Post-50th Anniversary Viewing
Happy Days
"Richie's Flip Side"
Originally aired March 18, 1975
Pluto TV said:
Richie lets fame go to his head when he takes a turn as a disc jockey at the local radio station.
Colorful rock 'n' roll radio personality Charlie the Prince (recurring LASer Warren Berlinger) quits his job during his show at WOW when the manager, Norman Bander (Jesse White), refuses to give him a raise. Richie's in the vicinity while doing janitorial work at the station, so Bander pulls him in and puts him on the air. While Richie starts off stuttering from nervousness, Bander takes to the idea of having a teenage DJ whom the kids can relate to, and offers to keep him on for his current pay of $25 a week--which Richie's fine with as he'd do it for free. Late for dinner, Richie breaks the news to family while saying grace.
Soon girls are flocking around Richie at Arnold's, and even Fonzie is impressed. As Richie becomes more comfortable in his role, he adopts the moniker Richie the C, while Ralph and Potsie offer him advice about jazzing up his on-air delivery. But they get sore at Richie when he has to bow out of a weekend outing with some chicks to do a supermarket appearance for the station. Mr. C becomes alarmed when Richie spends his college savings on hep threads and talks about not needing to further his education.
As Bander and Richie are discussing Arnold's terms for a live broadcast from the drive-in with Marsha Simms (note that Pat Morita isn't cast until next season), Richie has to blow off not only the guys, but also Fonzie, when they interrupt with sundry business. Fonz sits down with the guys to plot a comeuppance. The Cunninghams attend the broadcast dressed up, but when Richie's on the air, signals from the Fonz cause his live audience to stay uncooperatively silent and in their seats. This makes things awkward for Richie, who begins to lose his composure. The family tries to participate to help him, but Howard freezes up on the air, leaving Joanie the C to make a dedication...to Charlie the Prince, whom she was a fan of. Eventually the guys start to feel bad for Richie and ask Fonzie to put an end to it. Fonzie begrudgingly takes the mic to make an on-air dedication, and signals the live audience to start enjoying themselves.
Richie does exactly what you'd expect in the coda, breaking the news to Bander after the show. Bander quickly starts to recruit a Spanish-speaking busboy (Alberto Isaac).
References to the Big Bopper, Ricky Nelson, and "Splish Splash" would put this episode in at least 1958. Downright anachronistic is a reference to Wolfman Jack, who adopted his radio persona and started broadcasting nationwide via a Mexican station in the early '60s, but didn't become a major celebrity until the '70s. This was likely meant to be a nod to his appearance in
American Graffiti, but that also took place in '63.
Happy Days
"Kiss Me Sickly"
Originally aired April 29, 1975
Wiki said:
Richie inadvertently makes out with Fonzie's girlfriend, and fears he may have contracted mono.
Fonzie shows up at Jefferson High to ask Richie to watch his Girl of the Week, Denise Hudson (Laurette Spang), who's apparently a student there, while he's out of town for a demolition derby. Frustrated with Fonzie's protectiveness, Denise schemes with her friend, Joyce (Didi Conn, who'll go on to play Frenchie in
Grease), to test Richie's trustworthiness. She arranges to come to the Cunninghams' to watch TV, then, wanting more privacy, has Richie take her to Inspiration Point. An uncomfortable Richie tries to resist her advances, asserting that Fonzie's his friend, but eventually succumbs to the need for necking. Days later at school, while the guys are assuming that Richie's somehow managed to remain a gentleman, he becomes concerned to learn from Joyce that Denise has contracted mono. (Gotta watch out with those socialators....)
Richie confesses to the guys that he's been to IP every night with Denise, and they worry that he may have mono, and about what Fonzie's going to do when he finds out. Experiencing some of the symptoms, Richie goes out of his way to avoid spreading it to the family. Howard finds out what's going on, and encourages Richie to be honest with Fonzie.
Fonzie returns to Arnold's brandishing an exhaust pipe from his winning vehicle in an intimidating fashion. Richie asks to see Fonzie alone, so they step into Fonzie's office. Richie comes clean after Ralph bursts in to blurt out a spoiler, and while Fonzie doesn't want to hurt Richie, he feels he has to enforce the understood rules. Richie points out a bit of poetry that Fonzie wrote on the restroom wall, "Steady chicks are here today, but steady friends are here to stay," following which Fonzie comes up with a "loophole," realizing that he was making time with a girl at the derby at around the same time that Richie started seeing Denise, meaning Denise was up for grabs. Then a guy who's been trying to get in to use the toilet (Richard Kuller) rushes in and gives Richie a shiner with the door, which the Fonz decides to take advantage of. Nobody believes Richie when he says that it was the door, and when Wendy starts mothering Richie, Ralph begs Fonzie to give him one.
In the coda, Richie's gotten clinic results indicating that he doesn't have mono, and learns that Fonzie doesn't, either.
