THE RISE OF THE FONZ (ANDTHE FALL OF RICHIE)

WHEN HE AUDITIONED for “Happy Days,” Henry Winkler was 28 years old. The New York-raised and Yale-trained actor was nothing like what Gary Marshall envisioned for tough-guy greaser Arthur Fonzarelli. “I thought I wanted a tall, handsome blond, and in walked a short, dark-haired actor,” Marshall wrote in his memoir.

The Fonz was a bit part in the pilot, with only six lines. “[He] was really written to just point and do gestures and say very little,” Marshall said in an interview with the Television Academy.

“I always think of myself as a sponge, and my acting education is liquid,” Winkler says. “I soak up all that liquid, squeeze the sponge dry, and use what’s left … to create different characters.”

To create Fonzarelli, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t just retreading greaser stereotypes that had gone before. So he implemented certain character quirks in his approach. “One of them was that I was never going to comb my hair,” Winkler says. “In the script, it said Fonzie’s going to comb his hair. So [in the scene] I went to the mirror and realized I didn’t have to because my hair was perfect.”

Tom Miller championed Winkler’s approach despite Marshall’s skepticism, and he won the part. He was cast opposite Ron Howard – a former child actor best known for playing Opie on “The Andy Griffith Show” – who brought a wholesome All-American naiveté to the central role of Richie Cunningham. But by the end of the first season, it was clear which of the two characters was winning hearts and minds. “We were getting field reports that wherever Henry went, huge crowds were gathering,” Howard wrote in his memoir. During a publicity tour, “the Nieman Marcus flagship store in Dallas was completely overwhelmed by a turnout of over 20,000 people, most of them screaming girls, most of them screaming ‘Fon-zeee!’”

The network took notice, especially when ratings started to dip during season two’s early run. “[Fonzie] was loyal; he was a rebel; he was secretly loving,”

Winkler says. “What I was able to do was bring so many dimensions, and the writers just kept going with it.”

Season 2, Episode 13 was the show’s big switch. Up to that point, “Happy Days” had been filmed with a single camera, like a movie, but ABC decided a shakeup was necessary to reverse the ratings slump. They were going to film this episode on a soundstage with a live studio audience. That wasn’t all. For the first time, the episode’s central character was going to be Fonzie. The “chick magnet” Fonz shocks everyone by announcing that he’s getting married – then Mr. Cunningham recognizes the would-be Mrs. Fonzie as a stripper he encountered at a convention in Chicago, so Fonzie ends the engagement, and everything goes back to normal.

The whole affair was a Winkler showcase. And ratings spiked. From then on, “Happy Days” was a live-audience, multi-camera sitcom, and it was all about the Fonz.

Winkler recalls a striking illustration of his new status as No. 1 at Christmas, 1975. As gifts, the entire cast received identical wallets from ABC – except Winkler, who got a VCR worth thousands of dollars. If that didn’t get the message across, the network started floating the idea of re-naming the show “Fonzie’s Happy Days.”

“I was being marginalized by my own show,” Howard wrote in his memoir, a feeling that would lead him to leave the show in its seventh season, while Winkler stuck it out to the finale.

According to Marley Brant in her sitcom history book Happier Days, Marshall wanted to set the show in his Bronx neighborhood, but “ABC thought the locale might be too regional and ethnic. [A network executive] thought the viewing audience would be more comfortable with a Midwestern family. … [Miller's] Wisconsin it was.”

Miller spent his first 18 years in the city, where his family ran a dry-cleaning business and lived in Whitefish Bay. In 1958, he graduated from Nicolet High School and went on to study drama and speech atUW-Madison.Fromthere,hemovedtoLosAngeles where he started his career in television. “My real introduction [to Milwaukee] was through Tom,” Winkler says. Miller peppered the show with little Milwaukee touches – the diner has a UW-Milwaukee banner, Richie wears a Wisconsin letter jacket, the Packers are a frequent subject of discussion.

“Idothinkthat‘HappyDays'helpedputMilwaukee on the map for some people,” says Elana Levine, a media professor at UW-Milwaukee. “It mattered in terms of Milwaukee's national profile.”

