episode potentially here, maybe with sharper writing.  After a year of dating, Chachi still hasn't had Joanie over to his "house" (apartment) or introduced her to his mother.  So Fonzie invites the Cunninghams over and mild havoc ensues.  There are some sort of sweet moments, so I'm going with a C+. Notes: Somehow how both The Blob and Psycho are playing at local theaters, and  "Surf City" is playing at Arnold's. Chachi says Richie has his own room even though he's not living at home, but I thought they turned Richie's room into Roger's?  I never see Roger sitting at the Cunningham dinner table, so maybe he just stayed there temporarily. Potsie is apparently living in the apartment without Ralph, and there's a not quite subplot where he and other Psych students are studying how Fonzie picks up girls. Jenny is actually still dating Eugene but is ashamed of him.  Their ship name is probably Eugenny and I think...

While this episode doesn't quite work, it's not bad for Season Eight.  There's the farcical situation of Fonzie and Jenny being accidentally sort of married, but that aspect isn't as much fun as "Shotgun Wedding."  Then there's the tonal shift with some of Jenny's backstory.  Anyway, I'll say a C. Notes: Potsie has maybe three lines, one of which is to be surprised at the idea of Fonzie being married, even though he must remember the "librarian" and Pinky and whoever else Fonzie almost married that I have forgotten by now. Jenny has at least one sister living at home, who has been married (not necessarily the one who just got remarried), and seems to have several other siblings.  And her parents fight a lot.  Which, yeah, backstory, but it sort of comes out of nowhere. Jenny has some surprisingly old-fashioned ideas about marriage, maybe because of her unhappy home life. Jenny is 17, which you would think would be bar enough to her gettin...

No, indeed it's not.  While this isn't as bad as the previous two episodes, it doesn't handle the motifs of either jealousy or school musicals well.  Even Baio & Moran's rendition of "You Look at Me" is handled more awkwardly than it would be as the theme song for their spin-off a year later.  So C-. Notes: The studio audience is still going mad for Ted McGinley in workout clothes, but Roger still isn't given much to do. Oddly enough, I like Jenny best in this episode so far, since she actually stands up to the conceited hunk, although not enough to, you know, warn Chachi about the impending accidents.  (Not that Chachi doesn't sort of deserve them.) Despite Fonzie feeling overwhelmed by people's demands on him in the previous episode, he here reluctantly agrees to direct the school musical. Potsie had the lead in his senior musical, which Lori Beth apparently never saw. Kelly Britt was Gladys before and is some nameless Woman here. This is Bar...

Well, the title is apt, as this is one of the worst episodes of the series (so far).  In the previous episode, Fonzie mistakenly believed that if he had dental work, it might drain him of his cool, while here he dreams of a mad scientist indeed draining him of his cool.  Among other things, this is shown by him speaking like a stereotypical gay man interested in interior decorating.  And then there's the whole cringey subplot of Chachi encouraging Eugene to ask Jenny out, in part because Joanie turned Chachi down for two years.  I'm not fond of the "dating a nerd being dreadful" motif, but, hey, Jenny has the right to pick her own dates.  Add to that the whole thing this season of Potsie being a vestigial character, not to mention the usually fun Dick Gautier getting dreadful material, and you know, a D feels generous.  But I know the show will probably get worse. A few notes: Potsie is still majoring in Psych, and is actually good enough to tutor in it! Fo...

Fonzie's character development of the past seven years goes out the window, as he's infantilized and yet once again still a hood, calling in gang friends when he has to go to a dentist.  Yep, it's another D+ for this season, sigh. Notes: Joanie and Chachi are both almost eighteen. Howard remembers Joanie's Junior Chipmunk uniform from when she was twelve. It doesn't quite qualify as a subplot, but I was of course more interested in the third (or more) wedding of Jenny's nameless older sister, whose already cheating on her new husband in the tag. Fonzie comments on Gilligan's Island, which would presumably put this into late '64 at the earliest, which is unlikely, especially since "It's Mashed Potato Time," by Dee Dee Sharp, from '62 is playing at Arnold's. Lori Beth is still working as a waitress at Arnold's, where her uniform earns a mild wolf whistle from the studio audience.  She mentions being engaged to Richie. Fonzie's...

