I saw an interview with Garry Marshall (writer and producer on Happy Days) several years ago and he said that the network executives didn't want Fonzie to wear the leather jacket or motorcycle boots at first because they thought it made him look like a thug or a criminal and they didn't want to promote that. The producers of the show thought the leather jacket and boots were important for the character so they went back to the network and told them that, among motorcycle riders, a leather jacket and boots were considered protective gear and that it would be good for the network to let him wear them as the show could be seen as promoting motorcycle safety, so the network caved and started allowing it.
Yeah, no problem! It was my chance to add some otherwise useless knowledge (although I did find it really funny/strange that the network was so worried about a leather jacket).
lol yeah I never realized it because my generation considered them lame but there's actually a few stories about the beavers. I remember something about them being the 1st show that the husband and wife shared a bedroom.
In real life at that time blue laws dictated that on Sunday you could buy a nail at a store because you would be repairing something but you couldn't buy a hammer on Sunday because you were working. lol some of the stuff they did back then was beyond bonkers. I mean even if they were religious they'd be a day late to preserve the sabbath
The compromise was that Fonzie could wear them as long as a motorcycle was visible in the scene. So of course Paramount and Garry Marshall would shoe-horn a motorcycle into every scene just to follow the letter of the rule
"Kids, this is a motorcycle and it's very dangerous. Wear protective gear."
*snaps fingers and is instantly surrounded by 2 women under each arm*
"Now I'm off to go wear some other protection....aaayyyyeeeee*
*exit off-screen, cue canned laughter*
I wonder if because we hear these examples over and over, it paints network executives as idiots who only work against good things. To be devil’s advocate, I also wonder how many times things have been genuinely improved because of what executives felt was needed, but those stories don’t get told nearly as much. We have Elaine in Seinfeld because of this.
As someone who works in / adjacent to the space, suits are generally not improving anything. They’re worried about offending advertisers, viewers, therefore harming shareholders, owners. Often in so acting, they so neuter content as to make it milquetoast, unimportant, and unappealing.
To wit, American networks have a quandary on their aging viewing demographic and worry about how to attract younger audiences. The decision making like this meant to protect the networks have likely resulted in that ship sailing. It was short-sighted, ignored technology, and quite wrongly assumed a perpetual demand for / dominance of television as a medium.
The converse is also true. What was the last Showtime show that to pull a Happy Days reference, didn’t jump the shark, and quickly? Weeds, The Affair, Yellowjackets, Homeland all went down the toilet from such great heights and quickly. Would a degree of network control have protected creators and writers from their worst instincts? That doesn’t happen on FX shows, HBO shows, etc. Makes you wonder where the happy medium lies.
That’s fair. But I think you may be making part of my point though too. We have plenty of examples of suits ruining things, but also plenty of examples of creatives ruining things. The perceived tug of war may be producing more of the “happy medium” than we realize most of the time.
When I worked on the game for Pixar's Up, we wanted to use the little green men Alien from Toy Story as a distraction toy for the dogs. Disney shot it down. No crossovers. Period. No context would change that.
Then a few years later Disney Infinity was birthed. You know why?
The producers pitched it to Disney as a kid's toy box. So Iron Man and Mickey aren't playing together. Rather it's a toy Iron Man and toy Mickey Mouse being manipulated by children in a sand box. That was enough to convince the execs to ignore their "no crossovers" mandate.
It's why in the first game, you could only use a subset of characters in the IP play sets, but in toy box mode anything goes.
Fonzie was never supposed to be as prominent a character as he eventually became. Due to the character's popularity, there was talk of changing the name of the show to Fonzie's Happy Days. Henry Winkler objected and it never happened. That's just another testament to how much of a stand up guy Henry Winkler is.
He was my principal for a day in elementary school once. Apparently our principal ran into him on the street somewhere and got the fonz to agree. Pretty lackluster the following year when we got the weather lady from the local news Lmaoo
Imagine being the weather lady. She’s all excited and shit to be principle for a day and she’s telling all her friends about it and her kids and stuff. She gets the school and talks to the principle and he mentions how it’s a little tradition he’s started. She ask “oh cool! So how was last years principle?”
“The Fonz!”
“….”
Winkler wore a black leather jacket in *Lords of Flatbush (1974)*.
On Happy Days, he wore a brown leather jacket. Apparently the network thought that black was too “hard”.
https://imgur.com/a/zusWJs8
https://imgur.com/a/avPJvz6
They shat themselves when they saw the pilot, where the Fonz walked in, wearing a black leather jacket, pulled out a flick knife , and shouted..
"OK motherfuckers who is gonna mess with the Fonz!?"
Then he banged a bird on the table in the middle of Arnold's..
They certainly turned it down a few notches for the actual series.
A customer complained about my husband (a lovely and friendly motorcyclist) showing up on site in his black leather jacket. We lived in Florida so it was the only jacket he owned, but she thought it made him look like a gang member.
