Reliving Happy Days

In Ed Peck's final appearance as Officer Kirk, he is an army officer, a major, in fact.  When Roger, Potsie, and mistakenly Fonzie are called up for the Reserves, he of course butts heads with Fonzie.  I'll say a C+, not too memorable but not bad. Notes: Fonzie's goodbye kiss of Ashley is milder than in the pic above. Fonzie tried to serve during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he has a bad knee from his motorcycle stunt. It's Heather's birthday.  I didn't notice how old she's turning, but she is in the first grade, so maybe seven. Francis T. Perry Williams is Private Perry here and was a Policeman on Laverne & Shirley a few months earlier. Gary Epp had more lines as Bubba and Bullfrog than he does as an M.P., but his size is used again. Hoke Howell was Sidney in '80 and is the Army General here.

Although this isn't as good in roughly the last third, it's still one of the better episodes of Season Ten, with the romance between K.C. and a convict surprisingly sweet.  And it's nice to see Officer Kirk again, so C+. Notes: James Start plays Frank again and I still have no idea who he is. Michael Spound, who plays the title character, Jim Walker, was Bob on Laverne & Shirley the previous year. Jerry Paris's daughter Julie plays Julie.  She was Girl #2 on a Joanie Loves Chachi episode and Third Mother on L&S.  Next time on HD, she'd be Ann. This is the first of two HD scripts written by Robert Pekurny, but Lorna Rosenberg and Jeffrey Stamm have no other IMDB credits.

This episode is perked up by its guest stars, Cathy's father Phil and Ed Peck, but it's still just a C+. Notes: I haven't mentioned it before but this is the season where Howard starts wearing glasses consistently. And this is the episode where I noticed all the girls' skirts are anachronistically short for '62ish. Yet, Jenny also shows up in an pantsuit (pictured above) that is very early '80s. Jenny's father's name is Roscoe and it sounded like her mother was Rosalie or Roslyn.  Allegedly, none of the Cunninghams have ever met Roscoe before, not even Joanie, even though the girls have been friends since they were six. This is Officer Kirk's first appearance since "Marion Goes to Jail," over two years earlier.  He'd be back twice in '83 though.

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...

  Here's the review I wrote almost five years ago,  https://reviewingeverytvshowiown.blogspot.com/2016/10/happy-days-mork-returns.html , and yeah, I'd still go with a B-. Additional thoughts: Mork is revisiting "The Fifties," but isn't it 1961 by now? Mork's message to Orson is poignant but he's wrong that HD never mentions Joseph McCarthy. One anniversary special was Fonzie's birthday, but now it's Marion's. It's interesting that Jennifer Jerome is at Marion's surprise party, but the Fonzie bails for a date with the unseen Paula Petralunga. Mother Kelp is namechecked, and presumably Marion was visiting her because of the birthday. Definitely not much from the first two seasons this time, I think just a glimpse of very early Joanie. And no clips of Laverne, Shirley, their friends, or even Mork himself. They're still acting like Mork was friendly on his first visit, and I guess Richie and Fonzie remain the only people that know he...

This might've been a C+ at best, but then there are all those guest shots, including the Laverne & Shirley  crossover that easily steals the show.  I've reviewed that on my L&S blog ( https://revisitinglaverneandshirley.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-visit-to-funeral.html ), but I'll just mention the other laugh-out-loud part is when Arnold asks Al how business is and Al says don't ask.  Anyway, B-. Notes: Shirley Kirkes makes her penultimate appearance as Blossom and is the one that Fonzie goes off with, leaving Ralph to give apology kisses to a line of girls who thought Fonzie was dead. Fonzie gets a little creepy with her, playing his mother, "the widow Fonzarelli," but maybe not as creepy as Chachi hitting on Joanie for "after the funeral." Officer Kirk comes to the funeral, just to make sure Fonzie is dead. Lorrie Mahaffey is back as Jennifer Jerome and enters with Lori Beth.  Both girls will hear their boyfriends tell their roles in this exciti...

By this point, they didn't particularly care if the "4th Anniversary Special" was exactly four years after the series premiered.  (It aired on March 23rd.)  While I appreciate that they went for more of the first two seasons' episodes this time, and even a scene from "Love and the Television Set" that had already been recycled, this is still a clip show and the frame of Lori Beth writing a term paper on the Cunninghams as "a typical middle-class family" (why not her own?) is meh.  So C. Notes: Ralph hits on Lori Beth!  Less surprisingly, so does Chachi. Al tells LB that Rosa Coletti was middle class.  Garry Marshall co-wrote this episode, with Bob Brunner, under the pseudonym "Samuro Mitsubi." Lots of people in the flashbacks, including Maureen McCormick's character.  Mork doesn't make the cut, but one, they probably hadn't seen the home audience's reaction at the time this was shot, and two, I guess it was still a dream, ...

