The world is saddened today by the news that Robin Williams has passed away. He was such a part of our lives that everyone has their own favorite movie scenes or performances, and I cannot add much that you already do not know or that you cannot find elsewhere.
But Williams is one of the few performers where I remember the first moment I saw him. And I was blown away. As a kid turning on Happy Days, a show that was in its fifth season and showing signs of old age, I suddenly saw something completely new. This strange alien character called Mork and the actor playing him was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. The next day at school, everyone was talking about him and his appearance on the Happy Days episode called “My Favorite Orkan.” Here is a scene with Henry Winkler as Fonzie and Robin Williams as Mork.
Robin Williams and Mork, of course, got their own spinoff series which I followed until that one went into its own old age. In many ways, I feel Williams and I grew up together, as I enjoyed his juvenile antics but then got to appreciate his more serious adult work in movies I’ve written about in different contexts like Dead Poets Society (1989), Insomnia (2003), and the underrated World’s Greatest Dad (2009).
It is very sad to hear how he passed, but I am very thankful he lived and gave us so much. Rest in Peace. Na-nu Na-nu.
Robin Williams was like no other ..To watch him create on the spot was a privilege to behold..
Robin you are an angel now !!! REST IN PEACE
Chuck Cunningham was Richie’s older brother on Happy Days who famously ate sandwiches, dribbled basketballs, and then disappeared, never to be heard from again. The way his character vanished and was never mentioned again by this TV family eventually led to the name Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
What you may not remember about Chuck, though, is that he was played by two different actors. Gavan O’Herlihy initially played the character in the series, followed by Randolph Roberts. According to IMDb, O’Herlihy appeared as Chuck during the first season in seven episodes from January to March 1974. Later in the year, during the second season, Randolph Roberts appeared in two episodes as Chuck. [Update: The clip of a show with Chuck is no longer on YouTube, but if you find the series debut episode, “All the Way,” at around the 7:40 mark you may see O’Herlihy enjoying dinner with the Cunninghams. A brief part of the clip also appears in the TMZ video below.]
Reportedly, the reason the show eventually got rid of Chuck was that he was never a big character and the producers realized that Fonzie (Henry Winkler) had become the “big brother” to Richie (Ron Howard). Several websites note that Gary Marshall, the series creator, humorously stated that his response to the question about what happened to Chuck was that the character got a basketball scholarship in Outer Mongolia.
But why were there two Chucks in the series? In the following video, O’Herlihy, who had been a champion Irish tennis player, explains at around the 4:04 mark how Happy Days gave him his big break in acting. But after he realized that they expected his character to have a limited role, dropping in from college occasionally, he wanted to go on to other work. So apparently, the producers then brought in Roberts briefly before deciding to dump the character all together.
O’Herlihy went on to appear in a number of roles in films like Willow (1988), often playing a villain such as in a standout performance in Lonesome Dove (1989). By contrast, Roberts continued in some acting roles for a little more than a decade before leaving acting and, according to Wikipedia, becoming an education supervisor for ITT Technical Institute in San Diego.
On an additional note, technically, there were three Chuck Cunninghams. In the original Happy Days pilot version that appeared as a segment of Love, American Style (discussed in another post), Chuck was played by actor Ric Carrott. As in the Happy Days series, Chuck only appeared briefly in the Love, American Style episode (eating dinner). Carrott went on to appear in a number of TV shows during the 1970s as well as in small parts in a number of films before leaving acting. He may be best known for his work as Captain Chris Gentry on the Saturday morning kid’s show Space Academy.
Regarding the TV series Happy Days, it is interesting to speculate whether or not the show would have abandoned Chuck Cunningham had O’Herlihy stuck around, as it seems likely that the loss of the first actor hastened the character’s demise. One might image that if O’Herlihy had not left the character, the writers might have kept Chuck in the family, occasionally dropping by while he was at college and then off living somewhere else. Or maybe the series occasionally would have covered him playing basketball in Mongolia. 2015 Update: After this article was posted TMZ did a short segment on the Chuck Cunningham mystery where they caught Ron Howard with the question about what happened to Chuck. Check it out.
Did you know that the series “Happy Days” started out as a segment on the ensemble show “Love, American Style”?
“Aaaay! Why wasn’t I on this Love show?”