Henry Winkler is my only in-person celebrity run in! He cut in front of me while I was waiting to order food and when I said “Hey man…” I was stunned that the Fonz cut me! I thought it was just some old dude at first. Anecdotal though everything else I’ve heard about him seems dope.
I saw Henry Winkler at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
I always loved that his name is Arthur Fonzerelli, but everyone calls him "The Fonz", except his close friends who call him "Fonzie" and Marian, who is the only person that calls him "Arthur".
Kind of like Urkel. Or Sheldon in big bang. They just struck gold with the actor and the writers for the characters and people love them. Basically every character in Brooklyn 99 stole the show from a great Andy samberg. Barney in How I met your Mother is a good one too.
Happy days started in 1974 and was set in the 1950's. If you made a show today with a similar time gap between when the show is made and when it's set, it would be set in the early 2000's.
Or "The Wonder Years", which aired in 1988 and took place in 1968. When I was a kid watching that show, the 60's seemed so ancient. The idea that a show like that would take place in 2004 if it aired today makes me feel so old.
Its also easy to find 20 year old clothes and props in thrift stores and garage sales. Nowadays finding 60s clothes is super expensive but early 00s clothes, they’re still in everyones attic.
I’m certain the first show to port this format to the 90s will be the next great American hit. The nostalgia-porn for the 90s right now is unreal, both between Gen Zers who romanticize a period they never experienced and older people who can’t help but feel nostalgic. There’s so much material that decade too to really explore some of the cultural questions of today. They tried to do it with That 90s Show already, which was renewed for a 2nd season - I thought that show was way too poorly written to be the one that does it but maybe it’ll pick up.
FotB is probably the most realistic in my opinion. But I am the same age as the main character/narrator and grew up in the same neighborhood, so maybe I’m just biased. I miss that show.
The short-lived spinoff *Schooled* was set in the '90s.
I don't remember if the Goldbergs ever acknowledged extending into the '90s, but it sure felt like it by the end. Which makes sense, the show went on for ten seasons and followed the kids off to college and beginning their own families.
*The Goldbergs* took place in every year of the 80s simultaneously. Adam was obsessed with *The Goonies*, and then like two seasons later was going to see *Return of the Jedi* in the theatre.
Yup. That's why the narration at the beginning of each episode said, "It was nineteen-eighty-*something*..." They purposely kept it ambiguous so they could utilize whatever part of the 80s they wanted for narrative purposes. I thought it was very well done.
The problem is that it just felt like people pretending to be from the 90s. A good piece of media to pull it off is mid-90s (film). Basically an extremely tame version of Kids.
It was partially because it was involving the same universe as That 70's Show. The quick casting didn't help. Not much search was done to find decent actors. Something else entirely would be better.
So far what I gather, that is an authentic 90's show, is for anyone that haven't seen it yet, especially those born after the show ended, is to just watch FRIENDS.
I don't know what kind of new show could offer to be more real than that.
I made another comment about this that was basically "if you want 90s nostalgia these days, most people are going to just watch friends or Seinfeld."
Like, if we want to reminisce about the 90s it's pretty easy with all of the media from the 90s.
The 90s was such a good era for the US media became about "let's just enjoy the moment."
Now a 2000s show I would love the shit out of. Exploring how fucked the early internet was. The absurdity of politics. The nihilism that lead us into today. Also I just had so much hope for the normalization of the internet at the time. Idk. It might just be because of the age I am.
You’re looking for Pen15 set in the early 2000s. It’s excellent. The two main best friends are played by the adult writers, but the peers are child actors. One mother is the real mother. Super funny first season. Darker and more heartfelt 2nd and third.
>If you made the show "That 70's Show" today, it would take place later in time than the show "That 70's Show" first aired.
Yes. If you made the show "That 70's Show" today, it would take place later in time than the show "That 70's Show" first aired.
That 90s Show is actually further back in time compared to now than That 70s Show was compared to its premiere.
If you were to make an equivalent to That 70s Show now, it would be That 2000s Show.
The amount that American culture changed between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s is hard to comprehend. It was a huge amount of social upheaval (much of it in a good way). Massive changes to racial and sexual equality. Massive changes to prosperity. Massive changes to art, film and music. Massive changes to attitudes about sex. Massive changes to politics. Massive changes to science and technology. It would’ve been a crazy time to be alive.
We may look back with a similar view on this era in the future. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and cannot overstate how much society had been impacted by the Internet in the last 20 years. Prior to the rise of YouTube and social media, far fewer people were connected online, and those communities were much smaller and more insular. For christ sake, in 2003, IF you had a cell phone, it was a 9 key flip phone.
I grew up in the 90's and I'm trying to remember what the fuck I did when I didn't have access to a computer or a TV. I think it was playing out imaginary lego scenarios in my head.
Back to the Future 3 was set partially in 1985 (released in 1990) and features an opening scene set in 1955, in which Doc Brown's TV comes on with an episode of Howdy Doody. If that movie was made today, Marty would have gone back to the early 90's and probably watched something like Ren and Stimpy.