I'm not really sure what the point of this episode, where Fonzie suspects the right guy for the wrong reasons, is, but I sort of like the "teenage break-in" scene, so C. Notes: Apparently nobody remembers from (I think) the second anniversary show that Fonzie's birthday is in January, so Marion has to get Grandma Nussbaum drunk, offscreen, to get the info. I don't know if Jenny has a crush on Fonzie or if he's more of an abstract stud to her. They don't address what Chachi overheard while stuck in Fonzie's closet while Fonzie had a date in his apartment all night, but the mind boggles. There's a moment when Fonzie seems to want Roger to be his conscience, as Richie used to be, but then he doesn't, and Roger ends up having to admit he was wrong about Fonzie being wrong.  The dynamic here is different and less interesting than that between the two friends. Speaking of absent redheads, Lori Beth refers to Ralph's trick birthday candles, which ...

It's 1981, a relatively unimportant year in the Marshallverse.  (Well, OK, Mork & Mindy will marry and quickly become parents.)  It's presumably 1962 or '63 on HD now, but Al says it's twenty years since Rosa Coletti ran out on him, even though it'd been earlier established (repeatedly) that that was in '34 or '35.  Anyway, she comes back, and what could be a touching episode is marred by fat-shaming and other flaws.  So C-. Notes: There's a lot of the studio audience audibly lusting after Roger. Al goes out with Chachi's Aunt Teresa, and would later marry Chachi's mother, whom I'm assuming is Teresa's sister. Lori Beth is working as a waitress at Arnold's and saving up to surprise Richie.  No mention is made of the $800 Howard was going to give her, but at least she had a little to do this week. More mention than usual is made of always unseen cook Clarence.

I'm already tired of Fonzie as teacher, and in this episode he wants to be Teacher of the Year.  I'm going with a C-. Notes: The audience gets excited by Ted McGinley's legs. Kevin Rodney Sullivan makes his first of a baker's dozen appearances as Fonzie's Black student Tommy. Raymond Guth would be back once as Mr. Gampolo. It would make sense to have Jenny in this episode, but she's absent. Bosco McGowan would write one more HD  episode.

Although uneven, this ended up being better than I expected, although not quite as good as the Christmas episodes from Seasons Two and Six.  So a C+. Notes: With various subgroups being separated by snow, this is similar to a superior Roseanne episode from 1992. I do remember originally feeling cheated that we don't see or hear Richie when he calls, because I already missed him, and Ralph to a lesser degree. Marion and Lori Beth definitely miss Richie.  (No one mentions Ralph.) The four guys stuck at Arnold's compare their fathers, and Potsie decides his is OK sometimes, which canon does not otherwise support.  Chachi's father, by the way, seems to have died when he was young. Jenny doesn't get much to do beyond give Roger an "I love Jenny" T-shirt, so, yeah, her crush continues. Howard and Joanie get a chance to bond, and I liked the backstory of Howard running away to New York the summer of 1933, when he was 18.  (You can see how happy Bosley is to actually ...

Yes, seven seasons after Richie's first car, Joanie finally gets hers.  But Howard doesn't want her to, so she sneaks around, including getting a job in the ticket booth at the local movie theater.  Let's say C+. Notes: Chachi can't afford a car because he helps his mother out financially.  I guess being a landlady doesn't cover the bills. I have to note that Cathy Silvers does have a JFK-era hairstyle, just about the only regular member of the cast who does. Songs include "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Louie Louie," from October 1962 and June 1963 (Kingsmen version), reasonably timely for this show. The Music Man joke about Ron Howard is cute.  The movie came out in June 1962, so again, not an anachronism. Joanie's car looks somewhat like Ralph's old car, yellow with flames, but not a jalopy.  (The car pictured above is actually Potsie's.)