But what really drove the show was its time, much more than its place. When “Happy Days” premiered in 1974, the country was undergoing one of its most tumultuouseras.“Americawentthroughtheringerin the 1960s,” says John Gurda, a Milwaukee historian who grew up in the city in the '50s. “Everything from the Civil Rights Movement to the counterculture to the revolution in music that kind of replaced what had been there in the 1950s.”

Milwaukeewentthroughthatringerjustasmuchas anyothercity.In1956,sittingmayorFrankZeidlerwas challengedbyAld.MiltonMcGuire,whosecampaign revolved largely around his opposition to the city's expanding Black population, which nearly tripled to 62,458 between 1950 and 1960. One of McGuire's campaign slogans was “Milwaukee needs an honest white man for mayor,” and he promised to keep the city free of “Southern migrants.” Zeidler prevailed, but racial tensions persisted, reaching a zenith in the '60s housing marches, when activists walked the city streets for 200 days protesting segregated housing ahead of the Fair Housing Act in 1968.

That same year, “youth culture” and “free love” were in full swing in Milwaukee when Summerfest launched its first iteration with a logo evoking a big ol' pot leaf. The fight for LGBTQ rights was also intensifying, with 1961's Black Nite Brawl near Downtown putting the city's gay subculture – and its frequent persecution – under the spotlight. That's not to mention the war in Vietnam. In Milwaukee, 14 men (including five Catholic priests) stole thousands of draft cards from the Brumder Building on Wells Street and burned them in a park with homemade napalm, leading to their arrest.

By the time the '70s came along, the top comedies were CBS hits “M*A*S*H,” “Maude” and “All in the Family,” which all had political bents (i.e., Archie Bunker and Mike Stivic screaming at each other about race relations). ABC was losing badly in the ratings, and its brass placed a bet on conventional America's exhaustion. No more leaning into the counterculture. With “Happy Days,” they would put on rose-tinted glasses and look to a '50s of the cultural imagination – leather jackets, doo-wop, motorcycles, necking.

“The '50s absolutely felt like a simpler time. In large part, because we were simpler. We were kids,” Gurda says. “It was a time of grade school crushes and Buddy Holly. When you have a sea change in a culture's evolution, that makes what went before a lot more powerful.”

“Happy Days” didn't entirely duck thornier issues, but when it approached a potentially controversial topic,itdidsowithaverylighttouch.Inaseasonthree episode,Fonzierespondstoteenagerswhowon'tattend a party with his Black friend by calling them “nerds.”

“What ‘Happy Days' did was take '50s nostalgia and resituated it outside of youth culture and its anti-war feeling and experimentation with drugs and the rest of it,” says Daniel Marcus, a media professor who studied at UW-Madison and has written extensively about the political power of nostalgia. “It depolarized that nostalgia and made it less conflictual. It was important that the Fonz actually got along with the Cunningham parents – they liked the Fonz, and he liked them. It wasn't like he was leading a youth revolt.” Marcus points out the Fonz was a greaser, not the other rebellious youth of the '50s – the beatniks (think Jack Kerouac), who were far more similar to the '60s hippies that the show was avoiding.

“A friend of mine, who was born in 1965, watched [“Happy Days”] as a little kid with her father,” Marcus says. “She said to her father, ‘Wow, all sorts of cool thingshappenedinthe'50s.Didanythingcoolhappen in the '60s?' And he said, ‘No.' Of course, a lot of things happened in the '60s, but he didn't want to talk about those things.”

With that in mind, Milwaukee served more as a backdropforanultra-stylized,idealizedpastthanareal city.UWMprofessorNewmanwrotea2010articlefor mediajournal Flow abouttheshow'ssenseofplace–or lack thereof. “Setting the show in Milwaukee was a way of striking a note of Americana – an idealization of ‘normal' America,” he wrote. “It's hard to be proud to have been chosen as an undistinct enough place to stand in for Anytown, USA.” Reflecting on his article now, Newman says: “I don't think they ever exposed a single frame of film in Milwaukee for ‘Happy Days.' … In the imagination of Hollywood, Middle America waskindofanimaginaryplaceofchildhoodinnocence thatisprettywhite,thatiscenteredaroundthenuclear family, that has these old-fashioned values.”

