The other night, the tiniest Minion of Sauron (15 months old) was rather fretful. So, around one in the morning, he and I finally quit wrestling in the rocking chair and settled down to watch television.
After some debate over the program of choice (he wanted to watch The Cosby Show; I wanted to watch SportsCenter), we compromised on Death Wish 3, the Charles Bronson shoot-em-up.
I kept looking at the villain in this movie, thinking he seemed familiar to me. And suddenly, when the villain was onscreen talking on the phone, it hit me: It was the long-lost Chuck Cunningham (aka Gavan O’Herlihy)!
You remember Chuck, I’m sure – the oldest son of the Cunningham family from “Happy Days,” big brother to Richie and Joanie. He mysteriously disappeared early in the show’s run. (Not “mysteriously disappeared” in the sense that something happened to him and they tried to find him for years; “mysteriously disappeared” in the sense that he just quit appearing on the show, and they never referred to him again.)
Of course, he had changed some since his “Happy Days” days – he’d gotten a reverse-mohawk haircut (shaved down the middle of his head) and painted some lines on his face. I’m guessing it was some sort of basketball-related gang initiation thing. But he was obviously doing okay for himself, because he was the leader of the gang that was terrorizing Charles Bronson and his friends.
Man. Talk about weird. Watching Chuck Cunningham leading a gang of thugs against Charles Bronson and his peaceful neighbors.
Sadly, the irony was lost on the littlest Minion of Sauron, who had fallen asleep to the sounds of .50 caliber machine-gun fire and explosions.