SEVENTIES SITCOMS: 1975-1976 THE GOOD OL' HAPPY DAYS -CHUCKLES ARRIVES

[TMC]

http://boomerbust-scooter63.blogspot...6-good-ol.html

It is interesting to note that halfway through this decade, the years that represented the pushing of envelopes--the stretching of boundaries in thematic elements and presentation of same--that the most popular sitcoms would involve a trip to the good ol' days. With Americans celebrating the Bicentennial, a celebratory theme in some returning sitcoms, looking back with fondness would become the nation’s pastime in the aftermath of political turmoil and confusion.

HAPPY DAYS AGAIN

In the sixties Gary Marshall was a writer on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” with his partner Jerry Belson. With lots of television and some feature film work under his belt by 1970 he brought Neil Simon’s “Odd Couple” to prime time in 1970. Even with the critical acclaim generated by this show, Marshall helmed a few undistinguished efforts before providing American audiences with the pleasures of living in the past with the Cunninghams and their “Happy Days.” After a season and a half of mediocre ratings, ABC had enough confidence in this series to renew for a third season, adding a studio audience to the mix. With a new writing team and a three camera setup, the series morphed from a gentle (yet ribald) view of fifties life to a “buddy” comedy featuring a straight-laced overachiever and his slightly darker protector: the Fonz.



With the feature film “American Grafitti” still on the radar, the “greaser” culture being glorified in the Broadway hit “Grease,” and the rock and roll of the era being re-visited and re-imagined via the stylings of Sha Na Na, Marshall found the perfect time to recapture his childhood memories for current audience enjoyment. The single three-camera episode from the low-rated second season tested so well that ABC decided to play up the laughs and gags at the expense of the period design and thoughtfulness. As the series progressed and became a ratings champion, it depended on familiar character traits and interactions….the star power of nerdy actor Henry Winkler in his persona of the ultra-cool biker Arthur Fonzarelli in contrast to clean-cut “aw shucks” Richie created by Ron Howard (who at this point was a TV veteran from his days as Opie on “Andy Griffith Show”)--resulting in fantastical plot elements, leading to the infamous “Jump the Shark” scenario.

WORKING GIRLS



And with Marshall’s previous series “The Odd Couple” finally put out if it’s low-rated misery, he decided to use his sister and the Felix/Oscar set to create another apartment…this time 1950’s Milwaukee where the Cunninghams reside. A guest appearance on “Happy Days” by Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams (who starred with Ron Howard in “American Grafitti) as a pair of gum-chewing “floozies” on a date with Richie and the Fonz led immediately to the mid season series “Laverne and Shirley.” The two brewery workers would morph into, well, Felix and Oscar as William’s Shirley became more prudish and naive countering Marshall’s course and “experienced” Laverne. To this day, I never understood how this uninspired spin off setup, with the forced 50’s setting, could become such a ratings hit. As the writing and gags were, for the most part, pedestrian and sometimes childish, I can imagine audiences were yearning more for the long-ago Lucy and Ethel antics more than the sophisticated Oscar and Felix shenanigans.

Perhaps as modern audiences were alienated by reruns of Donna Reed, "Father Knows Best" and the Beav in a cynical world experiencing overt violence and permissiveness post-sixties it became cathartic to celebrate the darker elements of those halcyon black and white days--by adding the womanizing hood prone to violence or the not-so-chaste life-hardened single gals--and to do it in what is still a relatively family-friendly environment compared to the wild west of Lear's world or the 4077th.

Marshall teamed up with Thomas Miller and Edward Milkis to form this new production company. No longer working as much with Belson, Jerry Paris (an actor on the Van Dyke series) became his new directorial collaborator. This new team, releasing through Paramount, would produce most of ABC’s three-camera output throughout the decade and (sans Marshall) on through the eighties. So while Norman Lear was pushing the envelope and MTM Productions (along with “M*A*S*H” and “Barney Miller”) was leading the way in the premium blend of wit and character, Marshall’s company became the third leg of the 70’s sitcom stool by shucking the class of “The Odd Couple” for the pop culture retro feel-good comedy that would usurp the social content and quality productions that groped it's way out of the sixties morass of brainless genre fare.

SWEATHOG FEVER

ABC would lead the way with sexy yet harmless sitcoms in the last half of the decade. Whereas the network recently had the Partridges and the Bradys for sitcom star power, they continued the trend of providing fodder for teen mags with Fonzie, Laverne and Shirley, and a new idol…Vinnie Barbarino. Also premiering this season was “Welcome Back, Kotter,” James Komack’s follow-up to “Chico and the Man.” Another stand up comic, Gabe Kaplan, played a joke-spouting educator returning to his tough Brooklyn alma mater, Walt Whitman High. His students were dominated by the Sweathogs, a motley crew of schoolyard thugs more reminiscent of the Marx Brothers than the “scared straight” variety of hoodlum. This was purposeful in order to “neuter” the dangerous stereotypes that could influence the youth of the 70’s. Kaplan as Gabe Kotter would open each show telling his wife, Julie, a joke in the best borscht-belt style. Then on to school to provide headaches for vice-principal Woodman and to reign in the chaos of the goofy Polish nerd Horschack (Ron Pallilo), the scheming half Puerto-Rican half Jewish Epstein (Robert Hegys), the charming African-American Washington (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and John Travolta as the dim-bulb Italian teen Lothario Vinnie Barbarino. It was obvious that all of these actors were way beyond the age of the characters. But it didn’t matter: the Sweathogs became a huge sensation, joining Fonzie in the remaking of the sitcom into the pop culture fanzine frenzy that ABC was always the best at nurturing.

