Happy Days: Any Hope for More Seasons? (1 Viewer)

[Emcee]

I use to watch HAPPY DAYS a lot when it aired weekday evenings on INSP. It immediately followed THE BRADY BUNCH. I always liked it, and I bought the first six seasons in a bundle from Walmart for like $35 five or six years ago. I know for the longest time only the first four seasons were out, and then finally seasons five and six saw the light of day on DVD.

Is there anything lurking out there concerning why no further season sets have come out? I'd just about bet it has something to do with some music rights or something similar. It's usually music rights that get shows like this tied up.

There's another five seasons of HAPPY DAYS that need to be released, that is if the goal is to eventually have all the episodes out to purchase officially. Both LAVERNE & SHIRLEY (the show this viewer personally prefers) and MORK & MINDY (which was good its first year, but then got shot in the head) have been out in their entirety for some time now.

It's really probably a long shot to hope the rest of HAPPY DAYS will one day come out. But at least we got the famous "jump the shark" moment released officially, and boy, does it look pretty on DVD.

 

[rmw650]

I'm thinking so long as there are musical numbers that need to be cleared, we may not see any more seasons of this show forthcoming but again, anything can happen. Hell, I'm still waiting for Empty Nest to come out in full and the last two seasons of The Muppet Show.

 

[Emcee]

Well, those later seasons of HAPPY DAYS do included more musical numbers. Potsie sings a lot, and I know there was a lot built up around Joanie and Chachi singing. I'm not entirely sure, but if any of those songs have ties, that's probably the hold up.

The same ole story.

 

[MartinP.]

^^^

I hate that story.

 

[Bryan^H]

It's really probably a long shot to hope the rest of HAPPY DAYS will one day come out. But at least we got the famous "jump the shark" moment released officially, and boy, does it look pretty on DVD.

View attachment 78272​

Kind of ironic the DVD sets stopped after that season.

Being someone that actually prefers the last few season over the first few, I hope the rest are released on DVD, or at the very least available to stream digitally.

 

[Emcee]

Kind of ironic the DVD sets stopped after that season.

Being someone that actually prefers the last few season over the first few, I hope the rest are released on DVD, or at the very least available to stream digitally.

Well, I prefer the earlier seasons, so I suppose having the first six seasons out is sufficient. I don't necessarily care for the show post-Ron Howard.

 

[Desslar]

Well, I prefer the earlier seasons, so I suppose having the first six seasons out is sufficient. I don't necessarily care for the show post-Ron Howard.

Not one of the Ted McGinley faithful I see.

 

[sjbradford]

That’s kind of an odd cast picture listed above. Must have been done during season 10, because Heather O’Rourke and Crystal Bernard are in it (I wonder where Linda Purl and Billy Warlock are). Ron Howard and Don Most had not appeared in several seasons at that point (and didn’t return for guest appearances until the following season). Arnold (recently returned) and Al (over on the Joannie Loves Chachi spinoff) are there.

 

[ScottRE]

I'd go for a complete series set. As much as I felt the show lost its way after Ron Howard left, I still found a few things to enjoy here and there. The two part episode where Rich and Ralph return from the Army was solid: Richie comes back and belts Fonzie and the goodbye between Rich and his dad is incredibly moving. Moreso than the somewhat overcooked Fonzie "stage whisper" sentiment. Later on, Chachi's proposal to Joanie is still pretty great.

The worst part of the wedding finale: Richie has a cameo, Chuck is long forgotten and retconned into non-existence and they burned off a few more episodes in the summer so it wasn't the last first run episode. However, damn, Tom Bosley is really not the first person one thinks of when discussing Happy Days, but he's amazing, His final toast still makes me misty.

Honestly, for better or worse, Happy Days was an important part of our TV culture for just over a decade. The entire series deserves a release.

 

[bmasters9]

I'd go for a complete series set. As much as I felt the show lost its way after Ron Howard left, I still found a few things to enjoy here and there.

Honestly, for better or worse, Happy Days was an important part of our TV culture for just over a decade. The entire series deserves a release.

In the same way (OT), Miami Vice has just as much been part of our television culture ever since it ended its regular run on NBC in 1989 (it was even while it was running on NBC from 1984-89, w/all the hit rock and pop songs and bands and artists of the time, for one thing), and some may have found things to enjoy even in the critically panned last two gos (four and five, 1987-89).