Yes, we have arrived at Ted McGinley.  I'll probably have more to say about this later, but, as with Fonzie being the Auto Shop teacher, this isn't a bad premise, to have Marion's Ivy League graduate nephew as Fonzie's opposite and antagonist, but the execution again needs work.  I'll go with C-, since at least there was less of Bobby and Eugene. Notes: Jenny of course literally throws herself at Joanie's tall, blond, handsome if bland cousin.  I can't remember if her crush would be ongoing. Teddi Siddall is the best thing about the episode, for whatever that's worth, as Lucille Scarabatza, so I'm relatively glad she'd be back thrice as Hillary. McGinley had sixty more episodes ahead in this role.  I'll note here that Roger Phillips seems to be about 22, Ted's age at the time, although he looks older.  Oh, and since Marion's maiden name is Kelp, I guess he's her sister's kid. Roger is the basketball coach and he teaches Englis...

I thought this was going to be the "proxy wedding" episode but I guess that comes later.  Richie, who was drafted and then sent to Greenland for a year (this is pre-Tonkin-Gulf-Incident), proposes to Lori Beth by letter.  It would cost $800 for her to travel there for the wedding, so everyone offers her money, except Howard, who wants to join the Pfister Country Club.  Then Marion, on her behalf, goes on Dreams Come True, which is like the real-life Queen for a Day.  Anyhow, it's nice to see LB again (despite another anachronistic hairstyle this season), and it's sweet how happy Richie's family is for the young couple, so I'm saying C+. Notes: Lyle Waggoner is not used particularly well as host Bobby Burns, but he'd be back in '84 as Frederick Hamilton. Patricia Lentz is Emily Sitts here and would be a Doctor's Receptionist the next year. Kathryn Fuller has her first of three HD roles, as Helen Hanley.  She also did a couple Laverne & Shirley c...

Sigh.  This episode doesn't work, and I suspect that it's not just a low point, as the D+s were last season, but a harbinger of the rest of this season.  On the one hand, Fonzie becoming the Auto Shop teacher is a neat idea, but it's executed poorly and I don't want to see any of these new characters again. Notes: Harris Kal would be back as Bobby in eighteen more episodes, which, yeah, is probably more than all the Chuck Cunninghams put together.  I had absolutely no memory of him until today, when I thought Oh, this guy is coming back, isn't he?  The thing is, I don't know if the character even gets a last name. Denis Mandel as Eugene Belvin I do remember, and just the thought of him, and how the series portrays this nerd, has made me cringe for years.  He's actually only in ten episodes, but that's more than enough. I don't remember his name, but the extra who combs his crewcut in the early credits is somehow still in high school!  Unless this is ...

It's November 11, 1980.  I'm pretty unhappy anyway because I have to go to junior high and Ronald Reagan was elected last week.  An actors' strike has delayed all the Fall premieres, with Season Five of Three's Company debuting a couple weeks ago and Laverne & Shirley not till next week.  And now you're telling me Riche and Ralph have joined the Army?  OK, this isn't bad farce, better than watching Jack Tripper get sexually harassed in an hour, and at least we finally get to meet Jenny Piccalo.  So C+ Notes: Cathy Silvers, yes, daughter of Phil, would make 54 more appearances as Jenny.  Here she is chasing after Potsie, who is approximately four years older than her. Joanie and Chachi are somehow still in high school, although she was supposed to be starting college this year. Joanie apparently gave Fonzie a potholder when she was 10, so seven years ago?  Retcon is confusing. Steven Peterman was old enough to play a high school teacher, Mr. Rob Don...

