Reliving Happy Days

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."

This one has potential but it never quite brings together the threads of Potsie being used by nightclub dealers, him developing a swelled head, or him wanting to impress a girl.  Still, I did laugh a couple times, like at the Potsie billboard and at Richie saying Joanie was planning to be indecent upstairs.  Let's say C+. Notes: Richie and Potsie have been friends since kindergarten. Potsie sings "Surfin' Safari" (October '62) and "Mack the Knife" (Bobby Darin version, 1959), which is reasonably timely for this show. David LeBell makes his first of three uncredited appearances at Arnold's (that we know of). Arthur Batanides's penultimate HD appearance is as Eddie, presumably a different Eddie than on "The Skin Game" in '74.

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 ...

Although I've never been heavily invested in the Joanie/Chachi relationship (OK, full disclosure, I did watch their spin-off), this is a sweet episode about him wanting her to take him seriously as a potential boyfriend.  Yes, she's still concerned about other girls going after him, here with Jenny P hiding in his gym locker, but she does seem to genuinely care about him.  And rather than the creepy Chachi (and Baio) of the past three years, here he's shy and tentative, not having even kissed her or held her hand.  In the end, she has to make the first move.  I'm giving a B-. Notes: Part of Chachi's insecurity comes from all the times Joanie rejected him, and part comes from when he was shorter than her.  No mention is made of him originally being a year younger, but that's obviously retconned by now. Lori Beth's memories of Richie not making a move on her for the first three months definitely don't fit what we saw onscreen.  Maybe she made this up (exce...

Another of those episodes where Fonzie falls for a girl and I can't see what's so special about her (like the one with the dancer).  This one is deaf but they "communicate" and she's supposed to be jaw-dropping gorgeous, while I thought she was plain, especially with the unflattering (even for early '60s or early '80s) hair style.  And Richie's overprotectiveness feels out of nowhere.  So a C. Notes: I don't know what was up with Milwaukee Power & Electricity that season.  Just a couple weeks earlier, Laverne and Shirley had to go down there to complain about their  power being cut off.  (One of the less memorable episodes of their Season Five.)  In both cases, the computer is to blame.  Maybe ABC just wanted to get their money's worth out of that set. Not only roommate Potsie but Chachi borrows Ralph's shirts and underwear without asking. Richard Masur, who plays Doug (the guy that Allison is two-timing with), was probably then best kn...

Unfunny and out of character, the latter with Howard in particular.  As for the former, if I can come up with a reply for Fonzie after the closing exchange (see below), then screenwriter Mark Rothman is phoning it in.  (He also did "Fonzie's Getting Married" and "A Date with Fonzie," so he's definitely capable of better work.)  I'm giving a C-. RICHIE: Hit a home run! HANK AARON: Don't I always? Notes: I think Fonzie liking Mr. Aaron's first name is a joke about Henry Winkler.  (Again, not funny.) The hardware store opened in 1946, and it looks completely different now, because nobody gives a crap about continuity. Well, OK, at least the local TV station is still WZAZ. This time Taaffe O'Connell plays Ingrid; she was Carol earlier in the season. Hoke Howell is Sidney here but would be an Army General in '83. Warren Berlinger's penultimate HD role is as the (singular) title character, Mr. Vanburen.

Yeah, this isn't as good a follow-up, spending too much time on Al and Fonzie acting like "babies" and not enough on the reconstruction of Arnold's.  (More cake blueprints please.)  Also, I can't help associating the new set with the weaker, post-Richie seasons that are looming ever closer.  So C+.

It's a nice touch to have Ralph sit at the piano he played in so many episodes. Despite the unfortunate title, this is actually one of the best episodes of the season, with drama and action and heart.  (And some corny jokes of course.)  There's even sort of romance, not only with Richie and Lori Beth making out in a car, but Joanie changing from "no" to "maybe" for Chachi.  Her motivation is that her friends think he's really cute and she doesn't want him to be stolen away, but oh well.  (And, yes, it sends the message that a guy should just keep asking a girl out, in this case, for years, even when she rejects him.)  Nonetheless, I'm going with a B. Notes: Al considers moving back to Kenosha. He is still seeing Germaine, the woman with a dog who doesn't or didn't like him. After Arnold's burns down (and I honestly would've fine if they wanted to throw in flashbacks, since it would be justified in this case), Fonzie hands over his...

I remember cringing at the time (when I was almost twelve) about how aggressively they kept telling us IT'S THE 1960S!  Not to mention the whole double standard about Inspiration Point.  But I actually enjoyed it this time, especially Marion getting drunk during the mother-daughter talk.  So B-. Notes: It's the 1960s, I guess 1962.  The espresso machine is a bigger deal, and maybe with stuff happening out of chronological order on this series, this is actually where it first appears at Arnold's. As he did on the classic beatnik episode of Season One, Ralph tries to pass as a beatnik, here to impress a specific girl.  I can only imagine the crossover craziness that could've happened, since "The Beatnik Show" of Laverne & Shirley aired the following week.  Here though, it's barely a subplot. Joanie is a 17-year-old high school senior.  Richie claims he didn't go to the previously unmentioned sector of the Inspiration Point called "the Alamo...

