History Series / HappyDays

** When Mork is sitting in the Cunningham living room watching TV, he tunes into ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'' in "My Favorite Orkan", commenting that he likes the character of Opie, who was played by Ron Howard--Richie's actor--when he went by the stage name of '''Ronny''' Howard. Mork questions why an earth boy has a Martian name.[[note]]There's also a bit of AnachronismStew here, as ''Happy Days'' is set in the '50s, while ''The Andy Griffith Show'' didn't premiere until 1961, which would have made Ron Howard less than five years old in the episode.[[/note]]

* RealSongThemeTune: A re-recorded version of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" was used for the first two seasons...
** ReplacedTheThemeTune: ... after which came a new recording of an [[TitleThemeTune eponymous]] ThematicThemeTune that had originally been used for the show's closing credits. This theme, performed by Pratt & [=McClain=], was issued as a single in 1976 and became a Top 5 ''Billboard'' hit...
*** RearrangeTheSong: ...and was later re-recorded by Bobby Arvon for the final season in 1983.

** In the episode in which Mork "spins on to pay for his spin-off", he reports to Orson about human relationship problems (the framing device for the clip show). At one point Orson remarks "So they are not all happy days." Mork responds that there were sad days too and mentions that humans tend to forget things like [=McCarthy=] and the Korean War.

* BreakingTheFourthWall:
** Done by Howard at the end of the final episode.

Later, Chachi (Scott Baio) was introduced to the cast as Fonz's Mini-Me cousin to [[YoungerAndHipper skew the fanbase a bit younger]]. By season eight (and one shark jump later), the show's timeframe had moved into the early '60s, Richie and Ralph had left to join the Army (with Ron Howard moving on to a very successful directing career), and focus shifted to Fonzie's townie friends; most notably Joanie and Chachi (who became a couple), followed by a slew of deeply unpopular replacements and newbies, none of whom had any lasting pop culture influence. ''HD'' finally ended after ten long years with a GrandFinale of epic proportions: Joanie and Chachi got married, and Howard spoke to the audience over a clip show of past events.

The early seasons were centered on squeaky-clean Richie, who constantly gets into trouble through circumstance, but is usually bailed out by either his parents or the super-cool Fonzie, a former street hoodlum (a pastiche of '50s greasers) who mentored Richie and his pals Ralph Malph (Don Most) and Potsie Weber (Anson Williams) whenever he could, while trying not to lose his tough-guy edge. Of course, later seasons would see Fonzie approach [[InvincibleHero Kryptonian-like status]] and increasingly be used to promote [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle social good]] -- a change made out of necessity by Winkler and the producers, who fretted over the hood's popularity with children.

The series started out as a [[ThatNostalgiaShow nostalgic look]] at '50s America, centered largely on [[ButtMonkey gee-whiz]] high school student Richie Cunningham (Creator/RonHoward) and his friends, family, and overall daily life in 1955 Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Said family included Richie's parents -- his father, hardware store owner and [[StandardFiftiesFather cardigan enthusiast]] Howard (Creator/TomBosley), and mother, housewife extraordinaire Marion (Marion Ross) -- plus his [[{{Tsundere}} sweet-and-sour]] little sister Joanie (Creator/ErinMoran) and, [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome initially]], his basketball-playing slacker older brother Chuck (Gavan O'Herlihy[[note]]in season one[[/note]] and Randolph Roberts[[note]]in season two[[/note]]). But the show ended up becoming incredibly popular for [[BreakoutCharacter being the home of]] Arthur "Fonzie/The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Creator/HenryWinkler), initially a soft-spoken {{Greaser Delinquent|s}} side character who eventually became the Cunninghams' boarder, an auto mechanic, ''the'' ladies' man, and more or less a descended god--in short, the epitome of '50s (and '70s) cool.

[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Happy-Days-Posters.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:305:Not pictured: {{Chuck Cunningham|Syndrome}}.[[note]]Clockwise from top: [[StandardFiftiesFather Howard]], [[TheDitz Potsie]], [[{{Housewife}} Marion]], [[NiceGuy Richie]], [[LittleMissSnarker Joanie]], [[ClassClown Ralph]], and... [[TheAce Fonzie]], ''ayyyy''.[[/note]]]]

A {{long runn|ers}}ing sitcom created by Creator/GarryMarshall in TheSeventies and based around [[TheFifties '50s nostalgia]], which aired for 11 seasons (1974–84) on Creator/{{ABC}}.

Fitting for a show which launched so many [[SpinOff spin-offs]], ''Happy Days'' actually originated as an episode of the GenreAnthology ''Series/LoveAmericanStyle'', but also drew both cast and conceptual elements from the movie ''Film/AmericanGraffiti''. It was something of a flop early on, but gradually became a ratings juggernaut and ended up having as big an impact on television as ''{{Series/Cheers}}'' or ''{{Series/Seinfeld}}''. Early episodes achieved a kind of brilliant, ''Series/FatherKnowsBest'' self-parody, but the show went way longer than it should have, and was ultimately the inspiration for the phrase JumpingTheShark.

The show started out as a nostalgic look at 1950s America, centered largely on [[ButtMonkey gee-whiz]] high school student Richie Cunningham (Creator/RonHoward) and his friends, family, and overall daily life in 1955 Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Said family included Richie's parents -- his father, hardware store owner and [[StandardFiftiesFather cardigan enthusiast]] Howard (Creator/TomBosley), and mother, housewife extraordinaire Marion (Marion Ross) -- plus his [[{{Tsundere}} sweet-and-sour]] little sister Joanie (Creator/ErinMoran) and, [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome initially]], his basketball-playing slacker older brother Chuck (Gavan O'Herlihy[[note]]in season one[[/note]] and Randolph Roberts[[note]]in season two[[/note]]). But the show ended up becoming incredibly popular for [[BreakoutCharacter being the home of]] Arthur "Fonzie/The Fonz" Fonzarelli (Creator/HenryWinkler), initially a soft-spoken greaser side character who eventually became the Cunninghams' boarder, an auto mechanic, ''the'' ladies man, and more or less a descended god -- in short, the epitome of '50s cool.