So did the show bear any resemblance to real life in Milwaukee? Or was it all a fantasy?

“THE ONE THING THAT REALLY

did ring true about ‘Happy Days' was the drive-in,” says Gurda.

We can thank Tom Miller for that. “Tom inspired the creation of Arnold's,” Williams says. “He used to hang at this place called The Milky Way, and they designed the drive-in around his experiences there.”

The Milky Way in Glendale, now a Kopp's location, was the closest drive-in to Miller's Bay Ridge Avenue home. Gilles to the west and Leon's to the south were also both hot spots, and the scenes that played out in “Happy Days” weren't that far removed from what Milwaukeeteenagersexperiencedinthe'50s–although someoftherougheredgesweresoftened.“Theowners had to be pretty vigilant,” Gurda recalls. “During football season, I remember fistfights breaking out that almost got out of control.”

While the drive-in rang true to the Milwaukee experience, one of Miller's other key contributions to the show did not – and that was Henry Winkler.

“I mean, Fonzie literally has a New York accent,” says Levine.

“I don't know anyone who talked like that – ever – in Milwaukee,” Gurda says.

Miller championed Winkler for Arthur Fonzarelli, despite his being half-a-foot-shorter than the Italian stallion Marshall imagined for the character (not to mention Jewish). And he was proven prescient – Winkler's slick take on the cool cat shot the show into the ratingsstratosphere.ButevenMilleradmittedthatthe FonzwasstraightfromGarryMarshall'sBronx.“There was no Fonzie among the kids I knew,” he told the

JournalSentinel in2008.(Millerdiedin2020atage79.) GreaserculturedidexistinMilwaukee,though–and for many, it was the epitome of cool. “My brother was a greaser,” Gurda says. “There was an attraction to that [style]. I remember we were on a family trip, and I was left alone in a hotel room with a bottle of his Brylcreem. I just doused my hair. It was disgusting.”

Although some stylized aspects of the show had truth to them, the overall feel was still far from reality. “I didn't feel any Milwaukee reverberations [in the show.] It didn't feel familiar,” Gurda says. “I didn't feel like it was my town.”

For one, the show didn't look like Milwaukee. While the Cunningham house was supposed to be at fictional 565 N. Clinton Dr., the real house used in exterior shots was at 565 N. Cahuenga Blvd. in Los Angeles, a few blocks from Paramount Studios. The Milwaukee represented on the show looked much more like the many suburbs Milwaukee annexed during the '40s and '50s – or burgeoning Glendale, the home of The Milky Way.

Milwaukeewasafargrittierplacethanthosegrowing suburbs. In 1950, the city's brewing industry was booming–Schlitzwasthelargestbrewerinthenation, shipping more than 5 million barrels of beer annually. Pabstwasfourth,MillereighthandBlatzninth,making Milwaukee the “Beer Capital of the World.” It was a decidedly working-class city, with crowded factories, belchingsmokestacksandincreasinglycongestedtraffic.ThisurbanrealitywasfarfromtheCunninghams' peaceful domicile – but it did find some expression in the“HappyDays”1976spinoff“Laverne&Shirley,”in which the leading ladies worked assembly line jobs at fictional Shotz Brewery. “We played everyday people, blue-collar workers,” Shirley actress Cindy Williams told Milwaukee Magazine in 2022. “We struggled to pay the rent, the electric bill, the gas bill. … That's also why it's set in a city like Milwaukee.”

With that in mind, the spinoff came a little closer to the feel of Milwaukee than “Happy Days” ever did. Milwaukee,tobefrank,wasn'tseeinghappydaysinthe '50s. The city hadn't had any significant construction sincethe1930s,andindustrialsmoghadturnedmany ofitsfacadesdingy.Yearsofbudgetcuts,demolitionto makewayforfreeways,andfocusonsuburbanexpansion led to a Downtown that The Saturday Evening Post in 1951describedashaving“alookofbeinghalf-finished. Parking lots and filling stations make ugly gaps, like missing teeth. … Block on block of run-down frame houses blights the center of the city.”

