and Roger's brother Flip, respectively, making up for the absence of Erin Moran (Joanie) and Baio, who departed for Joanie Loves Chachi.Ron Howard is one of the most well-known directors to ever put a story on screen, but not all of his films are as successful as others. As the show wound down, Crystal Bernard and Billy Warlock earned screen time as Howard's niece K.C. That's also when Cathy Silvers began appearing as Jenny Piccolo, Joanie's often mentioned but never seen best friend. His ostensible replacement on the show: Ted McGinley as Roger Phillips, a Cunningham nephew, high school gym coach, and Fonzie foil. He joined the military because actor Ron Howard left Happy Days in 1980 to pursue his career as a film director. Lynda Goodfriend came on in season five in the recurring role of Lori Beth Allen, Richie's girlfriend she'd become a regular character after she and Richie got married, although by that point, oddly enough, Richie was off the show. Scott Baio joined the cast in season five as Charles "Chachi" Arcola - Fonzie's cousin, Richie's drummer, and Joanie's boyfriend. T and Tina, and Al Molinaro came on as new Arnold's proprietor Al Delvecchio. Over its 11-season run, Happy Days experienced a lot of characters coming and going. Arnold, operator of teen hangout Arnold's, left after three seasons because actor Pat Morita landed a role on the sitcom Mr. Byner's agency recommended three replacement possibilities: comics Jeff Altman, Richard Lewis. "Then an odd thing happened: Close to shooting, Byner decided he didn't want to play an alien on a television series," Marshall wrote in My Happy Days in Hollywood. Of-the-moment '70s comedian and impressionist John Byner was offered the gig, and he took it. We decided to make a show based on Mork."įrenetic comedian Robin Williams was plucked from the Los Angeles nightclub scene to play Mork, both on Happy Days and the hit spinoff Mork and Mindy (which, unlike the original series, was set in the present day), but he wasn't Marshall's first choice. And so Marshall decided to add space people to Happy Days, in the form of a silly alien named Mork from the planet Ork who meets Fonzie and then, to frame it in the modest '50s, convinces him it's a dream. He wanted aliens." Marshall recalled to NPR. "And I said, 'why don't you like it?' He said, 'well, there is no space people.' He wanted Star Wars. In the late '70s, co-creator Garry Marshall couldn't get his son to watch Happy Days. The show's resident teen idol Scott Baio got a record deal, too, of which the highlight was a catchy New Wave ditty called "The Boys Are Out Tonight." Donny Most (Ralph Malph) released a self-titled album in 1976, while the single "Deeply" by Anson Williams (Potsie) reached #93 on the pop chart a year later. As Richie Cunningham played in a rock band, that naturally led to some real-world musical releases, too. "Happy Days," composed by "Killing Me Softly" songwriters Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel and performed by duo Pratt and McClain, hit the Top 5. Another '50s-inspired song played over the end credits, but when it replaced "Rock Around the Clock" as the opening theme right around the time when Happy Days exploded in popularity, it became a bona fide hit. Haley actually recorded a new, soundalike version just for Happy Days, although the original version re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974, thanks to its inclusion on the American Graffiti soundtrack and this bit of television exposure. It's as happy a day as any to "sit on it," grab a burger at Arnold's, and cruise through the history of Happy Days.Īt the very beginning of Happy Days, producers really wanted audiences to know that this was a show set in the mid-1950s, so the opening theme song for its first two seasons was "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets, the first rock song to top the American pop chart back in 1955. Happy Days was a major presence on television, lasting for eleven seasons, dominating the ratings, selling heaps of Fonzie merchandise, and fueling the '50s revival that it rode in on, if not being responsible for the collective notion of what the '50s looked and felt like. Happy Days followed the gentle, warm, and low-key happenings of the Cunninghams, a Wisconsin nuclear family, but especially their teenage son Richie (Ron Howard) and his goofball friends Potsie (Anson Williams), Ralph (Don Most), and, of course, Fonzie (Henry Winkler), the coolest, most confident, and most charismatic character to ever hit the small screen.
Ron howard reboot of happy days movie tv#
Thanks to a wave of nostalgia for the pop culture of the 1950s - early rock n' roll, drive-ins, poodle skirts, and the like, embodied by movies like American Graffiti and Grease - Happy Days became an enormously popular TV sitcom in the 1970s, a feel-good balm for viewers reeling from Watergate, the Vietnam War, social upheaval, and ugly, earth-tone shag carpeting.
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