Origins
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
Happy Days (ABC, January 15, 1974 to July 12, 1984)
Logically, George Lucas' 1973 film American Graffiti inspired Happy Days, ABC's franchise situation comedy of the 1970's. The similarities are clear. Drive-in hamburger stand. Teenagers. Ron Howard in a starring role. 1950's rock and roll background music. In fact, the genesis of Happy Days predates American Graffiti.
In 1971, Garry Marshall produced a pilot for ABC entitled New Family in Town. Although the Alphabet Network rejected Marshall's pilot, it aired as a segment on Love, American Style on February 25, 1972. The title of the segment was Love and the Happy Days.
Marshall explains the genesis further in Writing For Television and Making A Fortune, Chapter 3 of his autobiography Wake Me When It's Funny (1995).
When ABC called back, they told us nobody cared about the 1950's. Although [then ABC executive Michael] Eisner was disappointed, he said the network wanted to go in another direction and thanks but not thanks. Paramount ended up pawning the pilot off to Love, American Style to make some of its money back.
Marshall also clarifies the connection with American Graffiti.
However, Happy Days wasn't destined to remain on that shelf for long. Around the same time, director George Lucas had started production on American Graffiti. Fred Roos, an old friend from Korea, was casting the film and asked to see Happy Days. He said George wanted to see Ron Howard play a character from the fifties. George took one look at Ron's performance as Richie Cunningham, with his honest fifties face and freckled I-still-look-like-Opie innocence, and cast him in Graffiti. When the film was released in 1973, it became a big hit and ushered in a nostalgic era in film and television. Then one day an executive at ABC said, Don't we have something gathering dust on our shelf that takes place in the 1950s? Michael Eisner said, Yes we do. Nostalgia was suddenly hot and my pilot was given a second life.
Love and the Happy Day features Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham and Marion Ross and Harold Gould as parents Marion and Howard respectively. Jackie Coogan plays Uncle Harold. Peggy Rea plays Aunt Bessie. Anson Williams plays Richie's best friend Potsie.
The Cunninghams buy a television ("full seven inches"). The family purchase elevates the family status. The Cunningham clan is the first family on the block to have television. Richie uses this blue chip to invite Arlene Nestrock over to watch the Madison Square Garden fights. Arlene accepts, even though she dates Eddie Bazinsky.
When Happy Days became a full-fledged series, scenes from this story appeared in an episode as a flashback segment. Arlene left town because her father's job transfers him. In the episode, she returns and starts going steady with a surprised Richie.
The Love and the Happy Day segment of Love, American Style differs from the Happy Days portrayal of Richie, Potsie, et. al.
Love and the Happy Days Happy Days
Richie does a voiceover No voiceover
Unnamed city Milwaukee
Soda shop hangout Hamburger stand hangout
Richie's brother Chuck - normal Richie's brother Chuck - caricature
At the end of Love and the Happy Days, we discover the source of the story's title. Richie's final voiceover tells us that his mother is always saying, Richard, enjoy these days. These are your happy days.
The Dick Van Dyke Show (CBS, October 3, 1961 to September 7, 1966)
This 1960's classic sitcom centers on the professional and personal lives of Robert Petrie, Head Writer of The Alan Brady Show. His co-writers are Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrell. Rob commutes to Manhattan from his cozy home with wife Laura and son Richie at 148 Bonnie Meadow Road in New Rochelle.
Carl Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show. Its progenitor is Reiner's 1958 pilot Head of the Family. CBS rejected the pilot, but aired it as part of an anthology show -- The Comedy Spot -- on July 19, 1960.
In The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book (2000), Vince Waldron states, [The pilot] affords a fascinating documentary glimpse of the first faltering steps of a genuine TV classic. The premise is set in Head of the Family and fine-tuned in The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Carl Reiner plays Robert Petrie in Head of the Family with Sylvia Miles and Morty Gunty as Sally and Buddy respectively. Buddy is a 'twenty-three year-old hypochondriac'. Their boss is Alan Sturdy. The audience hears Sturdy but never fully sees him. Sturdy makes two references to Bob Hope. He accuses the writers of 'borrowing' material from The Bob Hope Show and orders Rob not write any nose jokes for this week's show. Jack Wakefield plays Rob's boss.
On The Dick Van Dyke Show, veteran performers Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam took over the Sally and Buddy roles respectively. Dick Van Dyke took over the Rob Petrie role while Carl Reiner masterminded scripts and story lines. Reiner had a recurring role as the writers' megalomaniacal boss, now renamed Alan Brady. Richard Deacon played Mel Cooley, the producer of The Alan Brady Show and brother-in-law of Alan Brady.
