1. Why was Chuck never mentioned by the Cunninghams after the first season? Richie was called things like "firstborn" and "only son."

2. Why was he portrayed by two actors?

The world may never truely know.

There have been many theories brought up in my 2.5 years here, and I must say...Many are still skeptical about exactly what happened to Chuck.

My best guess is that the Cunninghams locked him up in their closet, dead or alive, and never mentioned him again and failed to acknowledge his existance. Seems to be the most logical explaination why Marion would request more closet space in a certain episode.

Remember the episode where Richie has fantasies of being a rebellious, troubled youth. He reads books on psychology and goes to a psychotherapist and talks about being the "middle child."

He felt like he was an unloved middle child. So maybe he underwent massive hypnosis/brainwashing and electroshock therapy, and the rest of the family kept Chuck a secret. Chuck had moved out by then anyways.

1. Actually, he was mentioned through the second season. Fonzie was becomming such a popular character, they thought he could serve as the bigger-brother type person for Richie thus eliminating the need for Chuck.

2. I'm not really sure why Gavan O'Herlihy didn't stick around after the first season. Maybe he realized the role of Chuck was going to be phased out and didn't want to wait for the end.

will likely be told on the upcoming 30th Anniversary Special. I believe Chuck was basically written off after the first few episodes as it became apparent he was not needed. Wasn't the story that he went off to college? Maybe they discovered that he was gay and they did not want to talk about him. LOL

Maybe Ron Howard was a firstborn in real life and the character just fit his personality. So the only way they could make him one on the show was to just act like he never had an older brother.

It worked well with him being a firstborn, but I liked his acting so much that I would have liked to have seen him portrayed as the middle child in more shows. He did a good job with whatever script he was given.

I heard that Chuck moved to Mongolia, but I doubt if it had any basketball teams.

I'm telling you: Fonzie killed him so he could take his place as Richie's "older brother." That's essentially what he became. Now, whether or not the Cunninghams actually know this is a point of grave dispute, no pun intended.

It's possible they do know, because Howard makes reference to "both" of his kids being married in the final episode. Why would Howard say this unless he had something to hide? Or maybe he was in denial?

Or maybe Chuck went into the witness protection program and the family never spoke of him again so as not to endanger his life???:confused:

interesting synopsis of Chuck at: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1456469

Chuck Cunningham
(person) by Timeshredder Sat Apr 26 2003 at 14:41:26

The Cunninghams, the focal family of the popular 70's sitcom Happy Days, consisted of father Howard, mother Marion, and three children: Joanie, Richie, and Chuck.

Garry Marshall created the first draft of this show in 1971, and called it New Family in Town. He felt nostalgic for his own youth in the 1950's, and he believed that a nation wearied by the changing times and the war in Vietnam would enjoy the return to a supposedly simpler time. The plot involved teenager Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard), his girlfriend Arlene (Tanis Montgomery), and events surrounding the Cunningham family's purchase of their first television set. Ric Carrott played Richie's older brother, Chuck.

The network executives rejected the show. The pilot episode of New Family ran in 1972 as an episode of Love, American Style, the popular 1970's anthology series, under the title "Love and the Happy Days." It would likely have been forgotten had George Lucas not created the next summer movie mega-hit with American Graffiti, a nostalgia film set in 1962 and featuring Ron Howard. Suddenly, every television network wanted a 1950's nostalgia series, especially one with American Grafitti's All-American Boy star.

After some retooling, Happy Days premiered in January, 1974. Gavan O'Herlihy and Randy Roberts both played Chuck. I find it amusing that a character nobody remembers was played by three different actors.

After two seasons as a rather low-key, somewhat realistic family comedy, Marshall significantly revised the show into a wisecrack-a-minute sitcom with a live studio audience and increasingly fewer references to the actual events and culture of the 1950s. Fonzie, the soft-spoken and slightly scary hood with a heart of gold became a cool, if somewhat preachy loudmouth, and he moved in with the Cunningham family.

No one on the show ever mentioned Chuck again. Even much of the show's youthful audience genuinely forgot him, as surely as kids in the 1990's failed to remember that Geri Haliwell had called herself Sexy Spice before becoming Ginger Spice.

Chuck is a famous example of a retcon in television. In the final episode of Happy Days the Cunninghams parents mention their two children, Richie and Joanie. Chuck Cunningham retroactively never existed.

Notes: Scenes from the New Family... pilot appear as flashback sequences in a first-season episode of Happy Days.

Portions of this article appear at The Retcon Files, created by the author. see the Retcon Files at www.geocities.com/utherworld for further details and sources.

I believe it was explained in the third season that Howard actually ate Chuck. Then UpChucked and ate the other Chuck.

So to keep Howard out of jail the family and of course "The Fonz" had to live a lie.

I believe it was explained in the third season that Howard actually ate Chuck. Then UpChucked and ate the other Chuck.

So to keep Howard out of jail the family and of course "The Fonz" had to live a lie.



Maybe Chuck was arrested and the family decided to deny him forever