I used to watch 'Happy Days' in my early teen years when it first came on the air. In fact I think I'm the only person I know who remembered the actual pilot for Happy Days, which was a segment of the old ABC show called 'Love American Style'. So when I saw the episode titled "guess who's coming to Christmas" recently on a cable station, I was amazed that I had never seen it before. It's the one where the Cunninghams invite Fonzie over for Christmas, as Ritchie is sure that Fonz is alone for the holiday even though Fonz insists he's going out of town to be with relatives. This episode is a classic, one of the best from this series and instantly went on my top 5 Christmas episodes list.
This episode was from the first season and a half of Happy Days (it was a mid-season replacement show in January, 1974), when the show was filmed with one camera and a laugh track and had more of a movie-look to it, as opposed to taping in front of live audiences that started in its third season (this gave it that 'sitcom' look). Originally the show had been developed to capitalize on the success of the movie 'American Graffiti', which had also starred Ron Howard. After a couple seasons of mediocre ratings they decided to make Fonz more of a central character and turned him into a superstar icon. The show had immense success, but I think it lost a lot of its nostalgic realism and it got sillier and sillier through the years and at some point as I got older I gravitated to smarter, funnier shows like 'Mash' and 'Barney Miller'.
In this episode the Fonz is still much more human then he later became; at one point in this episode he fixes the Cunninghams car in the garage where he works. Later in the series they never seemed to show him working anymore; it was like he became too cool to be shown working. It's at the garage that Ritchie later sees Fonz heating up a can of ravioli and making a sandwich for his Christmas Eve meal and tries to talk his dad into inviting Fonz to their house for Christmas. They later go over to Fonzies apartment and get him to go with them to the Cunninghams. As they leave Fonz comes back in and slides the gift that Ritchie had brought him under his little table-top Christmas tree and smiles. A nice little touch that showed a sweet and sentimental side of the Fonz that was seldom seen in the series' later years.
The best Christmas episodes involve some touch of supreme humanity or kindness that captures the true spirit of the season and this one surely qualifies. At the end as they sit around the dinner table they ask Fonz to say the Christmas prayer and he looks uncomfortable for a minute and then bows his head and says "Hey God
Thanks", then he smiles. It's a nice, touching wrap-up. It's also a real good turn from a Fonzie that was, at the time, still more human than icon and a Cunningham family that seemed more like a real family from the 1950s.
My other four favorite Christmas episodes are: -Mash "Dear Dad" from 1972 (Hawkeye gets lowered from helicopter into combat zone dressed as Santa to work on wounded soldier), -The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 where they have the party in the jail house, -Twilight Zone "Night of the Meeks" from 1960 with Art Carney, and -The Honeymooner's Christmas episode from 1955 (..I think) when Ralph gives his famous Christmas monologue to his wife and then the whole cast comes out of character and gives a bow to the live audience
I like little glimpses into the early days of television. Simpler times, before they were polluting our minds with so much sex and violence.
I'll tell you what, script writing was much better in the older days too!