Television producer Garry Marshall recently wrote a book, My Happy Days in Hollywood: A Memoir (2012). In promoting the book he has talked about how his work on Happy Days was his favorite favorite work (as opposed to the often contentious work on Laverne & Shirley).
Some of Marshall’s revelations include that Fonzie was based on a friend of his from summer camp. Also, Nathan Lane auditioned for the show. Recently, I discovered something else interesting about the origin of Happy Days.
Do you remember the television show Love, American Style that ran on ABC from 1969-1974? The hour-long show featured different stories and casts each week. For awhile Love, American Style was on the same nights as The Brady Brunch, The Partridge Family, The Odd Couple, and Room 222. While reading about some of these shows recently, I was surprised to discover that the series Happy Days got its start on Love, American Style.
According to Wikipedia, in 1971 producer Garry Marshall had the idea for a sitcom featuring teenagers growing up in the 1950s. He created a pilot called New Family in Town, featuring many of the characters and several of the stars that would later appear in the Happy Days series. There were a few exceptions. In the pilot, Harold Gould played the father Howard Cunningham and Susan Neher played sister Joanie.
But no network was interested in the pilot, so Marshall sold the show to the producers of Love, American Style. That ensemble series then ran the pilot as a segment. The segment was retitled for the show as “Love and the Happy Days” and ran in early 1972.
After the network saw the success of the Broadway play Grease and the movie American Graffiti (1974), they remembered the Happy Days pilot and bought the rights. Happy Days ran on television from 1974-1984. One of the reasons Ron Howard got the part in American Graffiti was because George Lucas saw him in the original pilot.
If you are interested in seeing how it all began, below is the opening of “Love and the Happy Days” from Love, American Style. If you have never seen Love, American Style, though, I should warn you that if you view the opening you might have the song going through your head the rest of the day.
What is your favorite episode of Happy Days? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley & the Comets recorded the rock and roll classic, “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.” During the recording session, the band spent most of the time on another song. It would be in the final forty minutes of that three-hour session where the band would make history, with a little later help by a 10-year-old kid.
The Rushed Recording Session
The band went in the recording studio for Decca Records that day and worked on the song “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town)” for most of the three-hour session. Finally, with forty minutes left, they turned to “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.”
At the start of that forty minutes, the group played “Rock Around the Clock” one time. Then, because the first recording of “Rock Around the Clock” did not sound right, they then ran through a second take, leaving Sammy Davis Jr. in the hallway waiting for his turn in the studio.
Time was running out. So, an engineer was able to put together the two takes to make the classic record we know today.
The Guitar Solo
Because of the rushed nature of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock” the guitarist for the session, Danny Cedrone, did not have time to put together a unique guitar solo for the song. So he stuck in a solo he had used two years earlier with Haley on a song called “Rock This Joint.”
You may hear the familiar solo that Cedrone took from “Rock This Joint” in the video below.
The B-Side Release and Modest Sales
That spring, Decca released “Rock Around the Clock” as the B-side to the song on which the Comets spent most of the recording session, “Thirteen Women (and Only One Man in Town).”
The single “Thirteen Women” and B-side “Rock Around the Clock” had modest sales that year. Perhaps the record would have remained a modest hit if not for a little boy.
Glen Ford’s Son Saves the Song
A 10-year-old named Peter Ford fell in love with the B-side of his new record. Peter eventually played the song for his father, the actor Glen Ford.
Ford was preparing to star in a movie called Blackboard Jungle (1955). Ford took the record, along with some others, from his son’s collection to the movie’s producers (or some accounts have the producers hearing the song at Ford’s home).
“(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” was selected to be played over the opening credits of the film about juvenile delinquency that also starred Sidney Poitier. With the boost from the movie, “Rock Around the Clock” sold more than a million copies in one month in 1955.
“Rock Around the Clock” Lives On
Twenty years later the song was familiar for another generation when it appeared on the soundtrack of American Graffiti (1973) and was used as the opening of the TV series Happy Days (1974-1984) for its first two seasons.
Funny how a rushed job, a 10-year-old kid, and a little luck created one of the most memorable records of the early rock era. It also helped send the late Bill Haley to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And on April 14, 2012, a few days after the fifty-eighth anniversary of the recording of “Rock Around the Clock,” the Comets were finally inducted too.
What do you think of “Rock Around the Clock” and inducting the Comets into the Hall of Fame? Leave your two cents in the comments.