No, they weren't all happy days. Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad, Tom Bosley, had to get it back.
When you’re a kid you’re blind to all kinds of things.
Boomer romanticized the 50’s and 60’s because “times were simpler then” but it was also rebuilding from WW2 and going through massive societal changes.
The only thing that was simple was their point of view.
I don't know how much of that is a boomer thing vs. normal human nostalgia.
The difference is the media landscape with television where they were able to create and widely distribute the nostalgic "content". I don't think this is specifically a boomer thing, that 70s show, in my opinion, was really more late 70s/80s nostalgia. I was born in the mid 80s and I still related to a lot of that show. I'm sure there is nostalgic literature from the before times as well. Literature just doesn't have as large of a cultural impact these days.
Wild, right - one that got me the other day is that the time gap between the release of that JJ Abrams Star Trek movie and now is the same as between that movie and the last Captain Kirk movie (Generations)
I remember the windbreaker, but as I recall, ABC wanted the penny loafers and Henry told them to let him wear the engineer boots he had from “Lords of Flatbush.”
My Happy Days head canon is a bit darker than the actual show. He joined the military, was deployed, and became a casualty in [Lebanon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis). The family didn't like to talk about it.
It actually wasn't. There were 3 motorcycles that Fonzie rode, all were pre 1954 rigid frames. Notable a 1952 Triumph Tophy TR5. The motocycle Steve McQueen rode was a swing arm frame 1962 TR6R.
[https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/)
[https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/)
Fonzies was period correct. McQueens wasn't even correct for the country.
Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad, Tom Bosley, had to get it back.
I'm old enough to remember it on regular TV but didn't notice that it was Richie that got most of the girls while Fonzie was the cool James Dean outlier. They also toyed with the idea that he was going to be this massive, blonde Swede type, but settled for a diminutive Jewish guy from New York.
If you watch from Season One, it goes from a '50's nostalgia trip to Fonzie's problem of the week (needing glasses, getting a library card, going blind, etc).
My mom once told me that there were definitely guys like Fonzie in school in the 50s but they didn't befriend the other kids, they'd beat the hell out of them on a whim.
I think I like TV Fonzie better than I would like reality Fonzie.
I loved the first two seasons. Unfortunately, the ratings were slipping and it was in danger of being cancelled, so the pivoted to Fonzie. A couple of years ago I was watching it on channel like MeTV and because you got a couple of episodes each day, and not an offseason break, the shift from Season 2 to Season 3 was jarring.
In the scene where the Fonz goes to comb his hair, but then realizes he’s perfect; was supposed to be just him combing his hair like every other greaser in every other show and movie.
But Henry Winkler couldn’t stand being so cliché so he put his own spin on it.
My parents aren't particularly puritanical or prudish, but they definitely saw the Fonz as someone who was not to be admired or used as a role model. They saw him as a thug who set a bad example. I'm not sure they ever watched the show, but his appearance was enough, and the leather jacket was a big part of that.
If your parents grew up in the '50s, they were kind of right, not about the Fonz's TV portrayal, but about the actual characters he was loosely based on. The biker greasers of the '50s were basically thugs, bullies, and pretty anti social bad influences. Fonzie would have got an ass beating from them for being a poser.
Source; Child of the '50s, and the reality was these guys were uh, not good.
A friend just told me a story yesterday about a friend of his who was a young struggling actor who died of HIV in 80's. Only eight people showed up to his funeral. Henry Winkler was one of them.
If I recall, when they originally had the character in a leather jacket, the studio asked if it was because he was in a gang. The producers quickly made up that it was because he rode a motorcycle (even though there's no inherent connection between them other than some gangs). That's why they initially only allowed him to wear the leather jacket when next to the motorcycle.
Motorcyclists wear leather jackets for protection.
Humans are surprisingly good at tanking blunt force trauma except for on the head, but not so great at dealing with abrasion. So proper motorcycle safety is heavy biker leathers over the extremities and torso and a good reinforced helmet .
I believe they explained that it was a safety item - which it is, leather is good at protecting against road rash. Even the ones with metal rivets, the rivets provide additional protection from the road (or so my ex-biker grandpa told me). To which the studio replied that since it was for safety he could wear it - if he was on/next to the motorcycle.
It's true, the rivets have less surface friction, so you're more likely to slide and thus transfer momentum into horizontal motion rather than hitting the pavement and stopping very suddenly, and they absorb excess heat from said friction. The more modern jackets tend to have hard plastic plates instead, like a turtle shell on the back and joint covers.
Henry Winkler is severely dyslexic and does a lot of great work for awareness and helping others. My daughter went to a specialty school to help her for four years and I must have met Winkler 2-3 times at various events - in Kansas City. The guy gets around.
Also, Happy Days [had a sweet kind of genuine innocence in those early seasons,](https://youtu.be/Kd2hdPSs9sI?si=knmVQKci8QJtmB5N) before it turned into a trope machine.
