Happy Days Season One

Paramount / 4 disc set

Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Anson Williams, Donny Most

One of the most famous and best loved of all TV shows finally gets a DVD release; Season one of Happy Days takes us back to the mid 1950’s when life was certainly a lot more simple than it is now.

Richie Cunnigham (Howard) and his friends Ralph Malph (Most) and Potsie Weber (Williams) spend their spare time over at Arnold’s drive in restaurant (run by Japanese chef Al Delvecchio), trying to pick up girls and generally trying to be as cool as the Fonz, the coolest man in Milwaulkie.

Also a big part of the action are the rest of the Cunningham household, hardware owning father Howard and housewife mom Marion, their other kids are eldest boy Chuck and daughter Joanie (Erin Moran).

Although often cited as being inspired by the success of George Lucas’s American Graffiti Happy Days actually started out a couple of years before that movie came out, appearing initially as an episode of the anthology series Love American Style, in fact there was a basic craze for all things 1950’s in the 1970’s anyway.

Although Happy Days is re-run on the box quite a bit you don’t very often get to see the early days, a time when the Fonz wasn’t quite as cool as he would later become and shock of all shocks is quite often seen without his classic black leather jacket and he is yet to move into the spare room above the Cunninghams garage yet either.

It’s great fun of course with a huge re-watchability factor, perfect for DVD and a real treat.

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