The early seasons were centered on squeaky-clean Richie who constantly gets into trouble through circumstance, but is usually bailed out by his parents or the super-cool Fonz. Fonzie was a former street hoodlum (a pastiche of '50s greasers) who mentored Richie and his pals Ralph Malph (Don Most) and Potsie Weber (Anson Williams) whenever he could, while trying not to lose his tough-guy edge. Of course, later seasons would see Fonzie approach [[InvincibleHero Kryptonian-like status]] and increasingly be used to promote [[AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle social good]] -- a change made out of necessity by Winkler and the producers, who fretted over the hood's popularity with children.

A {{long runn|ers}}ing Creator/{{ABC}} sitcom created by Creator/GarryMarshall in TheSeventies and based around [[TheFifties '50s nostalgia]].

* HaveAGayOldTime: Inverted in "The Best Man," where Fonzie refers to "Black people" and Richie corrects him, saying the politically correct term is "Negroes" -- which was true in TheFifties, despite its being the other way around in TheSeventies.

* GiftShake: In the Very Special ChristmasEpisode, Ritchie's BrotherChuck (who is going to college on a basketball scholarship) gets [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2j1Ror7ahQ#t=3m24s a round object covered in paper.]]
-->'''Joanie:''' Here's a present from Richie to you. What do you think it is? ''bounces it to Chuck''
-->'''Chuck:''' Hey, watch it. ''shakes'' It might be something breakable.

** While "sit on it!" was used almost OnceAnEpisode in the third and fourth seasons, the writers stopped using it midway through season 5.

** Chachi's "wa wa wa" was dropped as he grew into a young adult (and MrFanservice).

** Among other things, Fonzie successfully rode a killer bull, out-dueled a world champion fencer, fought a superpowered alien to a draw (though that may or may not have been AllJustADream) and, most famously, beat a champion water-skiier at JumpingTheShark.

* ActorAllusion: When Mork is sitting in the Cunningham living room watching TV, he tunes into ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'', commenting that he likes the character of Opie, who was played by Ron Howard--Richie's actor--when he went by the stage name of '''Ronny''' Howard. Mork questions why an earth boy has a Martian name.[[note]]There's also a bit of AnachronismStew here, as ''Happy Days'' is set in the '50s, while ''The Andy Griffith Show'' didn't premiere until 1961, which would have made Ron Howard less than six years old in the episode.[[/note]]

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: [[AvertedTrope And that someone is the Fonz!]] Aaay!

* Radio/BobAndRay: Appeared in the season 7 episode "Here Comes the Bride, Again".

* ContinuityDrift: In the season 1 episode "The Deadly Dares", Potsie mentions in passing that he had a sister. Later seasons say he's an only child.
** [[EditedForSyndication Syndicated reruns try to rectify this]] by rather awkwardly cutting out the mention of his sister from the episode.

* BreakoutCharacter: This trope used to be ''CALLED'' "The Fonzie", and Fonz remains the yardstick by which applicability of this trope to a character is measured. He went from an occasionally glimpsed greaser character to a centerpiece of the show thanks to his tough persona and catchphrases, to finally the ''main'' character of the show. The network even wanted to rename the show ''Fonzie's Happy Days'' in the later seasons, and only didn't because Creator/HenryWinkler objected -- he felt (probably correctly) that Ron Howard was the real star.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Happy-Days-Posters.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Not pictured: {{Chuck Cunningham|Syndrome}}.[[note]]Clockwise from top: [[StandardFiftiesFather Howard]], [[TheDitz Potsie]], [[{{Housewife}} Marion]], [[NiceGuy Richie]], [[LittleMissSnarker Joanie]], [[ClassClown Ralph]], and... [[TheAce Fonzie]], ''ayyyy''.[[/note]]]]

* AbsenteeActor: Anson Williams was absent in several episodes of the last three seasons, including the GrandFinale, because with Howard and Most gone from the show, the writers struggled to find things for Potsie to do.

** In "Fonzie's New Friend", Fonzie has a black friend but the teens and their parents (except Howard and Marion) are racist, so Fonzie has to teach them not to be racist.

* PrefersProperNames: Mrs. Cunningham always referred to Fonzie by his given name of Arthur. She was the only one to do so.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: Roger for Richie.

** K.C. ([[{{Series/Wings}} Crystal Bernard]]) vanished after the tenth season with no explanation.

* ShooOutTheNewGuy: Pinky Tuscadero and the band's "black drummer" "Sticks" were both hyped in promos as new characters, but neither appeared for more than an arc before disappearing. Pinky's sister "Leather" was a stand-in for Pinky (whose actress, Roz Kelly, apparently caused problems) but was again not common. Other examples include down-home hick cousin K.C. Cunningham (''Series/{{Wings}}'' Crystal Bernard) and Fonzie's temporary girlfriend and her [[Film/{{Poltergeist}} daughter]] for the second-to-last season.

* ShaggyDogStory: In "The Deadly Dares", Richie and Potsy want to join a gang, The Demonds, but first need to go through six deadly dares, which range from pulling typical pranks to doing embarrassing things (like go to a dance dressed as women and dance with men). After going through with all of those dares, Richie and Potsy decide they don't want to be members after all.