A NEW BREED OF SITCOM REDHEAD

Not to be forgotten, Lear provided his own teen heartthrobs--although for the young male set--with “One Day at a Time” in December. Young divorcee Ann Romano breaks out for life on her own in Indianapolis with her two teenage daughters, Barbara and Julie. Lear co-created this series with sixties sitcom star Whitney Blake (“Hazel”) based on her experiences as a newly divorced mother. Mackenzie Phillips as Julie and Valerie Bertinelli as Barbara would join Jimmie “Dyno-Mite” Walker as CBS’s entry in the pop hero sweepstakes. “One Day" would become another long-running hit for Lear and CBS despite it's staginess (especially with Bonnie Franklin’s fresh from Broadway self-conscious acting), corny sex humor (courtesy of Pat Harrington’s nosy building super Schneider), and crisis of the week plotting. Multi-part episodes garnished with “drama” were quite frequent in this milieu.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:

Speaking of Lear, this was the season he introduced the world to “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”. A parody of daytime soap operas, this nightly serial covered every taboo topic that Lear had already covered and more. Louise Lasser as the Heidi-haired housewife, pathologically neurotic and concerned with “waxy yellow buildup” was less a glamorous soap caricature and more of a cautionary tale for depression and the dangers of suburban lower-middle-class stasis. The setting of Fernwood, Ohio was less urban and chic and more of a working-class den of middle-American archetypes--almost rural what with Mary Kay Place’s character, Loretta, being a country-western singer and Greg Mullavey's husband sporting a ball cap and dungarees. Extremely controversial, the show would rank up there with Archie Bunker and his clan in terms of shock and awe. I remember staying up late on weeknights to see what all the fuss was about. I noticed that the series, although videotaped, had the brightness of Lear’s other sitcoms rather than the gauzy hazy look of the daytime soap opera tapings. Populated by a bevy of actors from stage and screen that Lear had used and would continue to use in his series, the performances in “Mary Hartman” were a bit off in terms of timing and pacing. It was almost otherworldly. One could almost sense the pauses as the actor’s waited for a studio audience to intervene (there was none). Nonetheless, the show was ahead of it’s time, more languid and melancholic than “Soap” which would be coming up soon to shake up the scenery. Lasser’s tour-de-force nervous breakdown on national TV would attest to this. Plus the spin off talk show spoof “Fernwood 2-Nite” with Martin Mull and Fred Willard would predate show-biz satire perfected by the Second City players in a few years. “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” would continue on through the 1977-1978 season. Lasser would leave the show the 1978 season, leading to a new title “Forever Fernwood.” Also, “Fernwood 2-Nite,” MH’s summer replacement in 1977 would return on a national scale with “America 2-Nite” in early 1978 for a short run.

RATINGS WINNERS 1975-1976

11. Happy Days (ABC). Now that the series shifted to three cameras with a hyped-up studio audience, it relied much more on catch-phrases and cheap laughs. Although the writing was still relatively sharp, the plots started to show a certain desperation to please a youthful audience looking for familiar thrills rather than social relevance. So Fonzie moves into the Cunningham's garage apartment allowing him to have more interaction with " Mr. and Mrs. C". Richie, Potsie and Ralph Malph were the Three Stooges (involved in many schemes) to Fonzie’s wise sage James Dean. We finally meet Arnold (of the hangout “Arnolds”) in the form of moonlighting comic actor Pat Morita. We meet Officer Kirk, the stereotyped cop character to be the foil to Fonz and the boys and all of the good youth of fifties Milwaukee. Howard has a mid life crisis. Fonzie refuses to wear glasses. Joannie gets a crush on Potsie leading to the new term “Dren” (opposite of “Nerd”). Mr. C and Fonzie go to court over a damaged pigeon coop (yes, Fonzie keeps pigeons). Richie and Fonzie go out with Laverne and Shirley. Fonzie sells encyclopedias. Fonzie enters a dance contest with Mrs. C. We hear the words “Sit On It” for the first time. Fonzie can make the jukebox play by hitting it. And, inaccurately playing on the 70’s Evel Kneivel craze, Fonzie decides to perform a daredevil motorcycle jump over fourteen garbage cans on live 50's TV. Oh, and we already had a clip show this third season--made up mostly of clips from the first two laugh track seasons. There was an “important” episode dealing with racism when the boys hired the black drummer Sticks to be in their band. Oh, yes, the boys had a band. Of course. And the audience goes wild.