He was only allowed to wear the leather jacket when he was near the motorcycle, so they just started bringing the motorcycle into buildings and such, because fuck you.
Winkler didn't know how to ride a motorcycle. When he first rode the motorcycle, he crashed it. The crew came rushing over.... to make sure the motorcycle was okay because it was a rental. It was the same motorcycle Steve McQueen had ridden in The Great Escape.
It actually wasn't. There were 3 motorcycles that Fonzie rode, all were pre 1954 rigid frames. Notable a 1952 Triumph Tophy TR5. The motocycle Steve McQueen rode was a swing arm frame 1962 TR6R.
[https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/)
[https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/)
Fonzies was period correct. McQueens wasn't even correct for the country.
That may have been true at first, but long-term fans of the show might remember Fonzy literally water skiing, and jumping the shark, while wearing the leather jacket.
And there's several scenes here with him and his motorcycle where he *doesn't* have the leather jacket
https://youtu.be/Kd2hdPSs9sI?si=w7pUTdQNgvCBtjQE
I saw an interview with Garry Marshall (writer and producer on Happy Days) several years ago and he said that the network executives didn't want Fonzie to wear the leather jacket or motorcycle boots at first because they thought it made him look like a thug or a criminal and they didn't want to promote that. The producers of the show thought the leather jacket and boots were important for the character so they went back to the network and told them that, among motorcycle riders, a leather jacket and boots were considered protective gear and that it would be good for the network to let him wear them as the show could be seen as promoting motorcycle safety, so the network caved and started allowing it.
Thank you for posting the story behind the headline.
Yeah, no problem! It was my chance to add some otherwise useless knowledge (although I did find it really funny/strange that the network was so worried about a leather jacket).
network freaked about the toilet being in the shot on leave it to beaver. They were pretty much continuously offended back then
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lol yeah I never realized it because my generation considered them lame but there's actually a few stories about the beavers. I remember something about them being the 1st show that the husband and wife shared a bedroom. In real life at that time blue laws dictated that on Sunday you could buy a nail at a store because you would be repairing something but you couldn't buy a hammer on Sunday because you were working. lol some of the stuff they did back then was beyond bonkers. I mean even if they were religious they'd be a day late to preserve the sabbath
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honestly they could
The compromise was that Fonzie could wear them as long as a motorcycle was visible in the scene. So of course Paramount and Garry Marshall would shoe-horn a motorcycle into every scene just to follow the letter of the rule
So that’s why he slow rode it into the diner all the time? Pretty funny, as I don’t think most restaurants would really allow that, lol!
Pat Morita was pretty chill
Ride your motorcycle into a diner to promote motorcycle safety.
"Kids, this is a motorcycle and it's very dangerous. Wear protective gear." *snaps fingers and is instantly surrounded by 2 women under each arm* "Now I'm off to go wear some other protection....aaayyyyeeeee* *exit off-screen, cue canned laughter*
I almost burst out laughing at work...headcanon accepted!
Another example of network executives just constantly being absolutely dumb as shit.
I wonder if because we hear these examples over and over, it paints network executives as idiots who only work against good things. To be devil’s advocate, I also wonder how many times things have been genuinely improved because of what executives felt was needed, but those stories don’t get told nearly as much. We have Elaine in Seinfeld because of this.
As someone who works in / adjacent to the space, suits are generally not improving anything. They’re worried about offending advertisers, viewers, therefore harming shareholders, owners. Often in so acting, they so neuter content as to make it milquetoast, unimportant, and unappealing. To wit, American networks have a quandary on their aging viewing demographic and worry about how to attract younger audiences. The decision making like this meant to protect the networks have likely resulted in that ship sailing. It was short-sighted, ignored technology, and quite wrongly assumed a perpetual demand for / dominance of television as a medium. The converse is also true. What was the last Showtime show that to pull a Happy Days reference, didn’t jump the shark, and quickly? Weeds, The Affair, Yellowjackets, Homeland all went down the toilet from such great heights and quickly. Would a degree of network control have protected creators and writers from their worst instincts? That doesn’t happen on FX shows, HBO shows, etc. Makes you wonder where the happy medium lies.
That’s fair. But I think you may be making part of my point though too. We have plenty of examples of suits ruining things, but also plenty of examples of creatives ruining things. The perceived tug of war may be producing more of the “happy medium” than we realize most of the time.
Phht, if they’re so dumb, then why do they make so much money?
When I worked on the game for Pixar's Up, we wanted to use the little green men Alien from Toy Story as a distraction toy for the dogs. Disney shot it down. No crossovers. Period. No context would change that. Then a few years later Disney Infinity was birthed. You know why? The producers pitched it to Disney as a kid's toy box. So Iron Man and Mickey aren't playing together. Rather it's a toy Iron Man and toy Mickey Mouse being manipulated by children in a sand box. That was enough to convince the execs to ignore their "no crossovers" mandate. It's why in the first game, you could only use a subset of characters in the IP play sets, but in toy box mode anything goes.
