First item of business: If you read the last article, I apologize for “To Be Continued”-ing you. I just had a lot of miscellaneous stuff to cover and I realized it was a post all by itself.
Second item of business: Today’s installment of “Happy Days Epics” is dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased Art Metrano, who played Chachi’s Uncle Rico in the short-lived “Joanie Loves Chachi.”
(I won’t be doing a series of articles on “Joanie Loves Chachi”. Not that I couldn’t! I have the entire series on DVD. I am a “Happy Days” completist.)
Now! At long last…….”Home Movies.” Start the tape and the movie at the same time, okay?
Joanie is sending a unique care package to big brother Richie–home movies of the Cunninghams and their friends during the sweltering summer of 1962. She tells him it’s been a busy, eventful summer and we are launched into no less than six plotlines:
-Joanie and Chachi’s relationship is headed for trouble (“By Labor Day I wanted to wring his scrawny little neck!“)
–Potsie gets a job at Cunningham Hardware
–Big Al’s mother is spending the whole summer with him. They have a strained relationship.
–Fonz gets a letter from his old gang, The Falcons–they’re having a reunion! And a date cuts him to the core by calling him “normal”.
ROGER: Why did The Falcons wait ten years to have a reunion?
FONZ: First time everybody’s out of jail at once.
–Lori Beth announces at the 4th of July picnic that she’s having a baby, which launches Mr. C into a “midlife crisis” that mostly involved watching a lot of baseball.
–Roger, working as a lifeguard, tries to make time with a foxy girl lifeguard who’s training for the olympic swim team.
The Joanie/Chachi drama begins on July 4th when Joanie, working at a lemonade stand at the lake with Jenny Piccolo, is unable to spend the holiday with Chachi–who gets attention from another girl. The girl happens to run into Joanie and Jenny at Arnold’s and reveals that she and Chachi had a memorable 4th. Joanie and Chachi break up. and they’re both miserable. Not quite miserable enough to get back together…
MRS. C: Too bad Chachi! I just want you to know I think you’re the nicest boy Joanie ever brought home. Too bad you blew it!
Meanwhile, Fonzie–wearing the same gang jacket and chains he was when he first met Richie Cunningham– strolls into Arnold’s to join the Falcons reunion. He meets old friends like Rocco Baruffi (played by Ken Lerner, a “Happy Days Epics” hall-of-famer for his performance as Rocco Millachi in “Fonzie Loves Pinky”). But before the party gets into full swing, the War Mongers–rival gang to the Falcons–pour into Arnold’s!
JOHNNY SUEDE (War Mongers gang member): The War Mongers all figure we got some old scores to even. And we invite you to settle up.
The gangs are to meet, with no weapons, at the agreed location in one hour. As the music score intensifies we see both gangs arrive in darkness and face each other with grim expressions. (Now, if you’re watching reruns–like I am on MeTV–this is where “To Be Continued” comes in. Originally though this was an hour-long episode so there would have been a commercial break followed by…
Intramural softball!
Yes, the gangs settle their scores these days with softball. It’s classic good old fashioned family reunion (or, in this case street gang reunion) fun for all. Fonzie hits a homer, of course. But there’s a disputed call and so they all get into a massive fight. You can take the gang out of the rumble, but you can’t take the rumble out of the gang. Rocco Baruffi hangs with Fonzie after the fight.
ROCCO: When I think about what coulda happened to me tonight…I can’t be Joe Palooka! I have responsibilities!
Rocco, you see, is married with children. And Fonzie knows from responsibilities, what with owning the garage, co-owning Arnold’s, and teaching auto shop. The whole scene with Rocco at Fonzie’s apartment is so very relatable, which is surprising considering how broad the gang stuff was just moments earlier. But I think we have all had that conversation with an old friend where you both wonder, “When exactly did I become an adult?” A lot of change is coming The Fonz’s way in future seasons, and this is a mark in the sand where Fonz realizes he doesn’t have to worry about being “normal” or feel like he’s compromised who he is to take on these adult challenges.
ROCCO: You’ll always be The Fonz. That kind of cool never dies.
Ken Lerner: a power player in not one but two Happy Days epics.
