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...