When Happy Days premiered in 1974, viewers might have thought it was going to be the television version of the 1973 hit movie American Graffiti by George Lucas. After all, M*A*S*H came to the small screen in 1972 from the feature film of 1970. Happy Days had the same focus on cars and rock and roll from the 1950s that Graffiti did, and it even starred Ron Howard, who played one of
Graffiti's central characters. In many ways, the show was the small-screen Graffiti, despite taking place some six years earlier, during the height of the Eisenhauer administration.The good news was that Happy Days, for the first few years at least, performed admirably. It presented a view of life in 1950s America that was nostalgic for some, albeit not the snapshot in time that Graffiti was of Lucas' California teenage years. Howard played Richie Cunningham, and served at the audience's focus. As he gathered life experience in the show, viewers saw events through his eyes. With his friends Ralph and Potsie and his family (father Howard, mother Marion and sister Joannie), Richie's life was the center of the universe for the show. As time went on, a minor character named Fonzie gained popularity and became the show's star, but in the first two seasons at least, Fonzie was still a supporting character used to give Richie's life more diversity. Howard's Graffiti co-star Cindy Williams (in photo, above) even guest-starred on the show and went on to be one of the leads in the spin-off Laverne & Shirley.
Season 2 is among the show's finest years. There's still an innocence and a novelty to the show that it would lose in later years (such as the infamous "jumping of the shark" event that has gained a cultural significance all it's own). In the 1974-1975 season (which seems to take place in 1955-1956), Richie finds out what it's like to live on his own, have his first car, participate in the ROTC and work for a presidenital campaign. (Unlike his father - who is a Republican supporting Eisenhauer's re-election - Richie supports Democrat Adlai Stevenson. Appropriately enough, in the little-seen sequel More American Graffiti (1979), Howard's character is involved in a 1960s campus protest. )With all the good humor, good stories and good performances in it, it's a shame to report that Happy Days Season 2 is a disappointment on DVD, at least in its presentation.
First, many of the shows have been edited for music (music rights being the biggest hurdle - and cost - for studios) and second, the transfers lack the clarity and sharpness of the show's contemporaries. It just seems that CBS/Paramount didn't put a whole lot of effort into this release, which is truly a shame since the show is a cultural landmark and this is one of its finest collections of episodes.The studio has set up a bad situation for fans, which is truly a no-win scenario. If fans don't buy Season 2, the studio will conclude that further releases aren't warranted. If fans do buy it, the studio will conclude that securing music rights and using the best transfers aren't necessary to make a sale, and fans will face future lackluster releases. What does one do if they want to see their favorite show continue on DVD but in better quality?
Well, for one thing, they can support the releases of programs that are done right, like HBO's recent release of Get Smart, Image Entertainment's definitive Twilight Zone collections, or Disney's releases for Lost. Beyond that, the choice becomes whether to see the show continue with releases like Season 2 of Happy Days, or choose to remember the show in its glory, not with muddy transfers and music substitutions.Still, Happy Days Season 2 contains a fun program that was operating at the top of its game. Despite this set's problems, fans of the show could do worse than these 23 episodes and the nostalgic, funny portrait it paints of an important decade in American history.
More info: Happy Days: Welcome To Arnold's