We know that this episode definitely aired out of production order, because, one, it's set in 1961, and two, the old Arnold's still exists.  While I think it's interesting to get insights into Ralph's character, and his relationship with his parents, particularly his father, it does feel unbalanced that we never would see or hear his mother (not counting the version who played bridge with the Cunninghams in the early days).  Also, the view of divorce is a bit simplistic and optimistic, but then this was essentially a kids' show by then.  Anyway, B-. Jack Dodson makes his final appearance as Dr. Mickey Malph, one of my favorite minor characters.  I have no idea if the divorce went through. In its seventh season, Happy Days ranged from D+ (three of them) to B (one), averaging out to C+ again, although I was worried at times.  The cast and crew and writing staff are still able to bring it at times, and for a final R & R season, it's not bad. However, divorcing ...

Again, this had potential, with sharper writing.  I was leaning towards a C+ or B-, but the running jokes ran into the ground, and there were a couple characterizations I disliked: the Ralph character doing something brave and seemingly plunging to his death, and the Lori Beth character being a bimbo who can't remember the Richie character's name, even though they used to date for four years.  So C. It's nice to see 80-year-old Pat O'Brien, but kind of sad when you think about how wonderful he was in one of the best movies ever, Some Like It Hot, which obviously did more justice to the 1920s.  At least he'd return in this role of Howard's Uncle Joe a couple years later, in the intriguingly titled "Grandma Nussbaum."

This one has potential but it never quite brings together the threads of Potsie being used by nightclub dealers, him developing a swelled head, or him wanting to impress a girl.  Still, I did laugh a couple times, like at the Potsie billboard and at Richie saying Joanie was planning to be indecent upstairs.  Let's say C+. Notes: Richie and Potsie have been friends since kindergarten. Potsie sings "Surfin' Safari" (October '62) and "Mack the Knife" (Bobby Darin version, 1959), which is reasonably timely for this show. David LeBell makes his first of three uncredited appearances at Arnold's (that we know of). Arthur Batanides's penultimate HD appearance is as Eddie, presumably a different Eddie than on "The Skin Game" in '74.

I like the more serious moments in this episode, like when Ralph, Richie, and even Potsie talk about their relationships with their fathers.  But I'm marking this down a notch because Richie is tempted by a stewardess and kisses a cake-girl, with no mention of or presumably thought about Lori Beth. Notes: As I suspected, Grandma Nussbaum is Chachi's grandmother, too.  (So she was Mrs. Fonzarelli earlier?) In the episode where Howard was up for "father of the year," he was not the present Grand Poo Bah, although he'd attained the title in a previous episode, and now he's definitely GPB, lending support to the idea that these episodes air in somewhat random order. Potsie has been waiting eight years to talk over a problem with his father, awww. Richie mentions the time his father comforted him after a basketball game, including the Lifesaver. Joanie sits at the sewing machine briefly but nothing comes of this in the syndicated version I watched today. This time ...

Although I've never been heavily invested in the Joanie/Chachi relationship (OK, full disclosure, I did watch their spin-off), this is a sweet episode about him wanting her to take him seriously as a potential boyfriend.  Yes, she's still concerned about other girls going after him, here with Jenny P hiding in his gym locker, but she does seem to genuinely care about him.  And rather than the creepy Chachi (and Baio) of the past three years, here he's shy and tentative, not having even kissed her or held her hand.  In the end, she has to make the first move.  I'm giving a B-. Notes: Part of Chachi's insecurity comes from all the times Joanie rejected him, and part comes from when he was shorter than her.  No mention is made of him originally being a year younger, but that's obviously retconned by now. Lori Beth's memories of Richie not making a move on her for the first three months definitely don't fit what we saw onscreen.  Maybe she made this up (exce...

