Some things can’t be explained: Tom Green, the diet Big Gulp, the dollar coin, the enduring popularity of Madonna, UFOs, George Bush’s $200 billion peace campaign in Iraq, bleached teeth, Bigfoot, and Donald Trump’s hair.
But nothing can explain why I just spent the last TWO HOURS watching the Happy Days reunion celebration. I’m talking the whole enchilada–including archival footage of Fonzie actually jumping the shark.
At this point, I think it’s safe to conclude that I’ve just jumped the shark of my own life story.
Anyway, do me a favor and tell me I’m a contrarian. Tell me I’m hip and that watching Happy Days makes me cooler than kewl.
P.S. You know it’s bad when the 1970s Mrs. Cunningham suddenly looks hot.
I watched it. Yeah, Mrs. C looked pretty good in some of those clips.
I enjoyed the show as a young kid, so it was pleasantly nostalgic to see the clips. And it was a great idea to bring in the two Chucks as surprise guests!.
I watched the first hour until CSI came on. Then Himself recorded the second hour on the computer for me so I could get my CSI fix.
Everything I saw I really enjoyed. I can remember watching it, and Himself tried to stump me on the whole “jump the shark” thing (didn’t work)…but he didn’t know about the Love, American Style and I did.
I’m not sorry I missed it, but I did hear a blurb on the radio today and there was some gossip on how Erin Moran kinda weirded out after Joanie Loves Chachi.
I didn’t even know about it until I read this thread and at the exact same time my husband was flipping through channels and came across the second half. So now we’re watching it.
I didn’t see it, but it has a softball game among the cast members, no? The field they played on is a few hundred feet from where I’m sitting right now. I would have had the chance to attend the taping of the game last fall, but tragically I didn’t find out until it was too late.
Doh! Anyway that they’ll reshow or I can purchase or download it somewhere? It premiered before I was born but I used to watch reruns of that show in Ireland all the time.
I thought it was a cute little thing - though it looked, strangely, like it was filmed years and years ago. Did anyone else think that the video quality was very poor and looked old? Maybe that was an intentional effect or something, but it didn’t have the clear look of any given modern stage-filmed show.
One bizarre thing, though - contrary to what the Happy Days guy said, "jumping the shark’ has nothing to do with when a show gets cancelled; rather, it’s a purely creative concept, signifying the point at which a show has inevitably crested the hill, and it’s only downhill from there on out. The happy days guy said “but that’s not true, because we made 100 more episodes after that!”
I liked the way they dismissed"jumped the shark" as an urban legend by redefining the popular meaning of “jumped the shark” as “about to be cancelled” instead of “the demarcation line between a show’s useful existance and the point after which everyone agrees it began to stink.”
Yay! Happy Days did over a hundred episodes after it became a horrible, shambling, thing, and a shadow of its former mediocre glory.
That outtake where Henry Winkler kept macking with Marion Ross, though? I nearly wet myself. (The follow-up with Marion creeping out of Fonzie’s garage suite, re-fastening her blouse and looking over her shoulder, was the icing on the cake.) Yeah, baby!
So waht was this thing? Just cast members sitting around reminiscing in a documentary kind of way? Or was it like an episode where some contrived event brings everyone back?
It was just the cast and Garry Marshall sitting around talking about the show and showing clips–favorite moments, the impact it had, how it got started. The original pilot was very lame, and didn’t sell. It was only after American Graffitti and Grease (the stage show) that ABC wanted a 50’s show, remembered Marshall had a 50’s show, and decided to go with it.
I was amazed at how laid back the whole cast is. They’ve all gone on to varying degrees of success, but they seem like very nice people.
The whole Mrs.C/Fonzie make out clips were great. And the two special surprise guests!
Safe to say you’re not alone, Carnac. Don’t know if that means we’re all hipper than hip or we’re all just in denial.
I did watch it while doing some typing for work, but pretty much only because I enjoy background noise when working, and that was the only halfway tolerable light viewing on broadcast TV.
It was cute. Saccharine drivel, of course. But better than other reunion shows I’ve (unfortunately) sat through. No great regret in having two hours of my night partly dedicated to it. I have to think that if I had watched it and that was the sole activity at the time, I might feel a bit dirty and pathetic.
I wanted to watch this. I was excited about it, mainly because I so enjoyed the Andy Griffith Show reunion, and I wanted to see the differences between Ron Howard’s recollections of both shows (he was very sentimental and sweet about his AGS memories.)
I’m very disappointed. Someone ought to have stuffed a sock in Garry Marshall’s mouth, because he rode roughshod over everyone, not letting anyone get a goddamned word in edgewise. And I, too, snickered up my sleeve listening to Marshall defend the “jumping the shark” phenomenon. Yes, you may have filmed 100 episodes after it, but the point is they all sucked.
When the two Chucks came on, I switched channels. There was an interesting bio of Abraham Lincoln on PBS that I’m glad I caught instead, as it shed some new light on his marriage to Mary and his political stance on slavery. Very illuminating.
I wondered about this myself. I remember ten or fifteen years ago, she sat out another “Reunion Special” with the public startement that she “prayed for the souls” of the rest of the cast. I think she was living in a trailer park or something.
After the clips of JLC, the theme song was still in the background, and she was teary eyed. I guess they were hot and heavy IRL at that time, and all the memories of that came rushing back? She seemed pretty composed shortly afterwards.
I think the poster meant that after the show “Joanie Loves Chachi” went off the air years ago, Erin Moran got weird. I don’t know the specifics, but I do remember hearing vague rumors of her not doing so well in life. And I specifically remember her skipping the first reunion show and making snide comments about the cast. Which struck me as odd, because the cast, as mentioned previously, always seemed rather friendly and down-to-earth. They used to have a charity softball game (or series of games) that got some airplay during the latter years of the show.
