History Series / HappyDays

* SickEpisode: Zig-Zagged. Fonzie and Pinky Tuscadero were injured in Fearless Fonzarelli and Fonzie Loves Pinky respectively, but they weren't sick. The Cunningham Caper has Richie after he was sick but he's recovered. Averted for Fonzie as he said once "I ain't been sick a day in my life".

* BackForTheFinale: Richie, Lori Beth, Al, and Jenny Piccalo. Surprisingly, Ralph fails to return, although the explanation given for his absence is that he went back to college (mentioned in "Welcome Home, Part 1").

* Part two of the series finale "Passages" acts as this, featuring Father Anthony Delvecchio performing the marriage ceremony of Joanie and Chachi.

** Jenny Piccalo, Joanie's "bad influence", more "experienced" friend who was often mentioned in passing at the dinner table (along with "you don't hang out with that Jenny Piccalo!"). She was this for many years, before suddenly emerging as a major character after the ReTool. It was revealed that the man-hungry girl was [[GoodBadGirl more talk than action]].

* ReTool: After Richie and Ralph left, the show was re-tooled to fit Fonzie as the main character and feature a primarily teenage supporting cast, with Joanie, Chachi, former TheUnseen Jenny Piccalo, and Eugene or Melvin Belvin.
** Really, that was the ''second'' ReTool. The first came in season 3, when the show went from a single-camera production with LaughTrack to a three-camera, StudioAudience setup (with a concurrent shift to a broader, more cartoonish style of comedy).
** And then it was {{Re Tool}}ed yet ''again'' when Joanie and Chachi left for their own failed spin-off to focus on Fonzie's new long-term relationship, K.C. Cunningham, and Roger's nephew, nearly all of which was swept under the rug for the final season when Joanie and Chachi returned.

* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: ''All'' of the spinoff shows, basically, were introduced with one of these.

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]] [[TheOtherDarrin 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.

%%* TheHerosBirthday: "The Second Anniversary Show", "The Sixth Sense", "Hi-Yo Fonzie, Away!" all focused on his birthday.

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, in its own way, as big of an impact on U.S. television as ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' or ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''.

* UnscrewedSaltShaker: The prank is seen played in an early episode at Arnold's by Ralph Malph on some random extra. Ralph found this hilarious. Less than two minutes later Ralph is eating and starts to shake some salt and gets a pile himself, presumably courtesy the same guy.

* DemotedToComicRelief Potsie was originally Richie's best friend and second lead, with most of the stories focusing on them [[ZanyScheme getting into trouble]] together. When [[BreakoutCharacter Fonzie]] took over as Richie's co-lead, Potsie TookALevelInDumbass and was paired with the existing comic relief character, Ralph Malph, as a ThoseTwoGuys duo.

* GiftShake: In the Very Special ChristmasEpisode, Richie'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 bounces it over to him, which Chuck admonishes her for since it might be fragile... before giving it a good shake himself.
-->'''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.

-->'''Howard:''' ..I shall now determine a punishment that is judicious, reasonable and fair.
-->''GilliganCut to:''
-->'''Richie:''' "Grounded for life"?!

* TheAce: Fonzie turned into this around season 4, when the increasingly outlandish plots required him to be the best in the world at things that would have been impossible for any human, let alone a high school dropout mechanic.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: One ChristmasEpisode sees Howard putting an actual one of these up at the household, as they're presently the special at Cunningham Hardware.
-->'''Richie:''' [[DeadpanSnarker I'll tell you one thing, we're gonna save a lot on tinsel.]]

* NamesTheSame: In-universe; In the final seasons, Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli meets his half-brother, Arthur 'Artie' Fonzarelli.
** "Great Expectations" was the title of two different episodes, in seasons 1 and 9.

* AccidentalAlias: Arnold's real name is Matsuo Takahashi, but he goes by "Arnold" because when he bought the restaruant it was already named Arnold's.
* AccidentalAthlete: The Cunninghams are at a rodeo when Joanie, who is riding a horse, gets out into the performance arena. She then does an amazing job of trick riding, sliding on and off the horse, moving around the saddle and finally ends up back at the entrance. After finishing, she is asked where she learned to trick-ride like that. She admits she was scared to death, since in reality, she had slipped out of the saddle and was just trying desperately to get back to a normal riding position while the horse was in full gallop.

* AnimatedAdaptation: ''WesternAnimation/TheFonzAndTheHappyDaysGang'', a Saturday morning Creator/HannaBarbera show that sent Fonzie, Richie, and Ralph aboard a [[RecycledINSPACE combination spaceship/time machine]] with a teenage girl from the future and Fonzie's GratuitousAnimalSidekick. One could say that they really went up to eleven with the Shark Jumping here. (Around the same time, spin-off programs ''Series/LaverneAndShirley'' and ''Series/MorkAndMindy'' went through a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverne_%26_Shirley_in_the_Army similar]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_%26_Mindy/Laverne_%26_Shirley/Fonz_Hour phase]].)

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. Fonzie became so popular that when ratings were soft after two years, the show was [[{{Retool}} Retooled]] around the character: Fonzie became a co-lead with Richie, and the producers brought in a StudioAudience to cheer and applaud for the Fonz.

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. Fonzie became so popular that when ratings were soft after two years, the show was [[{{Retool}} Retooled]] around the character: Fonzie became the Cunninghams' boarder and a co-lead with Richie, and the producers brought in a StudioAudience to cheer and applaud for the Fonz.

** 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, while also teaching Richie about the dangers of PositiveDiscrimination.

* {{Corpsing}}: Noticeably after the switch to a StudioAudience in the third season, some of the regular cast members seemed to be having a tough time holding in their laughter or keeping a straight face when the audience erupted, most notably Henry Winkler, Fonzie himself.
* {{Costumer}}
* TheCouch: Some scenes show the Cunninghams sitting on their couch together.
* CowboyEpisode: There was a dude ranch episode.

* AnimatedAdaptation: ''WesternAnimation/TheFonzAndTheHappyDaysGang'', a Saturday morning Creator/HannaBarbera show that sent Fonzie, Richie, and Ralph aboard a [[RecycledINSPACE combination spaceship/time machine]] with a teenage girl from the future and Fonzie's GratuitousAnimalSidekick. One could say that they really went UpToEleven with the Shark Jumping here. (Around the same time, spin-off programs ''Series/LaverneAndShirley'' and ''Series/MorkAndMindy'' went through a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverne_%26_Shirley_in_the_Army similar]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_%26_Mindy/Laverne_%26_Shirley/Fonz_Hour phase]].)

** Howard Cunningham was far more sedate, while Marion was more motherly. Mr. C [[NoIndoorVoice was hyped up considerably]] by the fall of 1975, while Mrs. C's motherly-ness was turned UpToEleven.

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. Fonzie became so popular that when ratings were soft after two years, the show was [[{{Retool}} Retooled]] around the character: Fonzie became the Cunninghams' boarder and a co-lead with Richie, and the series brought in a StudioAudience to cheer and applaud for the Fonz.

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 erstwhile hood's popularity with children.