I remembered liking Leather Tuscadero more than Pinky, but today she just blew me away on her premiere.  Suzi Quatro gives an indelible performance, not just as a singer but as an actress, playing tough yet vulnerable, and it raises the level of everyone's acting, especially Winkler, Howard, and Moran.  I'm going with a B+, because this is definitely one of my favorite episodes. Notes: Bringing Officer Kirk back, to object to former juvenile delinquents performing at Arnold's, is just right. Suzie Quatro would return in the role six more times. Leather stole Fonzie's wallet three years ago.  It's unclear if, like Pinky, she grew up in a convent, but I assume so. She's about 18 now. If you're looking for Ralph/Leather, it's there, especially on his side, and would pay off in her final episode. The cliffhanger has fifteenish Joanie planning to go to San Francisco as a Suede (Leather's backup singer), and Richie does not approve. Joanie gives Chachi a p...

Although the studio audience is reacting as much as if they're at an old-timey melodrama, this is another B- for me.  I enjoyed it but it's not amazing.  Officer Kirk has been appointed sheriff.  (Good thing Laverne DeFazio wouldn't be arrested for shoplifting for another few weeks.)  His main mission is to run Fonzie out of town, although he'll pressure Fonzie's friends as well.  Everyone comes through for him, dressing as Fonzie in solidarity. Notes: After twice playing a nameless Drunk on HD (and many other shows), Jack Perkins here is Bob, the McCarthy-loving mortician member of the Leopard Lodge.  Kirk hates Commies and Pinkos, but Bob realizes that anyone can be a victim of a witch-hunt. Alan Oppenheimer, who was a very frequent television guest star (four times on That Girl for instance), momentarily takes over the role of Mickey Malph, who has a neon eyeball to advertise his optometry practice, although it's somehow a wedding gift from his aunt!...

  The first of many HD  clip shows, heavy on what had aired so far in Season Three, although it was worth revisiting Richie in drag, dancing with Fonzie, this time with more of an audience reaction, I assume live-studio-audience, although maybe not.  I'm going with a C, since, as I've said on other blogs, whatever the appeal of clip shows at the time of airing, they lose a lot on DVD. Notes: "All the Way" aired on January 15, 1974, but January 12, 1976 was a Monday, and I assume that this was in the 8:30 slot, since Barbary Coast and Mobile One weren't exactly big hits. Rather than try to come up with some anniversary that this could be about (as Laverne & Shirley would do on their  anniversary show), this is Fonzie's unspecified birthday, the first thrown for him by guys rather than girls. It's held at Arnold's, I'm guessing because Howard put his foot down about it being thrown at the house. It's a very Fonzie-centric episode, in both fla...

The highlight here is of course anything to do with Ralph trying to break a bottle like Burt Lancaster, with Richie's Fonzie imitation coming in second.  I didn't care that much about Fonzie being a cop, so C+. Notes: Fonzie quit the Falcons three years ago, but they still look up to him. Richie actually tells Fonzie to shut up, with reason. I didn't recognize her but Kit McDonough apparently has the first of twelve uncredited HD roles as Girl in Blue Shirt.  When she'd get lines onscreen in the next couple years, like on the first Three's Company  episode, she'd turn out to have great comic delivery.  (She does speak on Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy for instance.) Ken Lerner returns as Frankie. Mindy Naud is credited as Roberta but is emphatically still Paula Petralunga, whom Potsie is seen lusting after.  And, yes, that pinball machine gets more action than Potsie. Ed Peck returns as Officer Kirk, and Fonzie remembers him as a bad dancer at the Po...

This episode is most notable for the introduction of one of its most memorable minor recurring characters, no-nonsense Officer Kirk, played by Ed Peck for the first of nine times.  It also seems to have been one I either watched more than average or it somehow made an impression on me, because I recalled a lot watching it today, from Potsie and Ralph kissing the pinball machine to Arnold saying they should've crawled under the door for the pay toilet. As a kid and now, the episodes where Richie is idealistic appeal to me most, and I like that his father joins his passive resistance, although it does mean that Howard fails to get elected Grand Poobah, after waiting three years. Elvis was drafted in December '57 and joined the Army in March '58, if that helps with the timeline at all. Melinda Naud returns as Paula Petralunga, whom Fonzie plans to give as a "gift" to Elvis.  (Since Elvis isn't actually on the train, she will return.)   Jack Perkins plays a Drunk ...