Whenever a beloved TV show comes to an end, fans usually feel a variety of mixed emotions.
While it's always painful to say our goodbyes, it can feel pretty satisfying to finally see
how plot arcs are resolved and where characters we spent years getting to know wound up.
In the days and weeks leading up to a show's finale, you might prepare yourself to feel
closure while enjoying the last bittersweet moments of a series that you might have been
invested in for many seasons.
But no matter how well writers manage to wrap things up, you're still left feeling as if
a little part of you has been taken away after the credits roll.
Sure, a future reboot or reunion might eventually materialize, but after a series finale, we're
often left wanting for more.
That roller coaster of feelings is exactly what Happy Days fans went through after the
sitcom wrapped up it's lengthy 11-season run in 1984.
For the finale, Happy Days' creator Garry Marshall knew that he needed to give fans
something special.
The final note that Marshall decided to end things on, however, ended up being unexpectedly
controversial.
Join Facts Verse as we take a closer look back at the contentious scene that took Happy
Days off the air for good.
Henry Winkler Still Remembers The 'Sting'
Not only is the end of a television series emotional for it's fans, it also can be quite
painful for the show's stars.
A series finale can mean the end of defining period in an actor's life.
This was especially true for actor Henry Winkler who played The Fonz on Happy Days.
The sitcom helped launch Winkler's career, and in the process it immortalized him as
a permanent fixture in American pop culture.
In an interview that he gave with The Chicago Tribune several years ago, Winkler admitted
that he was in 'dire straits' before he scored his role on Happy Days.
So, after the series came to a close after giving his career a much-needed boost for
more than a decade, seeing that door close before his eyes threw him for a loop, to say
the least.
Once Happy Days was over, he had no idea what to do next.
He just spent the last ten years putting every fiber of his being into his work.
After that era had passed, he was left wondering and worrying about what the future had in
store for him.
It doesn't help that Winkler describes his time before Happy Days as being in a position
where he was just barely scraping by.
Prior to his audition, he had saved just enough money to go to California for a month.
All he wanted was to be an actor, but he had no leads and very little reason to think that
he would somehow get lucky and land the role of his dreams in that limited window of time.
But lo and behold, he somehow landed an audition, read for the part of Arthur Fonzarelli, and
got the job!
After Happy Days was no more, however, he was left temporarily feeling like he was right
back where he started from.
The sting he felt when the show ended left him feeling almost as if he had lost a loved
one.
But of course, Winkler managed to move on as an actor, although for a short spell in
the '80s, he was more focus on directing.
He even became an executive producer on MacGyver for a while.
The 90s saw him starring in yet another iconic role when he played the principal in the teen
slasher flick Scream.
Then in the 2000s, we were treated to Winkler once again when he played Barry Zuckercorn
in the offbeat sitcom Arrested Development.
Even though he had feared the worst after his turn on Happy Day's, Winkler ended up
doing quite well for himself.
In fact, if you're an HBO Max subscriber, you can catch Winkler in his latest role in
the black comedy crime drama series Barry.
The Finale We Got Wasn't The Final Episode That Aired
The intended series finale was a two-parter titled 'Passages'.
In it, Joanie and Chachi got married, and Mr. Cunningham gave them a heartfelt toast.
The final scene saw Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham in the center of a crowd gathered around in
a circle.
The camera then got a close-up shot aimed directly at Mr. Cunningham, and when he spoke,
he did so directly to the audience – both to the audience at the wedding and those who
were watching at home.
Breaking the fourth wall, Mr. C then said 'Thank you all for being part of our family.
To happy days!'.
The decision to address the audience directly was all Garry Marshall's.
The network executives were at first leery about his directorial decision, but Marshall
insisted that the way that he wanted to conclude things was much more meaningful than simply
fading to black with no send-off.
Now, typically when a series comes to a close – especially when it's a show like Happy
Days which featured a conclusion that felt so final – that's the end!
But in this case, a peculiar thing happened in 1984 when ABC decided to air leftover unpaired
episodes that they had been tucking away for a rainy day long after the scripted Happy
Days finale had aired.
How does something like that happen, you might ask?