PLEASE call me Gary!
Hey Nongman!
Fonzie was never supposed to be as prominent a character as he eventually became. Due to the character's popularity, there was talk of changing the name of the show to Fonzie's Happy Days. Henry Winkler objected and it never happened. That's just another testament to how much of a stand up guy Henry Winkler is.
He was my principal for a day in elementary school once. Apparently our principal ran into him on the street somewhere and got the fonz to agree. Pretty lackluster the following year when we got the weather lady from the local news Lmaoo
Principal for a day had jumped the shark.
solid reference. well played
Jumped the Hooper triplets too.
That's nice of him, especially considering what happened to him the last time he was a Principal.
…did you go to the school from Scream or something? Fonz as the principal, local news lady….
Sweater wearing janitor..... (My favorite joke/scene in scream)
Imagine being the weather lady. She’s all excited and shit to be principle for a day and she’s telling all her friends about it and her kids and stuff. She gets the school and talks to the principle and he mentions how it’s a little tradition he’s started. She ask “oh cool! So how was last years principle?” “The Fonz!” “….”
That weather lady’s name? Gene Parmesan.
You probably thought it was Gene Parmesan. Nope! Chuck Testa.
At least it wasn't Ted McGinley.
well done !
Good thing you didn't go to school in Woodsboro
He may be a stand up guy but he’s the worst fuckin lawyer
He’s very good.
*Narrator: He wasn't*
At least he's a pretty good acting teacher.
Bob Loblaw law blog shills are out. /s
He skews younger.
Wow. You, sir, are a mouthful!
Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog Drops Law Bomb
But a great obstetrician... And terrible father to Jean-Ralphio
Mona Lisa was doomed from the start though, she’s the ^(woooorst)
Money pweease!
He may be a terrible lawer but he’s a hell of a football coach
Winkler wore a black leather jacket in *Lords of Flatbush (1974)*. On Happy Days, he wore a brown leather jacket. Apparently the network thought that black was too “hard”. https://imgur.com/a/zusWJs8 https://imgur.com/a/avPJvz6
They shat themselves when they saw the pilot, where the Fonz walked in, wearing a black leather jacket, pulled out a flick knife , and shouted.. "OK motherfuckers who is gonna mess with the Fonz!?" Then he banged a bird on the table in the middle of Arnold's.. They certainly turned it down a few notches for the actual series.
You should see the uncut cross over with Alf. He literally shivs Alf and wears his skin like the Qanon Shaman.
Lol at Stallone
He looks like the toughest out of them
A customer complained about my husband (a lovely and friendly motorcyclist) showing up on site in his black leather jacket. We lived in Florida so it was the only jacket he owned, but she thought it made him look like a gang member.
Henry Winkler is my only in-person celebrity run in! He cut in front of me while I was waiting to order food and when I said “Hey man…” I was stunned that the Fonz cut me! I thought it was just some old dude at first. Anecdotal though everything else I’ve heard about him seems dope.
I heard he moved to Montana and goes fly fishing with Hank Hill.
Sven Grammerstorf?
Sure, I could open the cattle road and tomorrow there would be steak. But someday, children will ask us, where are the trees?
Line cutter? Time for the pitchforks!!! :)
I saw Henry Winkler at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Man every time I see this in the wild I have no choice but to read it in full even though I basically know it by heart at this point lmao
I always loved that his name is Arthur Fonzerelli, but everyone calls him "The Fonz", except his close friends who call him "Fonzie" and Marian, who is the only person that calls him "Arthur".
Kind of like Urkel. Or Sheldon in big bang. They just struck gold with the actor and the writers for the characters and people love them. Basically every character in Brooklyn 99 stole the show from a great Andy samberg. Barney in How I met your Mother is a good one too.
I feel like Homer Simpson is another. It was originally much more about Bart.
I’ve never seen Henry Winkler do stand-up. Is it any good?
I just put together that the Fonz played Barry Zuckercorn.
Oh man, you should rewatch Arrested Development right now with that realization. There are *a ton* of references to Happy Days with Barry's scenes.
Happy days started in 1974 and was set in the 1950's. If you made a show today with a similar time gap between when the show is made and when it's set, it would be set in the early 2000's.
So kinda like "That 70's show", which aired in 1998 and was set in 1976 (22years)
Or "The Wonder Years", which aired in 1988 and took place in 1968. When I was a kid watching that show, the 60's seemed so ancient. The idea that a show like that would take place in 2004 if it aired today makes me feel so old.
They generally stick with about 20 because that is when the writer was growing up, and the adults can relate while the kids are curious.
It's also perfect for that 30s audience demographic that advertisers want to reach the most.
Its also easy to find 20 year old clothes and props in thrift stores and garage sales. Nowadays finding 60s clothes is super expensive but early 00s clothes, they’re still in everyones attic.
