7.

HAPPY DAYS Hanging Out with the Cunningham Family and Friends Happy Days was a rare show in that it stayed in the Tuesday night time slot all of its eleven seasons. That was a gift from the network gods because audiences always knew where to find us. The fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons Happy Days was at the top of the ratings, at 1, 2, or 3, gloriously floating on sitcom air. We remain one of ABCs longest running sitcoms. The success of Happy Days gave me more confidence as a creator, writer, and producer. It is my favorite television show that I created because it rarely gave me a headache or a stomachache. Happy Days was for me the quintessential television success story. I had followed my instincts, and they had turned out to be right. Years earlier I had followed my instincts and they were wrong. Jerry Belson and I created a show called The Recruiters during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam. We should have looked out the window and seen people protesting and burning draft cards, but we were too myopic with our idea. I was determined to strike a more successful chord with Happy Days. I wanted to write about youth, but our country was still at war. How could I create a comedy about teenagers with Vietnam as the backdrop? I decided to go in a different direction altogether. I would not create a modern show, thus avoiding the issues of war, sexual liberation, dangerous drugs, and the darker side of rock and roll. I went back to the 1950s, a time that at least in my own life and mind was much less complicated and politically charged. I based the entire show on the images of poodle skirts, hula hoops, malt shops, bubble gum, and squeaky clean music. The fact that Happy Days helped viewers travel to a different era caught peoples attention immediately. Only a few other shows, like The Waltons, had found success tapping into simpler times. People in the 1970s seemed happier with the past better than the present or future. People always ask me how Happy Days got on the air, and the truth is, it all started with a snowstorm. Snow, it turns out, is lucky for me that way. Snow coated my childhood memories in the Bronx. Snow lined the streets of Sheridan Road when I went to college at Northwestern. Snow fell on my helmet when I served in the army in Korea. And then a snowstorm on the East Coast brought about an idea that would change my life in television forever. During a snowstorm everyone has to take time to pause. Heres what happened: The year was 1973, and Michael Eisner, then the head of Paramount, was delayed on the East Coast with the up-and-coming Paramount executive Tom Miller. Not sure when their flight would take off, the two men started pitching sitcom ideas that they could develop for ABC, their partner network at the time. Eisner brought up the idea for a family show with the feel of the old show I Remember Mama, which was about a Norwegian family. Tom mentioned my name to produce it because The Odd Couple was headed toward its final season. When they pitched the idea to me, I was not exactly rushing to do it. I Remember Mama? The show about Swedish people? Norwegians, said Miller. Either way. Swedes or Norwegians, I dont think I can create a show about guys named Lars and Hans in the 1930s, I told them. I dont know families like that. But what about a family show about the 1950s? That I know. Thats when I grew up, and I can give you a nostalgic show about that. Eisner and Miller liked my idea. So I wrote a pilot episode about a family in the 1950s who were the first in their neighborhood to get a television set. The story was a personal one for

me. I remember when we got our first television set, and how special it made me feel. Mel Ferber directed the pilot, which starred Harold Gould, Marion Ross, and Ron Howard. We pitched it to ABC, and they didnt buy it. They just didnt see the demographic appeal of a show in the 1950s airing during the early 1970s. But I saw beyond their vision: I knew the show had a dated feel to begin with, so in the reruns it would never go out of style. ABC, however, was simply not ready for Happy Days. So in 1971 Paramount put it on the series Love, American Style, otherwise known as the graveyard for dead pilots. The episode was called New Family in Town, and after it aired we thought Happy Days was indeed dead. But then the tide suddenly turned: My friend from Korea Fred Roos was producing a film with George Lucas called American Graffiti about the 1950s. They wanted to see my 1950s pilot because they were thinking of casting Ron Howard as the lead of their movie. They liked Ron, cast him, and American Graffiti was a big hit. Then a play called Grease hit Broadway, and it further reinforced the popularity of the 1950s. The executives at ABC called Eisner, and he remembered my pilot about the 1950s. Happy Days was repitched as a midseason replacement and given a second life three years after it appeared on Love, American Style. Television is a derivative medium. If something is hot, television will copy it and frequently make it a success. Money became a big issue when I created Happy Days. I began working with a young agent named Joel Cohen, who worked for my previous agent, Frank Cooper. Joel was a serious man who told boring stories but that is what made him such a great agent. He would bore people to death so they would give in and make a deal. Together Joel and I crafted my deal memo for Happy Days. He asked me what I wanted. I said I would like a basketball court on the Paramount lot, and a malted milk machine in my office. I was serious.