We have a '50s bubble moment when Howard wants to watch
My Little Margie, which ran from 1952 to 1955. (Sending Chuck to Korea doesn't seem like such a stretch anymore, does it?) Joanie later references
Maverick, which better fits the show's rock 'n' roll era timeframe. There's a cute bit of business where Denise starts coming onto Richie in the Cunninghams' living room, Joanie goes to the kitchen to tell the folks, and finds them making out more enthusiastically.
This is the last episode available on P+, though Pluto TV has a few episodes that they don't (misnumbered though they are), including the next and last installment of the season.
Happy Days
"Goin' to Chicago"
Originally aired May 6, 1975
Season finale
Pluto TV said:
While in Chicago with their high school choir, Richie, Ralph, and Potsie sneak by their chaperones, wind up on the wrong side of an unsympathetic downtown nightclub owner, and win the sympathy of a kind-hearted cocktail waitress.
On the grounds of Jefferson High, choirmaster Mr. Pinney (George Furth) leads his charges--including the guys (What extracurricular activities are they not involved in?)--in a rehearsal, following which Miss Wheaton (Helen Page Camp) goes over the itinerary for their weekend trip to Chicago to appear on TV Sunday morning. As the kids are loading onto the bus Saturday morning, a lame excuse for a Fonzie appearance is squeezed in as he asks Richie to pick up some souvenir grease for his collection from the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. When the guys get to their hotel, Richie wins a game of fingers for the twin bed, forcing Potsie and Ralph to bed together in the full-size one. While Potsie's loading his suitcase with an ashtray, towels, and little bars of soap, Ralph finds a tourist guide that lists several burlesque spots, and they decide to sneak out via the unguarded stairs to hit the Blue Pelican, where comedian J. Jackie Silver (whom Potsie mistakes for the guy who plays Tonto) is performing.
IMDb said:
Mr. Pinney sports a beard. No school district in America in the mid-late 1950s would have allowed a teacher to wear a beard. Facial hair at the time was associated with beatniks and Marxism.
They actually try to handwave this by having Miss Wheaton comment that the beard makes him look like Mitch Miller, though the beards aren't the same style.
Ralph is the only one in the audience who laughs out loud at Silver's (Phil Leeds) act. When the waitress (Mitzi [Pamela Myer]) brings the check, it turns out to be far more than the guys are expecting--$36 for eighteen glasses of ginger ale--and Potsie left his money belt at the room. Richie gets her to agree to not get the manager involved if he stays behind while the other two go back to get it. But when they get back to the room, Pinney is enforcing a bedtime crackdown, leaving Richie stranded at the club until closing. Richie learns that Silver is the owner and tries to reason with him, with Mitzi backing him up. She offers to go back to the hotel with him and bring the money herself.
At the hotel, Pinney bursts into the room as the money is changing hands and gets the wrong idea, what with Mitzi still being in her work outfit and all. She explains the situation, but Pinney declares that the boys are out of the choir and may be expelled. When he opens the door, however, earlier speculation by Ralph proves to be on the mark, as they find Miss Wheaton at Pinney's door in a nightdress. Pinney and the boys come to an understanding to mutually forget everything that happened that night.
As the boys settle in for a short sleep before they have to get up for their choir appearance, the season ends with a brief pillow fight that cuts away to establishing shots of the Windy City.
And those are all the yours and my
Happy Days available. I read that the show was facing cancellation at this point due to being up against
Good Times. When it was picked up for another season, it was retooled from being filmed (which is what gives the first two seasons such a different quality) to being taped with a studio audience. There was an experimental studio audience-taped episode in Season 2, but it's not available via streaming.
Deja vu. Didn't something else like this happen just recently?
We did, though I don't recall who was involved.
And the age of the Summer blockbuster begins....
This is something else that is surprising to have happened so recently, although it's really just the evolution of the drive-in restaurants.
It was a surprise to me, too, though when I thought about it, it sounded about right.
No! I'm not going to listen! No!
A memorable bit of business from the era that I might have bought, but the original recording doesn't seem to be available.
I've mellowed on this one, I guess. It does have some nostalgic value.
And there's always the Marvin Gaye original.
I vaguely know this one, but from Time-Life or Lost 45s or something.
I had this, but it's not terribly familiar. No first-hand recollection from the era.
I like this one. Strong nostalgic value.
This one I apparently wasn't able to find the original recording of previously, but it seems to be available now. Decent bit of mellow soft rock characteristic of the era.
I was thinking that maybe it had to be filmed separately for some reason and that's why Lionel couldn't be there.
I'm sure it was. It was an effective bit of shoehorning, though, as Hemsley sold the situation that unfolded afterward.
Right. I was thinking of the "He really takes the cake" scene.
Hemsley was the one who really carried that gag, though Reiner gets credit for the punctuating reaction shot.
And of course I remember this.
And he's in his alternate outfit in this version of it.
I really just watched the beginning with Olivia, but I'd probably enjoy the whole thing.
She did more performances in the episode, and the MS account has individual clips of at least some of them.
And Paul McCartney turned 33! 