Well, the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo had taken place in February of that year.
When the games aired on ABC, they temporarily knocked Happy Days out of it's usual time
slot.
Instead of pushing the finale back by months, ABC decided to air the Happy Days series finale
as planned while stashing the remaining episodes that they had on hand that would have aired
during the games.
They figured that even though fans had seen the conclusion of their beloved show earlier
that Spring, there wouldn't be anything wrong with giving them a few bonus episodes later
on as some kind of parting gift.
So, Passages aired in May of 1984 – thus ending the series.
Then, a couple of months later, at the end of June through late-July, the bonus episodes
aired.
The first bonus episode to air was 'So How Was Your Weekend'.
For the following three weeks, three more episodes aired - "Low Notes", "School Dazed",
and "Good News, Bad News".
For a while fans thought that "Good News, Bad News" would be the last Happy Days episode
to air.
The episode involved Chachi getting invited to tour with the Beach Boys, only to receive
some rather disappointing medical news that prevented him from being able to pursue that
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
After it aired, there was radio silence for a while, but then something incredible happened!
Stay tuned to find out what that was.
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But Wait There's More!
Month's after Good News, Bad News Aired, one final Happy Days episode randomly aired toward
the end of September.
The episode 'Fonzie's Spots', found the Fonz being tortured by Potsie after trying to do
Mr. Cunningham a favor by signing up as a Leopard Lodge recruit.
While not all fans of the series recognize this episode as Happy Day's true finale, it
was still the last episode to ever air.
If you ask Henry Winkler, however, the geunine series finale was the last episode that the
cast and crew filmed, "Passages".
And really, that makes a lot more sense both chronologically and on an emotional level.
Either way you look at it though, Happy Days went out in one strikingly weird way.
There Have Been Two Happy Days Reunion Specials
The first reunion aired on ABC in March 1992.
The 90-minute program fittingly titled 'The Happy Days Reunion Special' was hosted by
Henry Winkler and featured various clips from the show coupled with interviews from cast
members reminiscing about their time on the set.
On February 3, 2005, a two-hour special titled Happy Days: 30th Anniversary Reunion aired
on ABC.
Once again, the program featured various clips from some of the most memorable moments from
the series while also bringing the surviving cast members back together for a reunion at
the set of Arnold's Drive-in.
There Were A TON Of Spin-Offs
Happy Days spawned seven unique spin-off shows, including two animated ones – Laverne & Shirley,
Mork & Mindy, Blanksy's Beauties, Out of the Blue, Joanie Loves Chachi, Laverne & Shirley
with The Fonz, and The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.
The most successful spin-off was Laverne & Shirley, which aired from 1976 to 1983.
The sitcom starred Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams and took place in the early to mid-1960s
in Milwaukee.
Laverne & Shirley worked as employees of Shotz Brewery, which was modeled after Milwaukee's
Schlitz, Pabst and Miller breweries.
Throughout the series, the two titular stars found themselves on numerous adventures with
the Fonz, the Cunninghams, Lenny and Squiggy.
Mork & Mindy, which starred Robin Williams in his breakthrough role, was all about an
alien from the planet Ork who landed in Boulder, Colorado in the 1970s in order to study humans.
Joanie Loves Chachi was a pretty short series about Richie's younger sister Joanie and the
Fonz's cousin Chachi's relationship during their time working as musicians in Chicago.
Out of the Blue was a spin-off series that aired in 1979 while Happy Days was still on
the air.
The show starred Jimmy Brogan as the lead Random, an angel-in-training who is tasked
to live with a suburban Chicago family.
1977s Blanksy's Beauties starred Nancy Walker as a former Vegas showgirl named Nancy Blanksy.
A week before the show premiered, Blanksy appeared on Happy Days as a cousin of Howard
Cunningham.
It's hard to believe that Happy Days premiered almost fifty years ago!
It's even harder to wrap your mind around the fact that many alive right now have never
seen a single episode of the iconic series.
Did you know that month after Happy Day's official series finale, several more previously
unaired episodes aired on ABC, and were you aware that there were 7 Happy Days spin-off
series?
Let us know in the comments.
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