So it was 1980, the dawn of a new decade.  The Successful ABC Tuesday Night Line-Up would be reassembled, although the magic would never be the same.  By year's end, Happy Days,   Laverne & Shirley, and Three's Company  would be shaken up in terms of cast and setting.  But for the moment, it is "semester break" and somehow warm enough to go camping in tents, although there may be sudden rainstorms.  I'm going with a C+. Howard and Marion are pretty chill about Richie's coed camping trip, but maybe they know that the boys and girls will sleep in separate tents. I don't know if Richie is to blame but this is the last appearance of Fonzie's recurring girlfriend Blossom (played by Shirley Kirkes). Yep, that's the marvelous Julie Brown making her TV debut, as Gloria, the girl whose retainer makes her lisp. I haven't mentioned it before but I like Lori Beth's new hairdo.

Well, this is one of the funnier episodes of Season Seven, as Howard and Marion renew their vows with the questionable help of Bob & Ray.  And a clown.  So B-. Notes: I've lost track, but Howard and Marion having a twentieth-fifth wedding anniversary feels roughly accurate. So Howard and Marion married in 1936 but he was already in the Army?  Was he serving before World War II as well as during? They hope to all gather again in twenty-five years, so 1986.  By my math, that would've been a 2004 episode, and I think they were all alive then.  (Bosley died in 2010, Moran in 2017.) Is this the first time we've seen the Cunninghams' backyard in the before-a-studio-audience episodes?  If I recall correctly, Joanie and Chachi would also have a backyard wedding. Is this the first time we see Howard in Fonzie's "office"? This time Rance Howard plays the Cunninghams' grouchy neighbor Mr. Burkhart. It feels a little weird that Lori Beth isn't at the Cunni...

No, they don't actually close Inspiration Point, although they come close.  Things get corny towards the end, but that was actually my favorite part.  So C+. The only note I have is that Lori Beth seems perfectly fine kissing Ralph for the skit, and of course he likes it, and has to tell Richie so!

Heavy handed in not just in its cliched main plot of the bitter man in a wheelchair but in its subplots of Fonzie pressuring Chachi to get good grades (seen as a good thing, even when Fonzie threatens physical violence) and the whole family making Howard diet.  So another of this season's D+s.

I knew this couldn't live up to its title, but it's not bad for Season Seven.  Richie, Ralph, and Potsie are invited to a girl motorcycle gang's "nerd party" (Richie wins, of course), but then find out that the gang has kidnapped Chachi because he jilted a girl.  Fonzie saves the day by out-nerding everyone and then making threats as himself.  I'm going with C+. Notes: Georganne LaPiere was Corinne back in '75 and is Joy here. The wonderful Judy Pioli, who wrote for Laverne & Shirley and played Terry Buttafucco there, perks things up as the leader of the She-Devils, Bertha.  She'd also appear on HD in 1982. Sam Greenbaum didn't write anything else for Garry Marshall, although he did write the one Three's Company episode without Joyce DeWitt.

Well, this doesn't work, on a humor or character level, although there were little moments I liked, such as Marion stressing the importance of clean underwear, and the callbacks to previous episodes, like Richie almost dying on his own motorcycle.  So C. A few notes: It's officially 1961 now. Gary Epp's middle HD role is as the Mickey-Finning Bullfrog.   And it looks like the boy who combs his crewcut in the old credits is the same guy who gargles when Fonzie and Richie enter the men's room.

This might've worked in a farcical way if it were set a year later, when Joanie is eighteen, but the plot of her almost nude modeling, combined with that unfortunate title, makes things a bit creepy.  That said, I liked the Three's-Company- ish bit with her parents eavesdropping in the kitchen and then coming back in, and some other moments.  So C+. Notes: We get the debut of Joanie's infamous "poodle perm" in this episode, and Chachi (who has very late '70s hair himself) even comments on it. And, yes, Chachi is leering and creepy, and why is a 16-or-17-year-old boy working at a modeling agency, especially one with nude modeling? I feel like Richie did go to Chicago "on his own" before he was 19, although I guess it depends on what counts.  For instance, he did go with the whole glee club but not his parents when he was 17.  (One of the times he was 17.) "Runaround Sue" is on the soundtrack, and the Dion song actually came out in September ...

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.

The title is a bit misleading, since it's Marion doing amateur theater, but Fonzie gets recruited when he threatens the director/ lead actor, who's sexually harassing Marion.  (The harassment aspect isn't given as much attention as it would be in future sitcoms, but I do like that it shows it could happen to a middle-aged housewife.)  The highlight of the episode turns out to be the scenes from The Rainmaker, with Fonzie playing the title character.  Another B-, so maybe this season won't be a disappointment after all.   A couple notes: The callbacks to Fonzie's lead in Hamlet are a nice touch. Hollace White would write four more episodes.

This is the best episode so far this season, which means it's flawed but relatively intelligent.  As the title suggests, Richie, who admits he's "crazy about" Lori Beth, nonetheless has a "grown-up affair" with a freelance photographer.  I don't know how far they go, but he's out all night and she does invite him up to her hotel room.  He says they walked and talked.  Anyway, she of course loves and leaves him and he goes back to LB, who presumably is none the wiser.  I'm giving a B-. Notes: Richie dipping and kissing Joanie on the neck is far stranger than any of the Mother Goose costumes. Richie still has his job on the Milwaukee Journal loading dock. Bartender Wayne Morton would return four years later, as Dwight Mesmer. Ria Nepus would write four more episodes for HD, as well as two for Laverne & Shirley, one of these being the flawed but charming "Sing, Sing, Sing."