Happy Days - The Third Season
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Actor: Henry Winkler, Ron HowardBrand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Restored
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 540 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Happy Days - The Third Season
DVD Review: Our dinner sundaes are yummy!
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, we still contend with amazingly flimsy DVD cases (as if the technology just came out!). But the 24 episode 1975-1976 season is the closest I've gotten to once again seeing a cherished series in its full glory, including yes, the original music performances by Anson Williams himself.
Continuing with the `consciousness raising' he himself had began last season with an intended marriage; Fonzie voluntarily agrees to enter a dance contest with Marion ("Dance Contest"). The multiple references to Marion being bored and then having an affair to break up the routine of her daily life allude to the 1970's displaced homemaker's movement. We do not know if she has picked up and flipped through Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" or other books. But we do know that things are not as ideal as were mythologized in more traditional 1950's sitcoms!
Fonzie himself assumes a prominent role during this season---moving into the apartment right above the Cunningham garage to maximize screen time to the greatest extent possible. The original plan was to have his Grandmother Nussbaum take the room, initially so the Cunninghams would compensate for lost revenue against a newly opened local outpost of a national mega-chain ("Fonzie Moves In"). It was threatening the viability of Cunningham Hardware.
But she could not make the move and ethics problems prevented the mega chain from expanding in Wisconsin. So the accommodation was for him to become their apartment tenant. Their impromptu arrangement also makes it convenient for the Fonz to now appear at the Cunningham household to quickly dispense advice--or save the day. Fonzie quickly went from a bit part to attracting near thunderous cheers from the now live audience. Richie was excited about getting essentially a new big brother. Chuck is gone, never to be referenced again!
But Howard was anxious about the arrangement. He realized that Fonize's moving in required some adjustment on everybody's part during this first year--including Fonzie. This Howard Cunningham is one of the knowledgeable fathers who you could feel good about turning to in a crisis. He's obviously not a fuddy-duddy himself either.
The person who is a fuddy-duddy is Officer Kirk (deliciously played by Ed Peck), making his first appearance in "Jailhouse Rock". Milwaukee is a big city, even by 1950's population standards. But for some reason, this police officer takes it upon himself to be the sole arbiter of morality. Out of everything which could and probally did happen, he was actually most threatened by teens being out after dark, so a curfew was enacted against them. Inadvertently getting tangled up in Kirk's world view of `law and order' Howard finally concedes that being the grand poobah of a lodge in a fascist society would not be worth anything.
Adding some drama to the television sitcom, Fonzie becomes an informant for Officer Kirk of all people! This and Henry Winkler lifting weights are the interesting parts of the episode. Contemporary police dramas and their watchers know that informants do not go back to their former group publically dressed out in police uniform--they instantly stick out like a sore thumb and the cover is blown! Still, I suppose it was the thought that mattered with this particular episode. The writers wanted to show that Fonzie had dramatic tension despite now being good. Hanging out with clean cut guys is not at all the same as always having been one.
He makes another valiant attempt when Herb sells the auto shop ("Fonzie the Salesman"). Since this career has essentially now been killed courtesy of the Internet, it definitely dates the series. In addition to being an anal retentive neat nick who apparently does not get the concept of `grease monkey', the new owner wants the Fonz to gasp--get a crew cut! He is moderately successful selling books door-to-door, meeting lonely women, but truthfully needs to work on cars. The episode is finally interesting because it's one of the few times in this series where the Fonz's hair is yes, uncombed!
And then people who Richie believed were `hip', decide to boycott a party just because there is an African American band player ("Fonzie's New Friend"). Apparently in Wisconsin, the mere mixing of races was considered that controversial in the 1950's. Again, retrospect provides subtle---but powerful sociopolitical critique in a supposedly apolitical sitcom about a theoretically innocent era. Fonzie is a very well connected guy for the era; not only is he friends with different races, but he is then able to hook Sticks up with an African American woman, also suggesting that he knew women of other races.