Another of those episodes where Fonzie falls for a girl and I can't see what's so special about her (like the one with the dancer).  This one is deaf but they "communicate" and she's supposed to be jaw-dropping gorgeous, while I thought she was plain, especially with the unflattering (even for early '60s or early '80s) hair style.  And Richie's overprotectiveness feels out of nowhere.  So a C. Notes: I don't know what was up with Milwaukee Power & Electricity that season.  Just a couple weeks earlier, Laverne and Shirley had to go down there to complain about their  power being cut off.  (One of the less memorable episodes of their Season Five.)  In both cases, the computer is to blame.  Maybe ABC just wanted to get their money's worth out of that set. Not only roommate Potsie but Chachi borrows Ralph's shirts and underwear without asking. Richard Masur, who plays Doug (the guy that Allison is two-timing with), was probably then best kn...

Unfunny and out of character, the latter with Howard in particular.  As for the former, if I can come up with a reply for Fonzie after the closing exchange (see below), then screenwriter Mark Rothman is phoning it in.  (He also did "Fonzie's Getting Married" and "A Date with Fonzie," so he's definitely capable of better work.)  I'm giving a C-. RICHIE: Hit a home run! HANK AARON: Don't I always? Notes: I think Fonzie liking Mr. Aaron's first name is a joke about Henry Winkler.  (Again, not funny.) The hardware store opened in 1946, and it looks completely different now, because nobody gives a crap about continuity. Well, OK, at least the local TV station is still WZAZ. This time Taaffe O'Connell plays Ingrid; she was Carol earlier in the season. Hoke Howell is Sidney here but would be an Army General in '83. Warren Berlinger's penultimate HD role is as the (singular) title character, Mr. Vanburen.

Yeah, this isn't as good a follow-up, spending too much time on Al and Fonzie acting like "babies" and not enough on the reconstruction of Arnold's.  (More cake blueprints please.)  Also, I can't help associating the new set with the weaker, post-Richie seasons that are looming ever closer.  So C+.

It's a nice touch to have Ralph sit at the piano he played in so many episodes. Despite the unfortunate title, this is actually one of the best episodes of the season, with drama and action and heart.  (And some corny jokes of course.)  There's even sort of romance, not only with Richie and Lori Beth making out in a car, but Joanie changing from "no" to "maybe" for Chachi.  Her motivation is that her friends think he's really cute and she doesn't want him to be stolen away, but oh well.  (And, yes, it sends the message that a guy should just keep asking a girl out, in this case, for years, even when she rejects him.)  Nonetheless, I'm going with a B. Notes: Al considers moving back to Kenosha. He is still seeing Germaine, the woman with a dog who doesn't or didn't like him. After Arnold's burns down (and I honestly would've fine if they wanted to throw in flashbacks, since it would be justified in this case), Fonzie hands over his...

I remember cringing at the time (when I was almost twelve) about how aggressively they kept telling us IT'S THE 1960S!  Not to mention the whole double standard about Inspiration Point.  But I actually enjoyed it this time, especially Marion getting drunk during the mother-daughter talk.  So B-. Notes: It's the 1960s, I guess 1962.  The espresso machine is a bigger deal, and maybe with stuff happening out of chronological order on this series, this is actually where it first appears at Arnold's. As he did on the classic beatnik episode of Season One, Ralph tries to pass as a beatnik, here to impress a specific girl.  I can only imagine the crossover craziness that could've happened, since "The Beatnik Show" of Laverne & Shirley aired the following week.  Here though, it's barely a subplot. Joanie is a 17-year-old high school senior.  Richie claims he didn't go to the previously unmentioned sector of the Inspiration Point called "the Alamo...

So it was 1980, the dawn of a new decade.  The Successful ABC Tuesday Night Line-Up would be reassembled, although the magic would never be the same.  By year's end, Happy Days,   Laverne & Shirley, and Three's Company  would be shaken up in terms of cast and setting.  But for the moment, it is "semester break" and somehow warm enough to go camping in tents, although there may be sudden rainstorms.  I'm going with a C+. Howard and Marion are pretty chill about Richie's coed camping trip, but maybe they know that the boys and girls will sleep in separate tents. I don't know if Richie is to blame but this is the last appearance of Fonzie's recurring girlfriend Blossom (played by Shirley Kirkes). Yep, that's the marvelous Julie Brown making her TV debut, as Gloria, the girl whose retainer makes her lisp. I haven't mentioned it before but I like Lori Beth's new hairdo.

