Here is a discussion from surviving members of the cast (perhaps someone can post a gift link?)
Happy Days’ at 50: ‘The Fonz Bought Me a House’
In an interview, the surviving members of the original cast — Ron Howard, Donny Most, Anson Williams, Henry Winkler and Marion Ross — look back on the nostalgic hit, which premiered Jan. 15, 1974.
I recall when it came out. I was never a big fan, but being then in high school myself it was sort of a time capsule look at what HS might have been like 20-ish years prior in some much prettier, more confident, and funnier world.
Gee thanks for my “You’re now old” reminder of the day. :grumble: :lawn: :get off my!:
It was an okay/decent show in an era when television was (and had been) pathetically awful. The 50s nostalgia of that era was more than a little tinged with “gee, all the ideas that came out into the open in the 1960s and beyond have been really disruptive, wouldn’t we all rather rewind to when life was simple and all the roles and beliefs hadn’t been called into question?”, so the political overtones of the show had me anticipating that it would have a socially conservative underbelly and subtext, but I didn’t see much to get nauseated over.
Loved watching the reruns when i was a kid. But I’ve tried watching it a few times on the Happy Days channel on Pluto. It’s pretty much unwatchable. The first season, when Fonzie was less cartoonish and Chuck was still around, was better than the later seasons.
I remember talking with some buddies at school, and saying, “20 years from now, they’ll make a show about high school kids in the 70s”. Got a big “No way! that wouldn’t be interesting” from the buddies.
I happened to catch the episode “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas” on pluto this weekend, and it was good, it scratched a nostalgia itch. It was a season 2 ep, with Chuck and a Fonzie who was still cool.
I think it was the fact that the first two seasons actually felt like the 50s. The later seasons just felt like “here’s some wacky shit happening and believe us when we tell you it’s supposed to be the 50s.”
They moved to LA (and for reasons never clearly explained, their associates all moved to LA, too), but the time period was still the same - it’s just that they stopped focusing on the nostalgia (and since they were in the mid-1960s by then, the culture seemed closer to the present anyway). They still had anachronisms (a full-on Star Fleet uniform-wearing Trekkie lived nearby, when that cliche’ didn’t get established until the 1970s) but theoretically, the show was still “in the past.”
I went on Youtube to remind myself of the episodes in which Chuck appeared. While I can say the Season 1 Chuck actor is very familiar from something else (will Google later), I have no memory of any of the Season 1 or 2 episodes with Chuck. I don’t really remember episodes with Joanie being so young, either.
I saw a lot of Happy Days in syndication. Is my memory generally correct that Seasons 1 and 2 episdes weren’t much shown in syndication?