“Welcome Home” Part 1 Originally Aired October 25, 1983 on ABC
“Welcome Home” Part 2 Originally Aired November 1, 1983 on ABC
A quick word about where “Happy Days” stands at the beginning of its final season. Flip, K.C., Ashley and her daughter Heather are all gone. The opening, with a re-recorded theme song done in a less 50’s, more ’60s rock style, makes it clear that the focus will be on beloved longtime characters.
Roger is still in the mix, playing an ersatz Richie. But all of the other newly introduced characters are gone. Even Jenny Piccolo, who by this time had logged three seasons with the series, did not appear in the final season until its one-hour finale “Passages”. And although Joanie and Chachi were welcomed back in the fold after their spinoff crashed and burned, poor Big Al was left in an imaginary Italian restaurant in Chicago. (Al’s twin brother, Father Delvecchio, plays an essential role in the finale.)
So here we go with “Welcome Home”, a 2-parter that finds RIchie and, in part one, Ralph Malph returning to Milwaukee. Lynda Goodfriend guest stars as visibly pregnant Lori Beth Cunningham, after being away from the regular cast the previous season. L.B. and Little Richie Jr. create quite a stir on their arrival.
JOANIE: Wait a second, wait a second…if you two are here, where’s that big redhead?
RALPH (bursting through the door): How are ya how are ya how are ya!
Ralph, fresh out of the Army, plants a big smooch on Joanie and zings “Howie” with a fat joke. When the Cunninghams wonder where their redhead is, Ralph informs them of some sad news from Greenland…
RALPH: I’m afraid Richie had to stay back and…
RICHIE (bursting through the door): Pay the cabdriver!
“Happy Days” had a weakness for these really hokey entrance bits…they seemed designed less for entertainment value than to give the audience a nice blank space to applaud over. And, to be sure, the studio audience is very excited about seeing these old friends again. As is Fonzie (“My boys are back!”).
Richie and Lori B. are getting settled in Richie’s old bedroom when Mr. C, giving Richie Jr. a pony ride, informs Big Richie that a member of the Leopard Lodge can get him a job at the Milwaukee Journal. “Just what I always wanted,” Richie says to himself. “Or used to want.”
Richie and Ralph meet the old gang at Arnold’s, starting with Potsie.
RALPH: Hiya Pots!
POTSIE: You owe me 15 bucks!
Chachi and Roger stroll in. Roger mistakes Ralph for Richie. Chachi also makes things awkward.
RICHIE: So how you doin’ Chach?
CHACHI: Your sister dumped me.
RICHIE: Ah.
As Chachi and Roger leave to gather up more of the old gang, Richie, Ralph, Potsie and The Fonz are left alone to reminisce. The words just don’t seem to come; the situation of four old friends being reunited for the first time in three years is almost too momentous for small talk. Ralph meanders over to the bandstand, sits at the piano and plays the opening notes of a familiar refrain.
RICHIE: I…found…my thrill…..
The gang gathers around Ralph and sings “Blueberry Hill”. The ice is melted. (I’ve been a disc jockey for pushing 25 years, and I love the way people can be taken back to a time, a place, a memory, just by listening to a certain song. This scene is a big favorite of mine.)
One commercial break later and the reality of adult life begins to creep into the nostalgic filter of the soldiers’ return. Ralph tells the guys that he’s going to go into business with his Dad as an optometrist. “You get your hands on one fuzzy eyechart and you’re a millionaire!” When Potsie questions whatever happened to his dreams of being a comedian, Ralph reveals that he was partially bribed into this decision by the promise of a new Mustang. He announces he’s leaving for optometry school tomorrow. Fonz mentions RIchie’s interview with the Milwaukee Journal and Ralph’s facial expression indicates that Richie hasn’t been thinking about journalism for quite some time.
Richie shares his new dream with Fonzie–to move to California and become a screenwriter– while the two play pool at a seedy bar.
FONZIE: If you wanna move your family away from everybody who loves you, it’s no sweat off my back. Your shot.
RICHIE: Thanks for your support.