Well, this is one of the funnier episodes of Season Seven, as Howard and Marion renew their vows with the questionable help of Bob & Ray.  And a clown.  So B-. Notes: I've lost track, but Howard and Marion having a twentieth-fifth wedding anniversary feels roughly accurate. So Howard and Marion married in 1936 but he was already in the Army?  Was he serving before World War II as well as during? They hope to all gather again in twenty-five years, so 1986.  By my math, that would've been a 2004 episode, and I think they were all alive then.  (Bosley died in 2010, Moran in 2017.) Is this the first time we've seen the Cunninghams' backyard in the before-a-studio-audience episodes?  If I recall correctly, Joanie and Chachi would also have a backyard wedding. Is this the first time we see Howard in Fonzie's "office"? This time Rance Howard plays the Cunninghams' grouchy neighbor Mr. Burkhart. It feels a little weird that Lori Beth isn't at the Cunni...

No, they don't actually close Inspiration Point, although they come close.  Things get corny towards the end, but that was actually my favorite part.  So C+. The only note I have is that Lori Beth seems perfectly fine kissing Ralph for the skit, and of course he likes it, and has to tell Richie so!

Heavy handed in not just in its cliched main plot of the bitter man in a wheelchair but in its subplots of Fonzie pressuring Chachi to get good grades (seen as a good thing, even when Fonzie threatens physical violence) and the whole family making Howard diet.  So another of this season's D+s.

I knew this couldn't live up to its title, but it's not bad for Season Seven.  Richie, Ralph, and Potsie are invited to a girl motorcycle gang's "nerd party" (Richie wins, of course), but then find out that the gang has kidnapped Chachi because he jilted a girl.  Fonzie saves the day by out-nerding everyone and then making threats as himself.  I'm going with C+. Notes: Georganne LaPiere was Corinne back in '75 and is Joy here. The wonderful Judy Pioli, who wrote for Laverne & Shirley and played Terry Buttafucco there, perks things up as the leader of the She-Devils, Bertha.  She'd also appear on HD in 1982. Sam Greenbaum didn't write anything else for Garry Marshall, although he did write the one Three's Company episode without Joyce DeWitt.

Well, this doesn't work, on a humor or character level, although there were little moments I liked, such as Marion stressing the importance of clean underwear, and the callbacks to previous episodes, like Richie almost dying on his own motorcycle.  So C. A few notes: It's officially 1961 now. Gary Epp's middle HD role is as the Mickey-Finning Bullfrog.   And it looks like the boy who combs his crewcut in the old credits is the same guy who gargles when Fonzie and Richie enter the men's room.

This might've worked in a farcical way if it were set a year later, when Joanie is eighteen, but the plot of her almost nude modeling, combined with that unfortunate title, makes things a bit creepy.  That said, I liked the Three's-Company- ish bit with her parents eavesdropping in the kitchen and then coming back in, and some other moments.  So C+. Notes: We get the debut of Joanie's infamous "poodle perm" in this episode, and Chachi (who has very late '70s hair himself) even comments on it. And, yes, Chachi is leering and creepy, and why is a 16-or-17-year-old boy working at a modeling agency, especially one with nude modeling? I feel like Richie did go to Chicago "on his own" before he was 19, although I guess it depends on what counts.  For instance, he did go with the whole glee club but not his parents when he was 17.  (One of the times he was 17.) "Runaround Sue" is on the soundtrack, and the Dion song actually came out in September ...

