Happy Days

Happy Days is an American television sitcom that aired first-run from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. The show was originally based on a segment from ABC's Love, American Style titled Love and the Television Set, (later retitled Love and the Happy Days for syndication) featuring Ron Howard and three future cast members.

Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in the mid-1950s to mid-1960s United States.

The series was produced by Miller-Milkis Productions (Miller-Milkis-Boyett Productions in later years) and Henderson Productions in association with Paramount Television. Happy Days was one of the highest-rated shows of the 1970s.

Plot

Richie Cunningham

Richard J. "Richie" Cunningham is a fictional character played by Ron Howard on the sitcom Happy Days. He is the second son of Howard and Marion Cunningham, brother of Joanie Cunningham and Chuck Cunningham, and a friend of Fonzie, Ralph Malph, and Potsie Weber. Cunningham was the original lead character, but was supplanted by Fonzie when that character's popularity came to dwarf that of Cunningham's and the other characters (however, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler (Fonzie) continued to share top billing in the opening credits of the show).

Howard also played the character in several other shows: he appeared in guest appearances on Love, American Style and Laverne & Shirley, and was a regular on the animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang.

Character traits

Richie Cunningham was the quintessential example of the white All-American, 1950s teenager. He was exceedingly wholesome and, with his red hair and freckles, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Howdy Doody. Occasionally he got into trouble, usually in some scheme designed to attract women, but he did not seem to have a malicious bone in his body.

Ron Howard

Ronald William "Ron" Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American film director, producer, and actor, best known for playing two high-profile roles in television sitcoms in his childhood and early adulthood, and for directing a number of successful feature films later in his career.

He first came to prominence playing young Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later teenager Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years. Meanwhile, he appeared in the musical film The Music Man (1962), the coming of age film American Graffiti (1973), the western The Shootist (1976), and the comedy Grand Theft Auto (1977), which he also directed.

In 1980, he left Happy Days to focus on directing. His films include the science-fiction/fantasy film Cocoon (1985), the historical docudrama Apollo 13 (1995), the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind (2001) (which earned him the Academy Award for Best Director), and the thriller The Da Vinci Code (2006). In 2002, Howard conceived the Fox/Netflix comedy series Arrested Development, on which he would also serve as producer and narrator, and play a semi-fictionalized version of himself.