'Fonzie Meets Kat' Observations

[PracTz]

For those who think the show could do no wrong, skip this post!

True, this episode was created after the bulk of HD's glory days but it was frustrating to watch- mainly because one could see the Episode That Might Have Been amongst the action! This episode IMO was truly bad.

Here goes:
1. It starts out with the Fonz being rather complacent about life at Arnolds when Father Delvecchio walks in and tells him Rico's back in town with the fleet- imploring him not to fight him. Problems:A. It would have worked better had we seen the Fonz having sought the Padre's advice about fighting beforehand and then agreeing to this afterwards but essentially the Padre's just here to be a wetblanket.
B. Since Fonzie rarely has started fights but Rico evidently always has, why doesn't the Padre at least try to also seek also out Ricoto implore 'no fights' instead of dumping the whole burden on the Fonz?
C. Why doesn't the Fonz tell Rico about The Promise until WAY late.
2. Although the TV Tome claims that he and Rico had scrapped three years before, not only was this the only time the actor ever on HD but also, I could find no previous trace of the character. Perhaps, they editted it out for syndication but at least some dialogue explaining their abiding enemity would have helped!
3. When we first see Kat, we aren't sure whether she's going to be friend or foe but if her only purpose of coming to Arnold's was telling Fonzie that Rico was outside, her temporarily paralyzing Ralph's arms seemed totally unmotivated. A clumsy but harmless flirtation attempt just didn't merit her next move.
4. Why isn't it ever explained why this short,scrawny Rico is able to somehow command all these tough mariners? Did he have some blackmailing info on them?
5. Joanie gets stuck at the (never before/since seen) Pelican Bar after being taken there by this kid mariner Eddie- yet when she calls home for help (from an all-but-spelt-out implication of impending gang rape by Rico,etc), why does Richie feel the need to lie about her whereabouts from their parents? The WORST they could have done was call the cops, have them bail Joanie out of the Pelican, lecture then ground her for several months (which would be far preferrable to what Rico seemed to have in mind for her)! Inasmuch as the 'secondary story' only had to do with lame puns re Howard's poor bowling, it might have been better to have had them out of town when all this was happening so Richie couldn't have had them know about this -instead of lying and sending them out the door unaware of this threat to Joanie!
6. After leaving a note for Fonzie, Richie gets into the Pelican with Ralph and Potsie but, natch, these two prove totally lame and ineffectual and get overwhelmed by Rico's gang! While it's not hard to imagine marshmallow Potsie being overwhelmed (sorry Anson fans), it's never was satisfactorily explained why Ralph is supposed to be a cream puff. Donny Most actually seemed to have been physically powerful at this point (e.g. look at how HUGE they had to have Rebel E. Lee be to make it look believable for Ralph to lose to him in the boxing ring). Unless the villains were armed with sunlamps, it's actually more believable that he'd intimidate them instead of vice versa . This 'elephant scared of a mouse' schtick was an unresolved weakness of the whole HD series!
7. Fonzie shows up at the Pelican and is ready to battle for Joanie's wellbeing when. .. wetblanket Father Delvecchio shows up to remind him of the promise then leaves just as suddenly. If FD had to show up at all, why didn't Fonzie tell him of the Rico etc. about to break quite a few Commandments against Joanie? I'd like to think FD would have given him dispensation.
8. Kat is rather impressed by Fonzie's resolve in keeping a promise and 'jumps ship'. Yet, it's disturbing that , up to this point, she was willing to help Rico humiliate Fonzie and his friends, take over the Pelican then stand by and do zilch to keep Joanie from being gang-raped! This should have been addressed somehow!
I was hoping it would turn out that Kat had been an undercover FBI agent,spy, etc. who was just waiting for Rico to give himself enough rope to hang himself with but that didn't happen.
9. Once the 24 hours are up (just seconds, it seems after FD's appearance), Fonz unleashes himself, rescues Joanie and her ineffectual brother and friends! After Rico broke a stool with one hand, he outdid him by breaking one with one finger but this was done with everything so telegraphed and the stool so obviously a 'breakaway' stage prop that it was somewhat unsatisfactory. Then again, so was just about all this episode. Wait, one more!
10. Kat returns Joanie's purse to the Cunninghams and immediately Richie brags and blabs ad nauseum about how he's going to do a BIG story about her and then keeps imploring his inexplicably immobile parents to take three steps from the kitchen to meet her but by the time they finally make a move, Kat's gone! Now, this could have worked better if Richie just thanked Kat for all her help then asked her to wait a second to meet his folks (who were upstairs) but the way this was done, the audience had LONG since figured out that she'd have vamoosed ages before Howard and Marion finally met her.

I give this episode a D and only that much because I saw that it did have potential to have been much better than it was. .and also Kat's stage presence upped it a few more points than otherwise.

P.S. It might have been a funny tag at the end had Kat Mandu mentioned something about going to meet Bob Seeger!

[PracTz]

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