Reliving Happy Days

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 wh...

Even if you haven't seen this episode before, you've seen it before.  You know, the one where someone promises a celebrity for some charity benefit and they may or may not show up.  HD had already done it at least once before, with "The Magic Show."  So a C. Notes: Frankie Avalon was then 41, playing his 21-year-old self as Al's fifth cousin.  He sounds as much like he's lip-syncing as Fonzie does, due to the echo chamber. As nice as it is that Lynda Goodfriend gets to dance again, why is she doing a Jazzercise routine to the Twist?  For that matter, why do J&C and their ever-morphing band audition with a Twist song but he, Potsie, Roger, and Al form a barbershop quartet? Is it stranger that Jenny auditions with a striptease number or that the stripper song is on the Arnold's jukebox? There is one half-funny joke here, about Lincoln and the theater, which you will make before you hear it. David Ketchum returns as Lodge member Donald Hedges.

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.)

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."

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 ...

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.

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.

This was much better than I expected, with that plot, and in fact, thanks in part to good sight gags and to Richie and Lori Beth pretending to be Howard and Marion's bridge opponents, it's one of the funniest episodes of Season Six, for whatever that's worth.  Well, it's worth a B-. Notes: Considering how racist the Hawaiian and Arab bits could've been, I'm actually glad they're not worse. This aired on May 8th, almost two months after the previous episode. Chachi is sixteen, although Baio (born in 1960) was playing a twelve-year-old on Blansky's Beauties  two years before. Potsie can play the piano.  Al sort of can, too. Both Ralph and Joanie are gone, being respectively out of town and sick in her room. Marion is just as bad at bridge as she was when she and Howard played against Ralph's first-edition parents.

This season-closer (from the night that Laverne & Shirley wrapped up their third season) manages to be both anti-racist and racist (the latter with Richie, Ralph, and Potsie's "Three Caballeros" number and related dialogue), and I was afraid that the subplot about Marion and the paint sale was going to be about her acting scatter-brained, but they saved it in a Gracie-Allenesque way.  The "one lone juror" thread is not terribly original, and was done on, for instance, That Girl (and I think The Odd Couple ), but overall a C+. Notes: I'm going to assume unless I learn otherwise that the reason why they didn't have the jury meet in the jury room but instead stay in the courtroom is that they didn't want to get out the old jury room set at Paramount, while they'd used the courtroom last year for "Blansky for the Defense" if not more recently. Ralph Wilcox is the defendant, Jason Davis, and would later be Lionel Collins.  He also had a ...

I'm generally not a big fan of "Army" episodes, so I'm going with a C+ on this.  There is a somewhat poignant moment at the end, again with viewers supposed to have a post-'77 viewpoint, where Howard and Marion talking about the possibility of future wars. A few notes: Warren Berlinger, who was pushing 40 and had previously played DJ Charlie the Prince, this time is Army Sgt. Betchler (whose name of course gets deliberately mispronounced). Linda Henning, of Petticoat Junction fame, was then 32 but still attractive enough as Army Lt. Quinlan that we can believe not only Fonzie but Ralph flirting with her.  (She'd be Jean Kelly in an '84 episode.) I think this is the first episode in awhile to not have a scene at Arnold's. Potsie and Ralph as well as Richie must be 18 by now. And, yes, you get to see the four young men (and extras) in their underwear.

This already has a strike against it being a sports episode, but then the plot gets muddled and there are some definitely creepy moments, so it earns the first D+ of the series.  The whole thing of Sheena tricking a very gullible Richie to meet her at Arnold's right before the game is dubious, but then when Fonzie tells Sheena that he'll fight the guys from Fillmore High (incidentally Laverne and Shirley's alma mater) and deal with her alone, I know it's meant to be seductive, but it sounds a bit rapey.  Then the whole thing of her slavishly doing what he says and him "retraining" her to be loyal to Jefferson High adds to the creepiness. Notes: The Lifesaver joke at the end was then very topical, as the audience's reaction suggests. There's yet another Arlene character with long, blonde hair, but this time it's someone Ralph is interested in. And speaking of girls with long, blonde hair, it looks like Jill Higgins, the Charlene Tilton character, is...

This is another episode that doesn't quite come together but is interesting, especially in retrospect.  I feel like the "time capsule" aspect could've been developed more, but then we don't even know what year this is set.  The capsule will be opened in the 2050s, by which point Marion hopes women have more say (Howard shushes her), and Fonzie expects to be still alive and known.  Anyway, another C+. Notes: It was definitely a trope, especially on ABC sitcoms, for people to be trapped in a small place and learn more about each other, most notably on The Brady Bunch and Three's Company, and even Welcome Back, Kotter had the gang trapped in a museum with John Astin as a loon, because hey. Susan Cotton plays the "icy" but meltable-by-Fonzie Miss Radcliff, and she'd return as a Librarian later in '77, so I guess she was typecast. And, yes, yes, yes, that is Lynda Goodfriend as Kim, the "Mixed Nut" ("Chestnut" if you're cur...

This Halloween episode (airing on October 29th) is pretty funny, and I like that we get a better sense of the Richie-Joanie sibling dynamic outside the home.   Marsha looks blonder now, and she actually has the opening scene with Bag.  Also, Bag writes misspelled profanity, including on Joanie's pumpkin.  (She doesn't know what the word means, but Richie does.) I have no idea what the F on Potsie's costume stands for, but presumably not profanity. Joanie being in the Chipmunks actually figures into the plot a bit here. Three of Garry Marshall's kids (10-year-old Lori, 6-year-old Kathi, and 5-year-old Scotti) show up as trick-or-treaters. Garry himself directed the episode. Bruce Kelly and David Ketchum co-wrote.  Kelly wouldn't do anything further for the show, but Ketchum not only would write nine more episodes, but he had already appeared as Lt. Col. Binicky in the "R.O.T.C." episode.

I'm giving out another C, because I didn't care about the plot and the dream sequence was just odd.  (Mickey Rose didn't write any other HD episodes.)  This episode is notable for I think the first mention of panty raids on the series, although I assume none actually happen until the college years.  (I can't remember.)  Note that, even though Marion said in Season One that she didn't raise her boy to be a soldier, she seems perfectly fine with him being in the ROTC here. David Ketchum is Army Lt. Col. Binicky here but would return in two other roles, all the way into the final season, as well as soon writing for the series.