Before they can discuss Richie’s plans any further, a scuzzy guy in the bar makes unwanted advances at a female patron. Fonzie steps in to settle his hash, but when the drunk pulls a knife RIchie jumps in and uses some Army martial arts training to subdue the guy.
WAITRESS: Wow! Your friend’s really tough! What are you guys, cops or something?
FONZ: No…I’m a teacher, he’s a writer.
The next day, Mr. C tells Richie that the Milwaukee Journal job is his. Howard gave some of Richie’s college writing to his lodge brother. Richie finally tells his parents about his plans, about California and screenwriting. Mr. C dubs it a half-baked pipe dream. Mrs. C is not thrilled by his plans either. A shouting match ensues. Howard and Marion visit Richie in his bedroom to apologize for their reaction. Yet they continue to point out the slim chance of a screenwriting career succeeding. Mr C brings up umpire college again. Their concern, combined with Richie’s shock at how much things cost in the civilian world, leads Richie to accept the job.
Moments later Ralph Malph pops in through the window of Richie’s bedroom (“I just had to do this once more for old times sake”). Ralph is shocked that Richie is giving up his dream. Richie parrots back all the points his parents just made with him about taking the newspaper job.
RALPH: When it comes down to it, we’re both doing the same thing…exactly what our Dads want us to. Only I get a new car out of it.
Ralph leaves. Richie throws his spec screenplays, the physical manifestation of his dream, in the trash…then trashes portions of his bedroom. To Be Continued.
Part 2 begins with Mr. C catching us up with last week’s events. Then we see Richie, with the burden of the world on his shoulders, returning from a busy day of work as reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. He spent the day covering a cat fancier’s event. Meanwhile, with RIchie and his family living at home Mrs. C appears to have reverted to the mother/son relationship she had with Richie last time he was a resident of the Cunningham house–dictacting such things as which beverages are acceptable at meal time.
RICHIE: “I spend three years defending my country, and I can’t have soda with dinner.”
Lori Beth and RIchie Jr. arrive for dinner and the conversation turns to a new house L.B. has been looking at. Richie puts the kibosh on all this talk. Everyone is noticing his dour mood…even Richie Jr.
RICHIE JR.: Dad, why were you angry tonight?
RICHIE: Sometimes Daddies get angry because they have to do things they don’t want to.
The next scene finds Richie the hero of some sort of tournament baseball game (Arnold’s paid for the jerseys). Richie talks to Roger about happiness in life. Roger shares his story of making, then being cut from, the Boston Celtics. “If I hadn’t at least tried for the Celtics, I’d have spent the rest of my life wondering ‘What if?'”
At home Mrs. C strolls into Richie’s room and offers to play him in one-on-one basketball. The stakes: If Mrs. C wins, RIchie has to shave off “that thing that crawled upon your lip and died.” Mrs. C sweet-talks Richie into shaving ir off, but at the last minute he rebels, bolting from the Cunningham house to the same dive bar he and Fonzie visited in Part One.
This time RIchie is drunk, and in no mood to be nostalgic or friendly when The Fonz arrives on the scene.
FONZ: So have you thought of a name for your next child?
RICHIE: Buzz off.
FONZ: Oh, so you know it’s a boy.
Richie ridicules Fonzie’s past (“Why don’t you leave-a-mundo?”) and refuses to accept help or even a listening ear from his apparently former best friend. Fonz grows weary of this and attempts to pull Richie away from the table of empty beer cans. And then Richie punches Fonzie in the face.
Yep. Richie punches Fonzie in the face. It’s the most shocking act break in the history of the series. There’s a lot to shock the senses in this two-parter. RIchie and Fonzie’s night at the bar in Part One is itself slightly shocking after years of seeing the duo hang out exclusively at Arnold’s. But we had to see these characters as adults and sending them to a bar is a nice bit of shorthand.
After subduing Richie on the pool table. the redhead comes to his senses…and he and Fonzie talk things out,
FONZ: You’ve been living your life for everybody else, right? You’ve been the perfect son, the perfect student, the perfect father–
RICHIE: –the perfect soldier.
FONZ: The perfect friend.