 

[Desslar]

I'd go for a complete series set. As much as I felt the show lost its way after Ron Howard left, I still found a few things to enjoy here and there. The two part episode where Rich and Ralph return from the Army was solid: Richie comes back and belts Fonzie and the goodbye between Rich and his dad is incredibly moving. Moreso than the somewhat overcooked Fonzie "stage whisper" sentiment. Later on, Chachi's proposal to Joanie is still pretty great.

The worst part of the wedding finale: Richie has a cameo, Chuck is long forgotten and retconned into non-existence and they burned off a few more episodes in the summer so it wasn't the last first run episode. However, damn, Tom Bosley is really not the first person one thinks of when discussing Happy Days, but he's amazing, His final toast still makes me misty.

Honestly, for better or worse, Happy Days was an important part of our TV culture for just over a decade. The entire series deserves a release.

I file Happy Days, I Love Lucy, MASH, and a few classic sitcoms under what I might call "intro shows", in that their reruns were prominently placed on daytime schedules following shows I actively followed (mostly cartoons at the time) so I saw their intros hundreds of times, but would rarely ever watch the shows themselves. I would usually either have to turn off the TV at that point (the MASH intro was synonymous with dinner time) or opt to change to something I liked better.

I did watch Happy Days occasionally, but I think only the early seasons were available in syndication. I don't remember seeing any post-Richie episodes. Maybe that's one reason why the later seasons didn't make it to DVD so far.

 

[jcroy]

I file Happy Days, I Love Lucy, MASH, and a few classic sitcoms under what I might call "intro shows", in that their reruns were prominently placed on daytime schedules following shows I actively followed (mostly cartoons at the time) so I saw their intros hundreds of times. However, I would usually either have to turn off the TV at that point (the MASH intro was synonymous with dinner time) or opt to change to something I liked better without actually watching the shows.

I did watch Happy Days occasionally, but I think only the early seasons were available in syndication. I don't remember seeing any post-Richie episodes. Maybe that's one reason why the later seasons didn't make it to DVD so far.

The equivalent of "intro shows" for me, was watching the intro and first 5-10 minutes of Dallas. It was on immediately after Dukes of Hazzard in its original first run.

 

[ScottRE]

The equivalent of "intro shows" for me, was watching the intro and first 5-10 minutes of Dallas. It was on immediately after Dukes of Hazzard in its original first run.

For me it was kind of the opposite for a while. Dukes was that show because it was between The Incredible Hulk and Dallas.

 

[Desslar]

The equivalent of "intro shows" for me, was watching the intro and first 5-10 minutes of Dallas. It was on immediately after Dukes of Hazzard in its original first run.

I was a fan of them Duke boys at the time, but I don't recall seeing the Dallas intro. In the early seasons Dukes aired at 9 PM ET, so I'm sure my parents would have immediately sent me off to bed at its conclusion.

From the Dukes 5th season ('82) onward I think I had moved on to watching newer shows, such as The Powers of Matthew Star, Webster, and V.

But this may all be a bit off topic.

 

[jcroy]

I first started watching first-run episodes of happy days in its final few seasons. At the time, it seemed like another generic sitcom that wasn't all that interesting after I figured out the type of humor. (Threes Company or All In The Family reruns were more amusing at the time).

 

[jcroy]

At the time, I don't remember seeing the pre-jumptheshark episodes in reruns.

Years later when I finally saw the earlier seasons, I realized they were much better.

 

[Emcee]

The station I used to watch HAPPY DAYS on -- INSP -- seemed to only show the later seasons, those post-Ron Howard episodes. I remember Ted McGinley, Lynda Goodfriend, Cathy Silvers, and Linda Purl being in the opening credits.

Of course, when I watched HAPPY DAYS on that channel they may have already cycled their way through the earlier seasons and were just making their way back around to the beginning. In fact, I seem to recall them advertising the earlier seasons later on, and hyping up the fact that we'd see Chuck Cunningham before he was shipped of to the Sitcom Land of Never Existed.

 

[Tom McA]

shhh...
If you keep pressing for more seasons and you're not careful, they might release "Joanie Loves Chachi". Can't risk that...

 

[FrankPitt]

shhh...
If you keep pressing for more seasons and you're not careful, they might release "Joanie Loves Chachi". Can't risk that...

They already did (but with the music hacked to pieces).

 

[Emcee]

Joanie Loves Chachi was released on DVD back on February 4, 2014 by CBS-DVD through Paramount.