8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Happy Days’
Happy Days was one of the most successful sitcoms of the 20th century — the ’50s-set family comedy ran for 11 seasons, yielded seven spin-offs, jumpstarted the careers of Robin Williams and Henry Winkler, and helped set the stage for Ron Howard to become one of the most important directors of our lifetime. But even if you’ve seen all 255 (!) episodes, you might not know all of these fun facts about the Milwaukee-set TV classic.
1There is a Fonz statue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
In 2008, this bronze sculpture of Winkler’s famous greaser character — which is 5’6″ tall, like the actor himself — appeared on Milwaukee’s RiverWalk. Though the sculpture seems quite simple, it was not erected without controversy.
A local art gallery owner, Mike Brenner, led community opposition to the statue, which was originally supposed to be placed at a busy downtown intersection. Brenner referred to it as the “stupid Fonzie sculpture” and promised to close his gallery and try to leave town if the statue went up where it was originally intended. Brenner received death threats, but the statue was moved, and dedicated in 2008 with an event that included Winkler, Marion Ross, Tom Bosley and other Happy Days stars.
The other controversy? The statue … doesn’t look that much like Fonzie. But celebrity statues that don’t look anything like the actual celebrity they depict is a fairly common problem.
2It helped Ron Howard avoid Vietnam
Paramount / Courtesy: Everett Collection
Though his 40-plus-year run as the Academy, Emmy and Golden Globe-winning director behind beloved films from Splash to Backdraft to Apollo 13 to A Beautiful Mind is his greatest legacy, Howard got his start in the entertainment industry playing all-American boys on TV, first as Opie on The Andy Griffith Show in the ’60s, and then as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days in his early twenties.
But his decision to accept the role of Richie wasn’t just because Howard liked the character. As he told the Washington Post in 1984,”The war was still going on and I had a lousy number. But I had read somewhere that if your job could be directly related to the employment of 30 or more people, that would be a deferment. I thought, ‘If this series goes, I bet you could get that deferment.'”
3Howard never directed an episode of the show
© Paramount / Courtesy: Everett Collection
Howard already had plans to become a director before joining Happy Days — he actually left the film directing program at the University of Southern California to join the series. You’d think the show would have provided him with an easy opportunity to get his directing career started — after all, many actor/ directors including Jason Bateman, John Krasinski and Happy Days alum Penny Marshall got their start directing episodes of their own shows.
But Howard wasn’t interested. In a 1977 Associated Press interview done to promote his directing debut, a low-budget film called Grand Theft Auto, Howard explained his reasoning:
“1. My relationship with the others in the cast. I was not established as a leader, and I knew it would be awkward for me to tell Tom Bosley how to play a scene. 2. Jerry Parris was directing most of our shows, and I had advocated a single director for the series. 3. I had little to gain. Richard Thomas had directed shows on The Waltons and it didn’t help him as a director. Even if your work is good, nobody notices much. And if your directing is not so good, it can hurt you when you try to do features.”
Howard directed a number of small films and made-for-TV movies while working on Happy Days, had his first real success with the 1982 Michael Keaton/ Henry Winkler film Night Shift, and hit the big leagues in 1984 with the Tom Hanks/ Darryl Hannah blockbuster Splash.
4Winkler only rode Fonzie’s bike one time … and crashed it
Paramount/Courtesy: Everett Collection
Despite his iconic motorcycle-riding character, Winkler was actually terrified of motorcycles. And he had good reason for that fear! As he revealed on The Jennifer Hudson Show in 2023, early on in the show’s production, they were shooting a scene that required Winkler to rev a motorcycle and drive it forward just about five feet. But Winkler, confused by the bike’s controls, accidentally sent it shooting forward, nearly mowing down the show’s director of photography in the process.
“He leapt out of the way,” Winkler remembered. “I put the bike down. We slid under the truck on the soundstage, and they came running. Everybody was, like, in a panic that the bike was fine because it was rented. And then they [said], ‘How about you? Are you okay?'”
After that, Winkler was understandably scared to ride a motorcycle again; his future riding scenes were generally filmed with the bike attached to a platform pulled by a truck.
5The show almost had a different title
Mindas/TV Guide/ABC/Courtesy Everett Collection
Creator Garry Marshall had originally wanted to call the show Cool, because he thought it evoked the ’50s rock ‘n’ roll vibe that the show celebrated. However, as Marshall told the Guardian in 2015, that didn’t go over so well: “I wanted the show to be called COOL, but test audiences thought it a brand of cigarette, so my producer said: ‘How about Happy Days? That’s what we’re going to show.'”
The show’s title was also a reference to the song “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
6The Fonz was almost played by a Monkee
Jack Knox/Getty Images
Winkler was one of the last actors to audition for the role of Fonzie. When he got the callback after his first audition, he was taken aback to learn the other contender for the role was former Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz. According to Dolenz, Winkler admitted to him that he assumed he wouldn’t get it after learning he was up against a Monkee.
7John Lennon once paid a visit to the Happy Days set
John’s son, Julian Lennon, was apparently a huge fan of the show, so his dad decided to bring him over to meet the cast in 1975. Anson Williams, who played Potsie, recalled that Lennon was “genuine and kind, and truly shy,” but he did sign autographs for various crew members. Winkler also recalled Lennon being shy; he struggled to make conversation with him until he brought up “Mother,” the provocative song on Lennon’s Imagine album, which the singer was excited to discuss.
8Winkler did not actually “jump the shark”
Winkler was very good at waterskiing, which is how the famous “jump the shark” episode happened — after he mentioned his hidden talent to Marshall, it got written into the show. Because of this, Winkler did all his own water-skiing on one of the show’s most infamous episodes — except for literally jumping the shark.
“I did all the waterskiing for the jump, except for the jump,” Winkler recalled. “They wouldn’t let me do stunts. Not only that, but I didn’t know how to jump! I knew how to waterski, but I didn’t know how to jump like they do in the show.”
Though the moment was considered so silly that “jump the shark” came to mean the moment a TV show went off the rails, Winkler remains proud of his involvement — he even parodied the moment on the Ron Howard-produced 2000s sitcom Arrested Development (which also featured former Happy Days star Scott Baio).
As Winkler told Yahoo, “I am one of the only actors in the world who has jumped the shark twice.”
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