"Fonzie's Spots"

It is September 24, 1984.  The final episode of Three's Company aired last week.  This isn't even Tuesday, but Monday.  Eight p.m. on Tuesdays this Fall will be (as it was for much of last season) Foul-Ups, Bleeps, & Blunders, now followed by the 3'sC spin-off/sequel Three's a Crowd.  Before long, the outtakes show will be pushed to 9:00 and Crowd will foolishly be placed at 8:00, followed by Who's the Boss?, which has a much longer future ahead of it.  I will keep watching ABC, but I'm sixteen now and have a boyfriend who will eventually be my ex-husband.  The Tuesday Night ABC Line-Up I grew up with will become a set of mangled memories.

I don't know if I watched this episode at the time.  I certainly didn't recall anything about it today.  I'm going with a C-, since it's pretty forgettable, except for the talk between Fonzie and Howard.

Notes:

• Howard has been Grand Poobah for five years and has allegedly only recruited Potsie, but what about Al?
• It's obviously the last episode for the seven regulars, and I am glad that we see Potsie get a position of petty authority, even though not much is done with it.  Amusingly, Joanie's final line is something like "There is no way I'm touching Potsie's stomach."
• David LeBell is an uncredited Patron at Arnold's for at least the third time.
• We see David Ketchum one last time, his third as fellow Lodge member Donald Hedges.

Happy Days in its final season ranges from D to B, averaging out to a C.  It's watchable I guess, and I appreciate that they did a little wrapping up of loose ends, which Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, and gosh knows Blansky's Beauties never got.  It had fallen out of the Top Ten, way out.  Dynasty, a glitzy soap opera, was the highest-rated show on ABC (No. 3), CBS's Kate & Allie the top sitcom (No. 8).  You'd have to go all the way down to No. 26 and Webster to find an ABC sitcom that was doing pretty well.  The 1984-'85 season would see sitcoms beginning to make a comeback, on NBC, with The Cosby Show and Family Ties.  Again, Webster would be the only ABC sitcom to crack the Top Thirty.

The mid-'70s to early '80s era of sitcoms, especially ABC sitcoms, was well and truly gone.  Even quirky flops like Bosom Buddies were no longer possible.  Happy Days would remain, however, to this day, and perhaps decades to come, an instantly identifiable part of 20th-century pop culture.

What does it mean to me now?  I started this project seven and a half months ago, when I though Covid would be over shortly but for the moment I would watch this series I had mostly avoided for decades, trying to sort out my mixed feelings.

These are the questions I asked in my introduction, with "answers" in bold:

• The one that is as inevitable as "Why did the Howells bring all that for a three-hour boat tour?" in another fandom, and one of this show's earliest mysteries: What the hell happened to Chuck?  I still honestly don't know.  I know what happened to the actors, but I don't know how a family could erase their firstborn.
• How else did this series change in the shift to a live studio audience?  What was lost and maybe gained?  This is a tricky one.  I think the show became more cartoony, and at times funnier.  We lost, not immediately, but over time, any pretense of realism, so that by the time we get to the Very Special Episodes, the tone is jarring.
• What the hell is this timeline and how does it match up to Laverne & Shirley and the various other spin-offs?  The timeline is insane, sometimes even within one season.  If you add in Blansky's Beauties, there is honestly no sanity to this universe.  This show is Fifties, then Early Sixties, then Mid Sixties, but not consistently, and for every time we get a reference that seems to tie down the setting, we get a contradiction or two.
• What does this show say about sex, sex roles, love, friendship, family, etc.?  Sometimes the messages are heartwarming, but things are pretty effed up, especially sex and sex roles, and not just for the '70s or even the '50s.  In particular, I'm disappointed that the three main female characters were never allowed to reach their potential, as when Marion has empty nest syndrome cured by more relatives showing up.
• What about race and politics?  Politics is mostly dropped in the studio-audience seasons, except for a stray joke or two, but the first two seasons do grapple a little with things like the bomb scare and the '56 election.  Race isn't handled as badly as sex roles, but Blacks are mostly either absent, stereotyped, or forgettable.  Native Americans, Hawaiians, etc., are consistently stereotyped, although Arnold rises above this for the most part.
• Ditto music, movies, television, and any other media?  Occasionally, a point will be made about the media, like quiz shows and rock music, but mostly period references are there for the vague feel of whatever era it's supposed to be.
• How anachronistic is it?  Why did I scoff at the idea that Joanie and Chachi were the kind of people to be Kinks fans?  As I thought, I scoffed because J & C seem incapable of appreciating quirkiness.  The show is, as suggested above, extremely anachronistic, to the point that it's surprising when it isn't.
• How many guest stars will I gasp at the presence of?  It feels like dozens.
• Just how many alter egos could one man (Al Molinaro) have in the Marshallverse?  If we count the portraits on Al D's wall, I think it's six.
• And of course, did I like Richie and dislike Fonzie or was it never really that simple?  OK, I still prefer Richie to Fonzie, but there were times when I disliked Richie and liked the Fonz.  I do know that, while the show wasn't at its best in Season Seven, the departure of Richie (and Ralph), with a parade of forgettable and/or unlikable new characters marching through (Jenny P partially excepted), definitely changed the show for the worst.

Anyway, the project is done.  Unlike with Laverne & Shirley, I don't feel the need to dig deeper.  Then again, I might post if I watch a porn parody or two.