Casablanca (Warner Brothers, 1942)
The best B-movie ever produced had somewhat less auspicious beginnings. Everybody Comes to Rick's was an unproduced play written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison in 1940 when Warner Brothers purchased it for $20,000 in December 1941. Coincidentally, that time frame is the same setting in Casablanca.
Brothers Julius & Philip Epstein and Howard Koch wrote the Oscar-winning film. They kept several important elements of Everybody Comes to Rick's. For example, the screenwriters kept intact the powerful scene in Rick's Cafe Americain of Resistance hero Victor Laszlo leading the singing of The Marseillaise, the French national anthem. The singing overpowers the Nazis' singing.
In addition, the screenwriters kept the song As Time Goes By. It originated in the play, however, it is synonymous with the film. Audiences first heard As Time Goes By in the early 1930's play Everybody's Welcome.
Warner Brothers attempted two television versions of Casablanca. In September 1955, ABC aired Casablanca as one of three shows on Warner Brothers Presents. The other two shows were Cheyenne and Kings Row. In this incarnation, Rick's last name changed from Blaine to Jason.
In August 1983, NBC aired Casablanca with David Soul of Starsky & Hutch fame as Rick. Scatman Crothers played Sam, Ray Liotta played Sasha, and Hector Elizondo played Captain Louis Renault.
Both television shows were short-lived.
Woody Allen parodied Casablanca in his 1972 film Play It Again, Sam. In this film, a Bogart lookalike helps Woody succeed with women.
All in the Family (CBS, January 12, 1971 to September 21, 1979)
All in the Family was based on a British television program entitled Till Death Do Us Part. In this show, Alf Garnett adhered to conservative political and social philosophies. It laid the groundwork nicely for the American counterpart, Archie Bunker.
All in the Family broke new ground in television. Topics once taboo were bases for story lines, dialogue, and hallmarks. Vietnam. Draft dodging. Watergate. Prejudice. Sex. Racial tension. Rape. Gender discrimination.
Archie made his views known, though he was faulty in his reasoning, bigoted in his opinions, and ignorant in his knowledge. That's right out of the bible. Which has nothing to do with Jews.
The stories on All in the Family revolved around the Bunkers' lives at 704 Hauser Street in Queens, New York. Archie and good-hearted but somewhat dim-witted wife Edith shared their home with daughter Gloria and liberal, Polish son-in-law Mike Stivic. Mike was part of the liberal intellectual elite. He studied sociology so he could help people once he graduated college. Mike and Archie were equally firmly entrenched on opposite sides of the sociopolitical spectrum.
ABC ordered a pilot in 1968 and another pilot in 1969. Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton played Archie and Edith respectively in both pilots. Their name was Justice, not Bunker. Creator Norman Lear once considered naming the series Justice For All. The son-in-law's name was Dickie. Dickie was Irish.
It's A Wonderful Life (Liberty Films, 1946)
The story of George Bailey is a true slice of Americana. A small-town guy with big-city dreams sacrifices his wants for his friends, family, and community in Bedford Falls, New York. The movie strikes a universal, emotional, and deep chord. George wants to go to far-away places. He wants to build bridges and skyscrapers. He wants to escape his sleepy upstate New York town. However, fate intervenes. George takes over the family building & loan business after his father passes away, gives his college money to his brother Harry, and fights the good fight against Bedford Falls' version of Scrooge -- Henry Potter.
When George's Uncle Billy misplaces $8,000 of the company money, George contemplates suicide. His family could cash in his life insurance policy to protect the business. As George is about to kill himself by jumping off a bridge into the river, Angel Second Class Clarence Oddbody jumps so George will save him. Clarence shows George what the world would be like had he never been born. George learns that his life deeply affected his friends and family. He learns that he really did have a wonderful life.
Philip Van Doren Stern wrote the story upon which It's A Wonderful Life is based -- The Greatest Gift. On February 12, 1938, Stern wrote a two-page outline of a story. It occurred to him that morning while shaving. A few years and drafts later, Stern's magazine agent could not sell the story. Stern wrote one final draft and printed it at his own expense. He had 200 twenty-four page pamphlets printed and sent them to friends as Christmas cards. One recipient was Stern's Hollywood agent who sold the story for $10,000.
The Greatest Gift contains several elements used in It's A Wonderful Life. The theme remains constant -- George appreciates his life after he sees the alternative for his friends and family had he never been born. Other elements include George saving his brother Harry from drowning, George crashing his car into a tree before he wished he had never been born, and George contemplating suicide at the bridge.
In Stern's story, George is a bank clerk with the last name of Pratt instead of Bailey. His wife Mary has the maiden name of Thatcher. In the film, it is Hatch.
Marc Connelly, Dalton Trumbo, and Clifford Odets wrote early scripts of It's A Wonderful Life. Capra and collaborators Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich deserve credit for creating the classic in its final form. Jo Swerling received an "Additional Scenes by" credit.