My Happy Days in Hollywood (15 page)
Read My Happy Days in Hollywood Online
Authors: Garry Marshall
Happy Days
was a hit television series for eleven seasons, and then we all knew it was time to say goodbye. The last season people were getting tired and wanted to move on to other things. We had gotten so efficient that sometimes we even shot the show in three or four days instead of five. We decided that to end the show we would do something we had never done before: Tom Bosley turned directly to the camera and thanked the audience for their support. Now that Tom has passed away, that decision seems even more appropriate. We were a family show, Tom was the dad, and it was his opportunity to say goodbye for all of us.
Knowing that
Happy Days
appealed to people from eight years old to eighty makes me smile even today. I always wanted to be remembered as the Norman Rockwell of television, and
Happy Days
represented the part of me that wanted to make mainstream America laugh. If television was the education of the American public, then
Happy Days
was recess. And I always loved recess best.
“Is it true that Fonzie’s leather jacket is in a museum?” asked my grandson, Sam, one day.
“Yes. It is in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.,” I said.
“But what good does it do there? Fonzie can’t wear it and say ‘Aaaay!’ ” he said.
“Fonzie has other jackets now,” I said.
“But can he still say
‘Aaaay’
”? he asked.
“Yes, sometimes on occasion, he still says it,” I said with a smile.
Sam wasn’t born when
Happy Days
went off the air, in 1984, and his parents, Elissa and Scott weren’t married yet. But to think that Sam knows who Fonzie was and that he was a cool guy with a motorcycle makes me realize just how happy those days on the show were.
My grandpa Willy Ward lived in the apartment next door to us. He used to make me laugh a lot, and he was the first person to ever tell me I was funny. He had a great sense of humor, so I believed him.
This is one of my first official baby pictures. Around this time, I won a contest in a local newspaper for being a cute child. My mother was very proud.
My dad, Tony, taught me how to be a good boss. He invented his middle name, Wallace, because he thought it gave him more dignity.
My mother, Marjorie, thought the biggest sin in life was to bore people. She thought entertainers were the best kind of people on the planet.
Most of the men on my Falcon basketball team remain my closest friends and confidants to this day.
When I wasn’t sneezing or wheezing in bed due to ailments or allergies, I loved to play sports of any kind.
I enjoyed growing up with two little sisters. My mom always said I was the sick kid. Ronny was the pretty child. And Penny was the one always getting into trouble.
I honed my writing skills as a soldier at the AFKN radio station in Korea in the 1950s.
Throughout college at Northwestern, I was always a drummer in a band of some kind to earn extra money so I wouldn’t have to take out a student loan.
Danny Thomas and Joey Bishop were two of my earliest employers and mentors. One minute I was a struggling comic in New York, and almost overnight I was working in Hollywood as a comedy writer. These two men changed my life forever.
Producing
The Odd Couple
was my first chance to be a boss of a prime-time situation comedy. The experience was a dream come true for me, including the night we celebrated our 100th episode.
(Courtesy of CBS Television Studios)
It seems almost a cliché to say that the cast of
Happy Days
was very happy, but they honestly were. They had careers, families, and children. They appreciated the fact they were on a top-rated sitcom surrounded by friends.
(Courtesy of CBS Television Studios)