This was a painful episode, especially anything involving the Irv Hanson character, played by real-life burlesque performer Irving Benson.  After the tentative condemnation of sexual harassment in the previous episode, we get joke after joke (including one involving Chachi and Joanie) about women being harassed, like hula-dancer Lori Beth being chased by Irv with a lawnmower.  Oh, and what happened to Howard being overprotective of Joanie?  He doesn't bat an eye when she wears not one but two very revealing costumes.  Another D+, since I sort of liked the Fonzie & Ralph duet and this isn't the worst episode ever.

The title is a bit misleading, since it's Marion doing amateur theater, but Fonzie gets recruited when he threatens the director/ lead actor, who's sexually harassing Marion.  (The harassment aspect isn't given as much attention as it would be in future sitcoms, but I do like that it shows it could happen to a middle-aged housewife.)  The highlight of the episode turns out to be the scenes from The Rainmaker, with Fonzie playing the title character.  Another B-, so maybe this season won't be a disappointment after all.   A couple notes: The callbacks to Fonzie's lead in Hamlet are a nice touch. Hollace White would write four more episodes.

This is the best episode so far this season, which means it's flawed but relatively intelligent.  As the title suggests, Richie, who admits he's "crazy about" Lori Beth, nonetheless has a "grown-up affair" with a freelance photographer.  I don't know how far they go, but he's out all night and she does invite him up to her hotel room.  He says they walked and talked.  Anyway, she of course loves and leaves him and he goes back to LB, who presumably is none the wiser.  I'm giving a B-. Notes: Richie dipping and kissing Joanie on the neck is far stranger than any of the Mother Goose costumes. Richie still has his job on the Milwaukee Journal loading dock. Bartender Wayne Morton would return four years later, as Dwight Mesmer. Ria Nepus would write four more episodes for HD, as well as two for Laverne & Shirley, one of these being the flawed but charming "Sing, Sing, Sing."

Yes, Richie has had jobs before but apparently he's never gone on an interview before.  He gets a job at the Milwaukee Journal, but it's loading and unloading newspapers.  There's some kind of weak stuff here, like with Ralph and Potsie as twin mascots, but I like that Fonzie helps Richie see the class issues.  So C+. A few notes: Howard objects to Joanie walking around in her (unrevealing) pajamas but doesn't care when she's in short-shorts and a halter top.  (And I guess the snowfall is over this episode?) Richie says Joanie will be going to college next year, which Howard is dreading, but I don't know if this is because of the expense or because she'll be chasing after college hunks soon. Terry Hart didn't write anything else for HD but would do one L & S and a couple for Joanie Loves Chachi.

Weary sigh.  This has some of the weakest writing of the series, where almost everyone sounds like an idiot, plus, unlike episodes where Richie and Howard go to jail, Marion goes to prove something pointless to Howard and then cries about it, rather than coming off as noble like her son and husband.  I vaguely remember hating Howard yelling at Marion at the time, although I gotta say, Al is surprisingly non-ballistic about the damage to Arnold's.  (Arnold would've ranted, enjoyably.)  About the only thing I like here is the young people's concern for Marion.  So it's gotta be D+. A few notes: This episode aired in early October, but there's a threat of snow all episode.   Marcia Lewis is a more sympathetic (but less imposing) authority figure here as the Matron than she was as (House) Mother Dunbar.   And the disappointing script is by Barbara Berkowitz, who had done one pretty good What's Happening!! episode and nothing else for television b...

This episode is kind of flat, despite the "mystery girl" and Father Delvechhio, so C. A few notes: There would be a 1980 Garry-Marshall-produced TV-movie, called Katmandu (yes, two words) about the Kat Mandu character.  So, yes, we're starting this season with a lot of cross-promotion. Richie seems very impressed with LB's geology skills.  (No, that's not a euphemism.) Richie is surprisingly chill about Joanie dating a merchant seaman. Although it is now THE SIXTIES, we get "Yakity Yak" and "The Great Pretender" on the jukebox, both ca. 1956.