Richie feels trapped by the expectations of his family. Fonzie insists they will come around. Richie wonders if he’s built this up as an excuse out of fear. Fonzie reminds him that anyone who’s punched the Fonz and lived to tell about it has nothing left to fear. The two friends embrace as we prepare for the finale.
Richie tells his family that he, Lori Beth and Richie Jr. are moving to California. It’s the first of two genuinely emotional scenes, and one has to believe that the years these actors spent together contributed to the verisimilitude of these closing moments.
Nothing I can write will paint the picture any better than watching the moments for yourself.
There’s a lot of wonderful writing here…Howard’s line about Mrs. C’s “famous pre-signed checkbook” has the kind of real family in-joke quality that makes the moment even more real. And his dialogue with RIchie…it’s just incredibly well done, and of course beautifully acted. Richie also has a final moment with The Fonz, and it too is an emotional kick to the gut. This was one of two major league events occurring in the final season of “Happy Days”. The second, which also features a return visit from RIchie and his family, is the finale.
Before we get to trivia: “Happy Days” is not a show you watch to see elements of your own life revisited. It’s a silly sitcom with exaggerated characters and plotlines ranging from plausible to cartoonish.
But “Welcome Home” brings back two very specific moments of my life. The scenes where Richie is generally frustrated and unhappy remind me of 1993. Unlike Richie, who came home and found himself cornered into a job and future he had grown out of, I basically lost a rotten telemarketing job and had to move back home with the folks for a while. They were incredibly kind about it. But after years of independence, coming back to my hometown, our family house and my childhood bedroom set a black cloud over me. I had this plan since age 3 of being in radio, and 1993 was a derailment of the plan.
Four years later. after attending college and learning as much as I could about radio, I got hired to work in Nebraska. New York to Nebraska isn’t too terribly different from Milwaukee to California. In my case, my Dad made the trip out with me to help me get settled (there’s also the whole “I don’t drive” thing that had to be contended with). But the scene where Richie realizes he has to follow his dream, and says his goodbyes to his family and best friend, always hits me hard. I said goodbye to great friends who I knew, in all likelihood, I would never see again. Relatives came to the house the weekend before Dad and I left to say their goodbyes. Mr. C offering Richie a blank check reminds me of the times since moving out west, thankfully infrequent, when I had to make a withdrawl from The Bank Of Dave And Mary. And when Mrs. C says to RIchie and Mr. C, “I don’t know when I’ve ever been so proud of both of you,” well, that makes me think of Mom.
Okay, enough weepy emotional stuff, on to the trivia!
Random Notes:
-I’ve mentioned before that the later “Happy Days” episodes I’ve been watching for this series are from telecasts on the MeTV network (DVDs of the series stop at season 7).. And MeTV really is the best network you could ask for, because they do very little editing to the episodes. There were scenes in this 2-parter that I do not remember from years of watching “Happy Days” reruns on (among others) Nick at Nite, TV Land, WGN America, INSP, Hallmark Channel, etc etc. MeTV seems to get full-length versions of these shows, and if any editing is done it’s very subtle.
-Potsie’s attempt to make small talk during the gang’s reunion at Arnold’s:
POTSIE: Hey Rich! Do you remember Greg Blackman?
RICHIE: Oh sure! What a guy!
POTSIE: He’s dead!
-Catchphrase Watch: with Richie and Ralph Malph back in the fold, we get a chorus of “Blueberry Hill”, and a “huh huh huh” from RIch; and Malph’s final line before exiting: “I still got it!”
-When Richie shoves Chachi aside on his way out of the house, Chach mutters to himself, “Joanie must have told him about that night at the reservoir!”
-Don Most gets a guest star credit in Part 2 despite his only appearance being a clip of Part 1 during the recap.
-We’ve previously mentioned the “Danny Thomas Show” Treacle Cutter, a technique of slipping a joke in an otherwise emotional scene. It’s used twice in the final scene; first, as Richie and Mr. C are having their emotional farewell Howard eyes the blank check he’s given Richie and notes, “Oh…listen…if you find out you don’t need that, for God’s sake tear it up.” Then, when Marion cries “Where is my grandchild?” Richie replies, “He’s out back eating dirt.”
Next Time: Memories…pressed between the pages of our minds…