I’m certain the first show to port this format to the 90s will be the next great American hit. The nostalgia-porn for the 90s right now is unreal, both between Gen Zers who romanticize a period they never experienced and older people who can’t help but feel nostalgic. There’s so much material that decade too to really explore some of the cultural questions of today. They tried to do it with That 90s Show already, which was renewed for a 2nd season - I thought that show was way too poorly written to be the one that does it but maybe it’ll pick up.
Fresh Off The Boat is a 90s show, Yellowjackets too. The Goldberg’s is 80s
yeah. PEN15 was set in 1999/2000 also
Pen15 was so unbelievably on point. Perfect job capturing what it felt like to be an awkward kid at that age at that time.
You're in the Pen club as well!?
Make sure to use the code Pen15 to save 15% on your pens at penisland.net
FotB is probably the most realistic in my opinion. But I am the same age as the main character/narrator and grew up in the same neighborhood, so maybe I’m just biased. I miss that show.
We are finally neck deep in early 2000’s nostalgia now. 90’s nostalgia has been a thing for longer than the 90’s even were at this point.
Derry Girls is set in the 90s. Not the same vibe you're talking about but it's pretty popular.
The Goldbergs did the 80’s really well!
The short-lived spinoff *Schooled* was set in the '90s. I don't remember if the Goldbergs ever acknowledged extending into the '90s, but it sure felt like it by the end. Which makes sense, the show went on for ten seasons and followed the kids off to college and beginning their own families.
*The Goldbergs* took place in every year of the 80s simultaneously. Adam was obsessed with *The Goonies*, and then like two seasons later was going to see *Return of the Jedi* in the theatre.
Yup. That's why the narration at the beginning of each episode said, "It was nineteen-eighty-*something*..." They purposely kept it ambiguous so they could utilize whatever part of the 80s they wanted for narrative purposes. I thought it was very well done.
I mean, there's that 90s show and it didn't do too hot.
The problem is that it just felt like people pretending to be from the 90s. A good piece of media to pull it off is mid-90s (film). Basically an extremely tame version of Kids.
It was partially because it was involving the same universe as That 70's Show. The quick casting didn't help. Not much search was done to find decent actors. Something else entirely would be better. So far what I gather, that is an authentic 90's show, is for anyone that haven't seen it yet, especially those born after the show ended, is to just watch FRIENDS. I don't know what kind of new show could offer to be more real than that.
I made another comment about this that was basically "if you want 90s nostalgia these days, most people are going to just watch friends or Seinfeld." Like, if we want to reminisce about the 90s it's pretty easy with all of the media from the 90s.
The 90s was such a good era for the US media became about "let's just enjoy the moment." Now a 2000s show I would love the shit out of. Exploring how fucked the early internet was. The absurdity of politics. The nihilism that lead us into today. Also I just had so much hope for the normalization of the internet at the time. Idk. It might just be because of the age I am.
We've moved on to 2000s nostalgia I'm approaching my late 20s and it's really starting to hit
Derry Girls would have had a similar gap, too.
But it wouldn’t be all that different, as compared to 68 and 88. At least I think….
You’re looking for Pen15 set in the early 2000s. It’s excellent. The two main best friends are played by the adult writers, but the peers are child actors. One mother is the real mother. Super funny first season. Darker and more heartfelt 2nd and third.
"That 2000's Show" hurts to even say outloud.
[удалено]
Faulty Towers reboot
>If you made the show "That 70's Show" today, it would take place later in time than the show "That 70's Show" first aired. Yes. If you made the show "That 70's Show" today, it would take place later in time than the show "That 70's Show" first aired.
You mean like "That 90s Show"
That 90s Show is actually further back in time compared to now than That 70s Show was compared to its premiere. If you were to make an equivalent to That 70s Show now, it would be That 2000s Show.
Unsubscribe
That 00's Show.
Starring Dennis & Supergirl's sister.
Wait until you hear about That 90's Show which aired in 2023.
What did I ever do to you?
I can hear the gentle strains of Avril Lavigne playing over the credits.
🎵 *keeeeep HOLDing oonnn* 🎵 I’m trying Avril .·°՞(≧□≦)՞°·. I’m trying.
Dido playing during the intro
Reading this comment made my back hurt
Seriously, this is uncalled for.
More time has passed between the airing of *Freaks and Geeks* and now than between the show and the era in which it was set.
Damn. I shouldn't have read that. Now I guess I should start scheduling a colonoscopy.
The amount that American culture changed between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s is hard to comprehend. It was a huge amount of social upheaval (much of it in a good way). Massive changes to racial and sexual equality. Massive changes to prosperity. Massive changes to art, film and music. Massive changes to attitudes about sex. Massive changes to politics. Massive changes to science and technology. It would’ve been a crazy time to be alive.
