Actor Henry Winkler has opened up about the “ageless” setting of his career-defining sitcom Happy Days.
During the latest instalment of Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera titled, “Henry Winkler: Has Never Jumped the Shark,” the beloved actor who played Arthur Fonzarelli, a high school dropout biker, was quizzed about his feelings toward the show that made him a household name.
In sunny and reflective form, Winkler recalled how series mastermind Garry Marshall purposefully placed central characters like Richie Cunningham (played by future Oscar-winning director Ron Howard) and Potsie Weber (Anson Williams) in the 1950s.
Ripa, who’s been co-hosting major talk shows for over two decades now, pointed out how Happy Days still resonates with viewers due to Marshall’s creative decision.
“I can’t believe that I’m older than Happy Days! It’s the 50th anniversary and yet it doesn’t seem that long ago, it resonates as much today as it did then. What do you think about that?” Ripa asked.
Explaining the magic behind the show, Winkler replied: “I’ll tell you exactly. First of all, it was so much fun to do. Second of all, I was playing my imagination—I wish I was that guy.”
He added: “Third of all Garry Marshall put it in the ’50s for the exact reason to keep it ageless. Because it was on in the ’70s and ’80s, we told ’70s and ’80s stories, but it was set in the ’50s, so it never felt like you were being hit on the head. The morale was there. It just never felt like we were preaching.”
Running for 255 episodes across 11 seasons, Happy Days aired on ABC between 1974 and 1984, making a colossal cultural star out of Winkler thanks to his performance as “The Fonz.”
Such was the character’s popularity among viewers, he left peripheral role obscurity to become the de-facto lead after just two seasons.
This was recently addressed on the Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald podcast, with Winkler suggesting his co-star Howard was left hurt by the change of focus on screen.
“I think that he was signed on as the star of the show, and we had a drive home in his VW—the original little bug. We drove home from set. We were doing one of those two-part openings, and I said, ‘OK, Ron, we’ve got to talk about this,'” Winkler recounted.
“And he said: ‘Look, it hurt my feelings. But you did not do anything. You don’t have an attitude. It’s good for the show. You didn’t try to outshine anybody.’ But that was the only time we ever talked about it, and he is still like my brother.”
Henry Winkler as Arthur Fonzarelli, popularly known as “The Fonz,” in a publicity still for Happy Days in 1977. The actor revealed on a recent podcast the major reason the sitcom was set in the 1950s.
Getty Images/Silver Screen Collection
