The Time Happy Days Got Meta Before Audiences Knew What Meta Was

Meta-storytelling and meta-humor are huge these days, drawing from a long tradition of horror movies that got a little tongue-in-cheek and crystallizing into its current form on shows like "Community" and "Rick and Morty." Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, however, audiences weren't super clued-in to those kinds of meta jokes, which makes a great little moment on an episode of "Happy Days" that much better. In the episode of "Happy Days" that introduced Robin Williams as the alien Mork from the planet Ork, Ron Howard's character Richie has Mork watch some TV, and he lands on "The Andy Griffith Show." Delighted, Mork tells his new friend, "I like that boy Opie!" — referring to the character Howard played as a child on the classic sitcom.

While most audiences wouldn't know to call the joke meta-humor, they still would appreciate it because pretty much everyone knew who Opie was when "Happy Days" was on the air. Having Howard onscreen as Williams made the comment made it funnier (and a bit more obvious), but they needed all of the help they could get because, other than Williams, the episode was also kind of terrible.

Somehow, despite the episode having a lackluster script, the appearance of Mork on "Happy Days" eventually led to the popular spin-off series "Mork & Mindy," which starred Williams as the titular alien and Pam Dawber as the kind woman who finds him and allows him to live in her attic. Williams was a huge part of the success of both shows because he was so good at portraying Mork's innocence and childlike whimsy, a far cry from his high-speed, wildly adult comedy routines. The show ran for four seasons and would have followed Mork and Mindy travelling through time if they had made it to the fifth, which sounds absolutely bonkers. 

"Happy Days" was a spin-off of a forgotten show called "Love, American Style," which makes "Mork & Mindy" a spin-off of a spin-off, and a surprising one at that. Since Mork pointed out Opie and they were watching "Andy Griffith," does that mean "The Andy Griffith Show" exists in the "Happy Days" expanded TV universe? And if it does, does that mean it's all in the "St. Elsewhere" snowglobe, since most sitcoms are connected in one way or another by crossovers? If that's the case, then the joke on "Happy Days" reached all-new levels of meta, though its writers never could have known.