ThatinfrastructurecrisiswasatitsworstintheThird Ward, Walker's Point and around North Avenue. In 1953, Mayor Zeidler said that 10,000 housing units northoftheMenomoneeValleyshouldbetorndown “tomorrow.” Despite that, only nine blocks of blight wereclearedby1956.Thereasonfortheslowprogress was something of an open secret. In 1957, Zeidler told a labor group, “To many people, urban renewal meansonlypublichousing,andtothempublichousing means housing for migrant Negro families, so they are against the whole program.”

Developmentthroughthe'50sand'60s (including the construction of County Stadium) helped to bring many areas

of the city to a better standard, but others were largely ignored.Theconsequencesofthisdefactosegregation and the lack of development are still felt today.

“‘Happy Days' ended up more idealized middle American,averywhiterepresentation,”saysNewman. “I think Gary Marshall's [Bronx] idea for the show felt more urban and ethnic. ... That [1950s] period has reachedapointinmediawhereit'shardtodisentangle what's our imagination and what's reality.”

The reason for that, Newman explains, is that the '50s were also the era when televisions entered every home. In Milwaukee, for much of the '50s, WTMJ was the only station, and variety comedy shows and localhitslike“BowlingwiththeChamps”presenteda rosier self-portrait of the city in real time that primed the pump for “Happy Days” nostalgia.

“Anythingwithascriptandalaughtrackis,bynature, a fantasy,” Gurda says, and this is especially true of “Happy Days,” which fully embraced its ethereal “Milwaukee” as a semi-suburban amusement park far from the real thing, save a few nostalgic touches.

Oh, and also – one particular “Happy Days” inauthenticity, while small, might sting a little more for Milwaukeeans. The Fonz started the show riding a Harley Knucklehead, but by season two it was traded in for a smaller, easier-to-maneuver Triumph … made in England.

EVENTUALLY, “HAPPY DAYS”

jumped the shark – a phrase it introduced into the zeitgeist when the Fonz literally waterskied over a tiger shark in season four. But the show itself didn't figuratively jump the shark until its later seasons after Ron Howard left, when new characters failed to match his energy, and the audience dwindled before the show ended after 11 seasons in 1984. (Winkler was 38 years old by the last episode.)

While dozens of other '70s sitcoms were quickly forgotten, it has stuck around long after Fonzie hit his last ayyyyyy. “People love the family and wish they had a family like the Cunninghams,” says Marion Ross, who played Richie's mother. “Family values never go out of style.”

“There's a new generation of fans becoming aware of the show,” says Don Most, the actor and singer behind the redheaded prankster Ralph Malph. “I think the longevity has to do with the chemistry of a really talented cast. We're a total family. … Anson, Ron, Henry and I still have a group text.”

Theshow'slingeringculturalpowerwasundeniable. And that influence stuck around Milwaukee, too.

But while “Happy Days” looked to the past, Milwaukee has moved into a new future. The city has experienced a renaissance, with a burgeoning food scene, booming arts and entertainment, ongoing development across Downtown and its surrounds – and a constant push for a more inclusive and widespread access to that growth. The city has come far, not only from the real 1950s, but from its associations with “Happy Days.”

“The older the show gets, the less familiar it is,” Newman says. “As time goes by, you feel less of that embarrassment, sure, because I think now it's becoming historical as opposed to familiar pop culture.”

Fifteen years after the statue went up, the

still stands strong. And, for the most part, it's lost the sheen of controversy it once held.

columnist Jim Stingl seems to have hit the nail on the head in 2008, when he predicted the fate of the statue – and by extension, “Happy Days” in Milwaukee. “No one will be forced to watch reruns of ‘Happy Days,'” he wrote. “The Milwaukee Art Museum 10 blocks away won't collapse into rubble. Arts galleries won't be forced out of business. … Milwaukee's founders won't rise from the dead and accuse us of frivolity. The statue won't solve all the city's problems, but then again it won't worsen them, either. … It's just a bit of harmless fun.”

The 1950s Milwaukee of “Happy Days” is a place that is visited by an alien played by Robin Williams, a place where the “She-Devil” girl biker gang kidnaps Chachi, a place where the Fonz fakes his death to escape the mafia, and much, much more.

To put it succinctly: It's not the 1950s. And it's not Milwaukee. But it can still make us smile.