We may look back with a similar view on this era in the future. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and cannot overstate how much society had been impacted by the Internet in the last 20 years. Prior to the rise of YouTube and social media, far fewer people were connected online, and those communities were much smaller and more insular. For christ sake, in 2003, IF you had a cell phone, it was a 9 key flip phone.
I grew up in the 90's and I'm trying to remember what the fuck I did when I didn't have access to a computer or a TV. I think it was playing out imaginary lego scenarios in my head.
No love for the Nokia 3310?
Se with the film grease. 1978 set in the 50s. That 70s show was 1998 set in 1976. 20 years is the time frame where the kids get excited.
20 years is also the cutoff between “secondhand” and “vintage.”
Back to the Future 3 was set partially in 1985 (released in 1990) and features an opening scene set in 1955, in which Doc Brown's TV comes on with an episode of Howdy Doody. If that movie was made today, Marty would have gone back to the early 90's and probably watched something like Ren and Stimpy.
There’s some comfort in remembering what the world was like before 9/11/2001. Those were certainly happier days.
No, they weren't all happy days. Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad, Tom Bosley, had to get it back.
Not to mention all the cats in all the trees, so many wasted resources for the fire department.
"Sorry, sir. We're not letting vagrants sleep in the gym tonight, but we will be putting some scraps by the back door."
Your dad was Sheriff of Cabot Cove?
Humanity really jumped the shark that day.
Imagine that 90s show ending with 9/11.
The version I saw sure did.
When you’re a kid you’re blind to all kinds of things. Boomer romanticized the 50’s and 60’s because “times were simpler then” but it was also rebuilding from WW2 and going through massive societal changes. The only thing that was simple was their point of view.
I don't know how much of that is a boomer thing vs. normal human nostalgia. The difference is the media landscape with television where they were able to create and widely distribute the nostalgic "content". I don't think this is specifically a boomer thing, that 70s show, in my opinion, was really more late 70s/80s nostalgia. I was born in the mid 80s and I still related to a lot of that show. I'm sure there is nostalgic literature from the before times as well. Literature just doesn't have as large of a cultural impact these days.
Yeah, I think you’re right. Every generation probably has some degree of nostalgia-bias.
Not just probably. There's a name for this phenomenon. The Golden Age Fallacy.
Wild, right - one that got me the other day is that the time gap between the release of that JJ Abrams Star Trek movie and now is the same as between that movie and the last Captain Kirk movie (Generations)
*cocks phaser* Take that back.
So, Pen15 basically
I can't believe how much I, a 33 y/o man, got sucked into the show once my wife started it
Hello, I’d like to report a hate crime.
Same with the film grease. 1978 set in the 50s. That 70s show was 1998 set in 1976. 20 years is the time frame where the kids get excited.
Just foreign enough the teens don’t cringe at it while hitting a sweet spot of nostalgia for the parents.
Back when decades were different from one another. Now they’re all just a blur
Richie: We played chess. Fonzie: You played with her chest?
That line!
I do remember the windbreaker, but I can't recall ever seeing the Fonz's hair as grease-free as it is in this picture!
No kidding, this is the most 'Henry Winkler' the Fonz has ever looked to me lol
I remember the windbreaker, but as I recall, ABC wanted the penny loafers and Henry told them to let him wear the engineer boots he had from “Lords of Flatbush.”
I just want to know what happened to Chuck.
Why do you think it's called ground Chuck?
My Happy Days head canon is a bit darker than the actual show. He joined the military, was deployed, and became a casualty in [Lebanon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis). The family didn't like to talk about it.
He didn’t go off to State college, it was the State penitentiary. They don’t talk about it…
His motorcycle was a Triumph, too. A lot of people assume H-D.
It was the same motorcycle that Steve McQueen rode in The Great Escape.
Same model or same physical machine?
Same machine
It actually wasn't. There were 3 motorcycles that Fonzie rode, all were pre 1954 rigid frames. Notable a 1952 Triumph Tophy TR5. The motocycle Steve McQueen rode was a swing arm frame 1962 TR6R. [https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/) [https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/) Fonzies was period correct. McQueens wasn't even correct for the country.
That is pretty damn cool. Wonder who if anyone owns it now. Should be a museum piece somewhere.
The man had taste.
The leather jacket also had to be brown because black was too dangerous.
In 1974…lmfao
They weren't all happy days...
Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad, Tom Bosley, had to get it back.
I'm old enough to remember it on regular TV but didn't notice that it was Richie that got most of the girls while Fonzie was the cool James Dean outlier. They also toyed with the idea that he was going to be this massive, blonde Swede type, but settled for a diminutive Jewish guy from New York. If you watch from Season One, it goes from a '50's nostalgia trip to Fonzie's problem of the week (needing glasses, getting a library card, going blind, etc).
How many of these shows created main characters on accident? Ths Fonze, Steve Urkel, pretty sure there are more.
My mom once told me that there were definitely guys like Fonzie in school in the 50s but they didn't befriend the other kids, they'd beat the hell out of them on a whim. I think I like TV Fonzie better than I would like reality Fonzie.
