The only sad episode..
The episode where Laverne is finally going to be proposed to only to find out her fireman boyfriend on duty perishes in a collapsing building fighting a fire.
shareI just watched this episode again after all these years. Didn't like it then, still don't like it.
I think she had mentioned before she was dating a fireman (actually she did, but was that Randy then?), but obviously he wasn't shown, as Danson only has the one appearance.
It felt like he was a Bonanza bride; written in just to be killed off.
But again, having just watched it again, her denial was bizarre. The reason her father was the one to have to make her realize it was the loss he experienced when he lost her mother.
Truthfully, many of the 'serious' or 'sad' episodes (Laverne visiting her mom's grave, Laverne thinks she's pregnant, Lenny is in love with Laverne, Squiggy dreams he is an English nobleman, etc.) are rather cheesy.
But I do agree with another poster. Lenny and Squiggy entering and having to tell Laverne, that was good. She shouldn't have denied his death, especially after two friends like those two witnessed it.
The denial just seemed off.
I just saw this episode for the first time last night. Very unusual, almost unheard of, for a sitcom to do such a serious episode in those days, unless it was a Norman Lear show.
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Actually more shows did it back then than you must realize. The only sitcom that seemed to almost never do it was Three's Company, tho even they did it when Priscilla Barnes showed up or something and Jack was ridiculing her. Never understood what all took place there.
Happy Days constantly did a disease-of-the-week with Fonzie acting as this one or that one's guardian angel, the worst being his having to sit in the back of the gymnasium and observe a father and son moment play out with two never-before-seen characters.
I always called it taking to the soapbox, mainly because of the Lear shows.
Never liked when Laverne and Shirley did it, and don't know why they did this one with the fireman.
The only "sad" episode I remember Happy Days doing was when Ritchie was in a motorcycle accident and was in a coma. There were episodes that took on serious topics, but overall they were handled in a more humorous way. Nowhere near as sombering as that L&S episode.
I think as the 1980s progressed you saw more sitcoms taking chances on dramatic storylines. Seemed like every show had at least one "very special episode" that we look back on now and cringe. I think Laverne and the fireman was their attempt at it. Shows that came later did it quite a bit more, almost to the point they were more drama than comedy. But in the 70s it was still unusual to do an entire episode like that, unless it was a Norman Lear show or MASH.
Polak_With_A_Gun: "The only "sad" episode I remember Happy Days doing was when Ritchie was in a motorcycle accident and was in a coma."
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sad, somber, overly serious, whatever you want to call it, it's non-sitcom.
Happy Days had Fonzie's blindness, Potsie wanting to quit school when a teacher said he was cheating, Pinky Tuscadero and Fonzie breaking up because she was more famous (whatever that was about), Joannie wanting to run away and join Leather Tuscadero,
Richie being slipped a mickey and acting stupid at a party and forgetting everything he did and everyone being mad at him (that was a horrible message episode I never understood),
Fonzie's garage blowing up, Officer Kirk running Fonzie out of town because of his leather jacket.
Nobody wanting to go to the Cunningham party because Sticks the new band drummer was there (trying to deal with racism) was rather clumsy in its execution.
I don't recall what the basketball episode with the kid and his father was about, something he wanted to play basketball and his father didn't approve, or he couldn't read, don't know. Fonzie sat in the back and watched.
Many of these and numerous other Happy Days episodes weren't 'sad' per se (the Laverne and Shirley episode wasn't sad, it was just unnecessary and rather weakly done, melodramatic. Too much message.
"A very special episode"
I liked when shows did these types. The actors got to show more range. They were aimed at children so they could be teaching tools as well. Of course it doesn't exactly mirror real life since everything is wrapped up within less than 30 minutes or so.
Check out Arnold Horshack's 'drug abuse' episode on Welcome Back, Kotter. If I saw anything of it forty years ago, I didn't remember it and caught it recently.
It was BIZARRE!
The one that always made me shake my head was 'Greg smoking' on The Brady Bunch. I couldn't grasp what was supposed to be so shocking and I don't smoke.
Another one, Brady Bunch, was Every Boy Does It Once. As I wasn't from a second marriage household, I never understood why Bobby was running away, but when I watched it thirty years later and Carol was at the bottom of those stairs, I was in tears.
Any show that ever focused on latch-key children, I never realized I fell in that category, as soon as I started first grade, my mother went to work. I didn't realize it until we were out of high school.