The fourth season isn't quite as strong as previous ones because it's so uneven.
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People generally think that "Happy Days," which debuted as a mid-season ABC replacement show on January 15, 1974, was inspired by "American Graffiti." It's easy to think that, because Ron Howard and Cindy Williams were among the stars of George Lucas's 1973 film and both appear in this iconic sitcom, which ended its long run in 1984. But the idea actually stemmed from an episode of "Love American Style" which was written by "Happy Days" creator Garry Marshall. Titled "Love and the Happy Days," the third-season comedy sketch starred three actors who would go on to become regulars in "Happy Days": Marion Ross as Marion, Ron Howard as Richie, and Anson Williams as Potsie. Richie's siblings Joanie and Chuck were also in the segment, but cast with different actors who would go on to play those roles in Marshall's half-hour sitcom.
"Happy Days" went on to become a phenomenal success. Though the show received only nine Emmy nominations over 11 years and won just once (for editing), it was a big hit with viewers. "Happy Days" climbed to #1 in the Nielsons its fourth season and remained in the Top-30 in all but one year of its run. Leather-jacketed Fonzie's "He-e-e-ey!" and "Sit on it" became popular catch-phrases, and after the show ended, Fonzie's jacket was put on display in the Smithsonian alongside Dorothy's ruby slippers and Archie Bunker's chair. More recently, both Ron Howard (Richie Cunningham) and Henry Winkler (Fonzie) were named by Entertainment Weekly and TV-Land as two of the Top-100 TV Icons.
After a slow-starting first season that eventually saw Marshall jettison Chuck's character, the show hit its stride in Season Two. By Season Three, fans were clamoring for more Fonzie, and Marshall obliged by having America's favorite greaser move into an apartment above the Cunningham's garage and become "part of the family." The fourth season, the Japanese proprietor of Arnold's Drive-In (Pat Morita) was replaced by hook-nosed Al Delvecchio (Al Molinaro, "The Odd Couple"), and a bullying, obnoxious version of Barney Fife named Officer Kirk (Ed Peck) starts to bother the gang at Arnold's.
The website Jumptheshark.com gets its name from "Happy Days." This site is a forum for fans to vote at what point their beloved TV shows began to go downhill. For "Happy Days," Jumptheshark.com readers say it was a three-part Season Five episode that has a leather-jacketed Fonzie jumping a shark cage on water skis on a dare. But I think the show began to go downhill this fourth season, which, coincidentally, also begins with an over-the-top three-part episode.
Pinky Tuscadero (Roz Kelly), a sort of Evel Knievel in tight pants and bare midriff, shows up in Milwaukee with her Pinkettes (Doris Hess, Kelly Sanders) hoping to team up with her old flame Fonzie for the annual Leopard Lodge Demolition Derby. The bad guys in this derby are a couple of clowns named the Mallachi brothers, including one who dresses like a cross between a pimp and one of the Village People because he apparently just watched "The Three Musketeers." The episode is so over-the-top that it's downright silly. And yet, Pinky was inexplicably one of the most popular non-regular characters to work the show, and so somebody liked this sequence. I just think that it gets a little too weird, too drawn out, and too far removed from the simple formula that made "Happy Days" such a hit: the comic and often poignant relationship between nerdy "duper" Richie Cunningham and super-cool and dangerous bad-boy greaser Arthur Fonzarelli, interwoven with Fifties' nostalgia. There's none of that in the opening three-part episode, but the show gets closer to its roots the farther it gets from pandering to the public's cry for Fonzie and more Fonzie. The character really works when he's not the center of the show's universe, and he serves as a foil to the nerdy trio of Richie, Potsie, and Ralph.
Here's a rundown on the 23 episodes on three single-sided discs, housed in a single-width keep-case with center plastic "page" that holds two of the discs:
1) "Fonzie Loves Pinky," Parts 1&2. Things heat up between Fonzie and old flame Pinky Tuscadero, but not in a romantic way. Pinky gets steamed that Fonzie picks Potsie to be his partner in the Demolition Derby instead of her.
2) "Fonzie Loves Pinky," Part 3. Winning seems like losing as Pinky's newfound fame lands her an invitation to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show," much to Fonzie's dismay.
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