January 1974. ABC flipped on a new sitcom set in the 1950s, banking on the idea that viewers would enjoy looking back. They were right, though it took a little while for the rest of America to catch on.
That show was Happy Days. And fifty years later, it still feels like home.
A Slow Start, Then a Rocket Ship
The first season was solid but not spectacular. Happy Days finished at number 16 in the ratings, according to the Orange County Register. Decent, but nothing to write home about.
Season two got harder. CBS scheduled Good Times directly against it, and the numbers dropped. ABC was ready to cancel the whole thing.
Then producer Garry Marshall made a call. He put Henry Winkler’s leather-jacketed Fonz front and center, and everything changed. The show shot to number 11 in the 1975-76 season, then all the way to number 1 the following year.
That is one of the great turnaround stories in television history.
A Beloved Show to the Very End
The ratings eventually drifted back down over the later seasons, as they do. By the time Happy Days aired its finale on May 8, 1984, the show was sitting at number 63 in the ratings.
But rankings do not tell the whole story. Movieweb has since named Happy Days one of the 20 Greatest TV Shows of the 1970s, alongside classics like M*A*S*H, Columbo, Three’s Company, Mork & Mindy, The Incredible Hulk, and Welcome Back Kotter.
As Movieweb put it, the show’s sharp humor and stellar cast helped it stand above its era. It also gave the language a brand-new phrase: “jumping the shark,” born the moment the Fonz literally jumped over one on water skis.
Five Spinoffs: Yes, Five
When a show is that popular, the universe expands. Happy Days launched no fewer than five spinoff series.
- Blansky’s Beauties starred Nancy Walker as Nancy Blansky, cousin to Tom Bosley’s Howard Cunningham, managing an apartment building full of Las Vegas showgirls. It lasted one season but introduced Scott Baio, Lynda Goodfriend, and Eddie Mekka, who went on to play Carmine “The Big Ragu” Ragusa on Laverne & Shirley.
- Laverne & Shirley came about after Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams appeared in three Happy Days episodes and audiences loved them so much that ABC built a whole show around them.
- Out of the Blue grew from a guest appearance by Jimmy Brogan as an angel named Ransom, sent to keep Chachi from selling his soul to the devil.
- Joanie Loves Chachi followed Scott Baio and Erin Moran’s characters to Chicago, where they set out to start a rock band.
- Mork & Mindy launched after Robin Williams appeared in a 1978 episode called “My Favorite Orkan” and stole every scene he was in.
Five spinoffs. One working-class family in Milwaukee. And a greaser in a leather jacket who somehow became one of the most iconic characters in television history.
Not bad for a show ABC almost canceled in year two.
