Happy Days' Fonzie Had An Unexpected Scooby-Doo Connection

Garry Marshall's sitcom "Happy Days" was the ultimate Boomer nostalgia trip. It was set in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the 1950s, and wistfully followed the wholesome adventures of the teenage Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard), an intelligent and precocious kid who had to traverse the travails of youth, relationships, and family. Marion Ross and Tom Bosley played Richie's parents, while his best friends, Potsie and Ralph Malph, were played by Anson Williams and Donny Most. The show's breakout character, however, was Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzerelli, a friendly, ultra-cool greaser and mechanic played by Henry Winkler. When Ron Howard left the show after its seventh season, Fonzie stayed on as its new protagonist.

"Happy Days" was immensely popular and lasted for a gangbusters 255 episodes over the course of its 11 seasons. It led to multiple spinoffs, including "Joanie Loves Chachi," "Mork & Mindy," "Laverne & Shirley," and "Blansky's Beauties." A nostalgia empire writ large, "Happy Days" used warm fuzzy memories of the 1950s and 1960s to launch a media empire. One can buy "Happy Days" merch to this day. 

The weirdest spinoff from "Happy Days," however, came in 1980 with the debut of the animated series "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang." Winkler, Howard, and Most reprised their roles, and they were joined by an anthropomorphic dog named Mr. Cool, voiced by grand champion voice actor Frank Welker. Welker, as many of us know, famously voiced Freddie in the many, many Scooby-Doo cartoons, and took over voicing Scooby himself when the original actor, Don Messick, passed away in 1997. Mr. Cool was a very Scooby-like character. 

In a surreal twist on the "Happy Days" premise, however, "The Fonz" was a sci-fi show. The Fonz, Richie, Ralph, and Mr. Cool board a malfunctioning time machine (!) and become lost in history. The series is devoted to the gang traversing historical events in a desperate attempt to return to 1957 Milwaukee.

This kind of genre-flipping was common in late '70s and early '80s animation. One might recall "Gilligan's Planet," wherein the "Gilligan's Island" castaways are stranded on a distant alien world. Or "Partridge Family 2200 A.D.," which transposed the events of "The Partridge Family" to the 23rd century. Or even "The Super Globetrotters," which enhanced real-world Harlem Globetrotters with basketball-related superpowers. I'm not implying that anything untoward was happening in 1970s animation offices, but I will idly observe that cocaine is a hell of a drug. 

"The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" began in the year 1957, when the aforementioned time machine landed in the parking lot of the Gang's favorite diner. The time machine was piloted by a 25th-century pilot named Cupcake ("Grease" star Didi Conn), who was concerned that her vehicle had broken down. Oh yes, and she is possessed of reality-bending superpowers. She can fire rainbows from her fingers and manifest anything she can imagine.

Fonzie, with his preternatural abilities to fix machines with a bump of his hips, managed to get the time machine operating again, but only barely. They all board the machine, but an accident prevents them from traveling to the correct year. The gang is lost in time. In the first episode, they travel to 1,000,000 B.C. In the second, they wind up in 2057. 

Throughout the series, the Happy Days gang will visit 14th-century China, the court at Camelot, Cleopatra's coronation, the Salem Witch Trials, the Old West, modern-day Transylvania (vampires and werewolves are also real, by the way), and the 39th century. They will have to re-enact at least two Jules Verne novels ("A Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Around the World in 80 Days"), visit the French Revolution, and fight a Viking sorceress. 

Because magic is real, monsters exist, one of the main characters has superpowers, and time travel is a key element of the series, it seems like the "Happy Days" gang were allowed to go anywhere and do anything. It was like "Doctor Who," but with fewer rules. Surprisingly, "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" lasted for 24 episodes over its two seasons, coming to a close in November of 1981. "Happy Days" was enough of a pop culture powerhouse that even a surreal time travel/fantasy spinoff was able to succeed for a short while. 

And even after "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" was canceled, the producers weren't able to give up on the characters. Both Winkler and Welker, reprising their roles, were ported over to another animated "Happy Days" spinoff called "Laverne & Shirley in the Army." The live-action version of "Laverne & Shirley" followed the adventures of the two title characters (Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams) as they went to work at a brewery in Milwaukee. That series lasted 178 episodes over seven seasons. The animated "Laverne & Shirley in the Army" was a parallel timeline series wherein the two lead characters entered basic training. It's never explained why, but their immediate superior is an anthropomorphic pig named Sgt. Squealy (Ron Palillo). 

In the show's second season, the same versions of the Fonz and Mr. Cool seen in "Happy Days Gang" joined Laverne & Shirley in the army, and the quartet all had wild comedic adventures. It was kind og a combination series at that point, and was even sporadically released under the title "Laverne & Shirley with the Fonz." In one fun parallel story, the Fonz invents a jeep-shaped time machine of his own, and the four of them travel back to prehistoric times. 

The 1980s were an insane time for animation. Enterprising media hunters will be able to find "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" easily enough.