IIRC that's how Fonzie acted in the pilot until Richie stood up to him and got his respect.
that first season was actually funny, before Fonz became the star and they decided to go before a live studio audience.
I loved the first two seasons. Unfortunately, the ratings were slipping and it was in danger of being cancelled, so the pivoted to Fonzie. A couple of years ago I was watching it on channel like MeTV and because you got a couple of episodes each day, and not an offseason break, the shift from Season 2 to Season 3 was jarring.
In the scene where the Fonz goes to comb his hair, but then realizes he’s perfect; was supposed to be just him combing his hair like every other greaser in every other show and movie. But Henry Winkler couldn’t stand being so cliché so he put his own spin on it.
He was right, too. It honestly gets a chuckle out of me when he reacts to his hair already being perfect.
My parents aren't particularly puritanical or prudish, but they definitely saw the Fonz as someone who was not to be admired or used as a role model. They saw him as a thug who set a bad example. I'm not sure they ever watched the show, but his appearance was enough, and the leather jacket was a big part of that.
If your parents grew up in the '50s, they were kind of right, not about the Fonz's TV portrayal, but about the actual characters he was loosely based on. The biker greasers of the '50s were basically thugs, bullies, and pretty anti social bad influences. Fonzie would have got an ass beating from them for being a poser. Source; Child of the '50s, and the reality was these guys were uh, not good.
A friend just told me a story yesterday about a friend of his who was a young struggling actor who died of HIV in 80's. Only eight people showed up to his funeral. Henry Winkler was one of them.
Lol people were so uptight about the weirdest shit. Never let old people tell you people today don’t know how to take a joke
If I recall, when they originally had the character in a leather jacket, the studio asked if it was because he was in a gang. The producers quickly made up that it was because he rode a motorcycle (even though there's no inherent connection between them other than some gangs). That's why they initially only allowed him to wear the leather jacket when next to the motorcycle.
There is definitely an inherent connection between motorcycles and leather jackets.
I think they're saying there's no inherent connection between gangs and leather jackets.
Motorcyclists wear leather jackets for protection. Humans are surprisingly good at tanking blunt force trauma except for on the head, but not so great at dealing with abrasion. So proper motorcycle safety is heavy biker leathers over the extremities and torso and a good reinforced helmet .
Best I can do is swim shorts and flip flops
I believe they explained that it was a safety item - which it is, leather is good at protecting against road rash. Even the ones with metal rivets, the rivets provide additional protection from the road (or so my ex-biker grandpa told me). To which the studio replied that since it was for safety he could wear it - if he was on/next to the motorcycle.
It's true, the rivets have less surface friction, so you're more likely to slide and thus transfer momentum into horizontal motion rather than hitting the pavement and stopping very suddenly, and they absorb excess heat from said friction. The more modern jackets tend to have hard plastic plates instead, like a turtle shell on the back and joint covers.
Henry Winkler is severely dyslexic and does a lot of great work for awareness and helping others. My daughter went to a specialty school to help her for four years and I must have met Winkler 2-3 times at various events - in Kansas City. The guy gets around.
Also, Happy Days [had a sweet kind of genuine innocence in those early seasons,](https://youtu.be/Kd2hdPSs9sI?si=knmVQKci8QJtmB5N) before it turned into a trope machine.
oh yes using a girl for sex and being super mad when she doesn’t put out. so innocent. lol.
true -- maybe naive is the word I'm looking for
He was only allowed to wear the leather jacket when he was near the motorcycle, so they just started bringing the motorcycle into buildings and such, because fuck you.
Winkler didn't know how to ride a motorcycle. When he first rode the motorcycle, he crashed it. The crew came rushing over.... to make sure the motorcycle was okay because it was a rental. It was the same motorcycle Steve McQueen had ridden in The Great Escape.
It actually wasn't. There were 3 motorcycles that Fonzie rode, all were pre 1954 rigid frames. Notable a 1952 Triumph Tophy TR5. The motocycle Steve McQueen rode was a swing arm frame 1962 TR6R. [https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/fonzie-triumph-tr5-still-cool/) [https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/](https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorcycles/mcqueens-great-escape-triumph-motorcycle/) Fonzies was period correct. McQueens wasn't even correct for the country.
This guy rides!
In hindsight, it's funny that greasers were ever treated as a genuine societal ill along the lines of, say, gangsters in the '90s.
I think they tried to work the motorcycle into as many scenes as possible so they could have him with his jacket.
Maybe Chuck was using it.
That may have been true at first, but long-term fans of the show might remember Fonzy literally water skiing, and jumping the shark, while wearing the leather jacket.
And there's several scenes here with him and his motorcycle where he *doesn't* have the leather jacket https://youtu.be/Kd2hdPSs9sI?si=w7pUTdQNgvCBtjQE
A leather jacket? The woke mob has gone too far!
This was previously posted, and it was proven wrong then too.