"Bride and Gloom"

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 getting married, but no one mentions that she's underage, or that Fonzie is roughly 25 by now.
• The censors probably were relieved that Fonzie sleeps at the Cunninghams' during his "marriage," although it's pretty clear he's not at all attracted to Jenny.
• Joanie sure is into matchmaking Jenny, here and on the "nightmare" episode.
• Oddly enough, Will Hunt was the preacher who performed the interrupted shotgun wedding, but here he's Captain Singer, who's dressed as a priest and, whew, not actually three miles offshore during the fake ceremony.
• Jerry Paris's 16-year-old son Andrew makes his first of three HD cameos, here as Andy.
• And, yes, Garry's little girl Kathi is now 13 and so playing a high-schooler, also named Kathi, although Joanie was babysitting her just a year ago.
• Steve Granat and Mel Sherer would co-write one more HD episode the next year.