Meanwhile, Mr. C–who has taken every character to a baseball game except Rocco Baruffi–is still mired in his mid-life crisis. When Potsie joins him for a businessman’s special they discuss his new job at the hardware store.
MR. C: Potsie, I got a confession to make. You know, I wasn’t going to hire you. But now that the summer is over I’m glad I did. You did well.
POTSIE: I still feel kinda bad about the shellac incident.
MR. C: No, that’s all right, I got it all out of my hair.
Marion stops Howard before galloping off to another game to have a talk about Mr C’s difficulty coming to grips with being a grandfather. Mr. C bemoans the fact that he is turning 50, and your blogger has difficulty swallowing for a moment. But Mrs. C reminds her beloved husband that a new baby will be a chance for them to re-experience all the joys of bringing up Joanie and Richie. Again, Tom Bosley and Marion Ross are just wonderful in the heartwarming moments.
There’s a picnic at the lake…summer is winding down. As are the subplots. Roger and his girl lifeguard finally get together. Big Al’s Mama asks, “We no get along-a too good this summer, ah?” As a mandolin version of the “Happy Days” theme plays in the background, Mama and her sonny boy have a warm hearted reunion. Then she tells him to put his socks on. I watched these episodes on MeTV, which is probably the best network in terms of not cutting stuff out. But they gotta cut out some, and I think the Al subplot gets shredded in this one. It’s no great shakes, honestly. “Overbearing mother treats grown son like kid” wasn’t a novel concept in 1981 and it sure isn’t today.
But what of Joanie and Chachi?! Still on the outs, Chachi continues to try to sweet-talk Joanie back into his arms.
CHACHI: Joanie, school starts tomorrow. I’ll pass you in the hallways, I’ll see you in the classroom. It’ll drive me crazy!
JOANIE: Tough cookies!
CHACHI: I’m glad we had this conversation.
Night falls and the star-crossed lovers continue to discuss their disagreements.
JOANIE: You’ve been chasing me ever since you were a little kid…which was last year. You finally caught me. You missed out on dating a lot of different girls. Maybe deep down, you resent that.
Eventually Joanie and Chachi reunite. And Potsie croons a pretty song. And everybody joins in to sing along. There’s a reason they call it “Happy Days.”
Random Notes:
-Potsie’s song, “Every Time, Every Place”, was written by James P. Dunne and J. Elizabeth Bradley. This songwriting team also wrote all of the original compositions for the season 8 episode “American Musical”. That’s the one where Chachi’s writing a history report and Fonzie’s helpful suggestions manifest themselves as Broadway-style musical numbers, as they would in the mind of any teenage boy,
-Technical notes about “Home Movies”: All of the lake scenes, the scenes of Mr. C at the ballpark and the gang meeting to “settle a score” were filmed at exterior locations; the rest of the show was filmed on existing “Happy Days” sets but without a studio audience (canned laughter is heard throughout). To set up the conceit of Joanie sending Richie home movies, some scenes are shot “shaky-cam” style.
-Catchphrase Watch: The aggressive use of the catchphrases plummeted after the departures of Ron Howard and Donny Most; they took with them such classics as “Blueberry Hill”, “Huh huh huh”, “Bucko”, “I still got it!”, etc. But we have two to report from “Home Movies”: Howard, being blocked by Mrs. C from going to another baseball game grumbles “This is no time to be frisky!”. And both Al and his Mama offer up a “Yeah yeah yeah yap yap yap”…
-Lori Beth’s pregnancy is a plot point again later this season in “Little Baby Cunningham” when Fonzie is drafted to be her natural childbirth coach.
-My friend Brent wondered in my last post if Cathy Silvers, who plays Jenny Piccolo, is the daughter of legendary comic Phil Silvers. Indeed she is! The man who brought Sgt. Bilko to life would appear later this season as Jenny Piccolo’s father Roscoe.
And in “Home Movies”, it’s another Silvers family connection as Cathy’s sister Candace plays Jenny’s cousin.
And just for the hell of it: DId you know why “Gilligan’s Island” DVDs and closing credits of colorized versions of episodes credit the Silverses?
It’s because the show was financed by their Dad’s production company, Gladasya Productions (say it out loud in your best Bilko voice).
Next Time: Get out the Kleenex, bucko…