But with this new idolization also comes new responsibility ("Tell it to the Marines"). Fonzie learns that the comments which he makes now get taken very seriously by the people around him. After a girl breaks up with him, a despondent Ralph decides to join the military, after Fonz unwittingly talked him into it. Living with people and being part of a crowd has a cost! While it's possible that the military would provide a growth experience for Ralph, going through life not accountable for the power which his words had over other people would also have made the Fonz (and his real life counterpart) the worst kind of role model imaginable. An ego-manaic celebrity!
And then "Bringing Up Spike" confirms he can't pawn off HIS responsibilities on other people even when he is frustrated and does not know what to immediately do. This season is good yes, because it shows Fonzie as flawed and immediately relatable to audiences. He is not a superhero who just happens to wear a leather jacket.
One of the clumsy examples of working in 70's inferences was "Richie Fights Back". Attempting to initially address the off-screen phenomena's both of Fonzie-mania and Asian American awareness, it did not adequately explain the latter. It would have perhaps been more in line with the times to explain why `Matsuo Takahashi' had really Americanized his name to 'Arnold' during that era. Sure, the kids accept him as long as he keeps serving up their food, but what additional barriers was he facing?
The second anniversary show is included and I guess this is technically an extra, as it was with the series. The filming of this season looks to be carried out in good quality. The accurate title credits are used and the original music is included. Some people claim that portions of episodes were removed, but I honestly cannot tell the difference. I really want there to be a fourth season.
Description of Happy Days - The Third Season
HAPPY DAYS:THIRD SEASON - DVD MovieThe 1975-76 season of the highly successful Happy Days is largely defined by the placement of the Fonz (Henry Winkler) in even closer proximity to the Cunningham family--making him, tacitly and literally, a member of best friend Richie?s household. When Fonzie's grandmother moves into the ultra-cool, womanizing biker?s apartment, he takes a room over the Cunningham?s garage, making Richie (Ron Howard), his mom Marion (Marion Ross), and sister Joanie (Erin Moran) happy, but leaving cantankerous-but-lovable dad Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) something more than ambivalent. While several episodes deal with one or another conflict between strong-willed Fonzie and stubborn Howard--at one point, the two sue each other over a roof that collapses from the weight of Fonzie's pigeon coop--life otherwise lurches along for Richie and his gang. In "The Other Richie Cunningham," Richie tries an end run around his dad's expectation that he take a business associate's daughter out for a date. Enlisting pal Potsie (Anson Williams) to pretend to be Richie, the Howdy Doody-faced teen finds the plan backfiring when Potsie proves to be less than a gentleman to the unfortunate girl. "Jailhouse Rock" finds Richie and Howard sharing a jail cell after protesting an arbitrary curfew by police on teens, while "Tell It to the Marines" concerns a desperate attempt by Ralph (Donny Most) to earn respect by threatening to join military service. Not surprisingly, however, most of Happy Days: The Third Season follows the exploits of Fonzie as he constantly lives up to the reputation that inevitably precedes him. The two-part "Fearless Fonzarelli" begins with the Fonz so worried he's losing his cool that he agrees to jump 14 garbage cans on his motorcycle for a television show--and ends up with a serious leg injury. "Fonzie the Superstar" is a popular episode in which the Fonz agrees to substitute for Potsie as vocalist in Richie's band, then freezes up with stage fright on the night of a show at Arnold's. (Winkler's performance on "Heartbreak Hotel," while not exactly singing, is so charged with energy one can tell the actor was probably breaking through his own inhibitions during the scene.) "Bringing Up Spike" focuses on Fonzie's first encounter with child-rearing when his visiting, little delinquent cousin gets into a jam with the law.
Happy Days: The Third Season is definitely a peak in the show's lengthy history, just before the series took a turn for the silly (or sillier). This was the year Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Shirley (Cindy Williams) were introduced to the world on Happy Days (before landing their own spin-off series). And armchair TV historians will take note how sexist the show could be while it simultaneously takes a minor stab at American racism in "Fonzie's New Friend" (in which the Fonz shows up with an African-American pal to play drums in Richie's band, and gets a hostile reaction from whites in the community). --Tom Keogh
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