The original title for Happy Days was the opposite of what The Fonz stood for, and was changed following a cool reception from test audiences.
The much-loved sitcom Happy Days is known for “jumping the shark” after season 5, but if the show had stuck to its original name, it never would have made it that far. First airing in 1974, Happy Days began as a nostalgic sitcom about the lives of the Cunningham family and their friends. However, it soon became clear that Henry Winkler’s Fonzie was the real star of the show, and he got an increasingly bigger role as Happy Days continued. Garry Marshall’s 1950s-set sitcom also made household names of Robin Williams, who played Mork, and Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham and was originally intended as the show’s star.
Interestingly, the strength of future movie director Ron Howard‘s performance in the original Happy Days pilot got him cast in American Grafitti. The commercial success of George Lucas’ love letter to the 1950s is what – according to Garry Marshall – finally convinced ABC to buy the show. Once commissioned by ABC, Happy Days ran for 11 seasons and spawned numerous spinoffs, but the story could have been very different if Marshall had stuck to his original title.
Happy Days’ Original Title Was MUCH Worse
The original title that Garry Marshall had in mind for Happy Days was COOL, a decidedly uncool name that doesn’t work for several reasons. The most obvious is that it clashes with Marshall’s idealized, nostalgic view of 1950s America. While the Henry Winkler character Fonzie is the epitome of cool, the much less cool Richie Cunningham was set to be the lead. It might be that Marshall intended the title ironically, but it is more likely that he was keen on reflecting the patter of 1950s teenagers like his Henry Winkler character. Regardless, it was a turn-off to test audiences (via The Guardian).
It is not surprising that the proposed title was not to the tastes of test audiences, because nobody likes being told that something is cool before they even have a chance to judge for themselves. Test audiences rejected the name because they felt that COOL was too close to KOOL, the brand of menthol cigarettes. One of the producers instead suggested the show be called Happy Days, because that is what the show was intending to portray to audiences.
Why “Happy Days” Suits The Classic TV Show Better
In 1973, the year before Happy Days season 1 began, The Exorcist had been the highest-grossing movie at the US box office and George Lucas’ American Graffiti was placed at number 3. The huge success of both movies is indicative of the divide between audiences who wanted to reflect on the violent political turmoil of the past decade and those that wanted to forget it had happened. The Happy Days that Marshall’s producer wanted to reflect to ABC audiences were those of a much simpler time before the JFK assassination and before the Vietnam War.
Marshall’s idealized vision of a traditional 1950s American community, and the nostalgia evoked by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox’s title track, made Happy Days‘ 11 seasons and the seven Happy Days spinoff series the perfect escape from troubled times. While the movie would not be released until 1978, the original Grease musical had been running for three years before Marshall’s show first aired, further reflecting an appetite for 1950s nostalgia. Against this backdrop, a show called COOL promised nothing for an audience that craved that warm fuzzy feeling of happy days gone by, whereas a show called Happy Days promised exactly that.
