Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! I’ve been bursting to start coverage of Laverne & Shirley for the past few weeks, but my opening essay establishing some thoughts on Garry Marshall — which is the only reason I’m happy to discuss Laverne & Shirley — has become a bigger endeavor than I initially intended, largely because I screened Happy Days (in full) after deciding it makes a better primary reference point. Accordingly, I’ve been taking my time to get everything just right, and since I like using the calendar to mark beginnings and endings, I’ve opted to formally push back Laverne & Shirley to September. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime, I’m trying to eke out a few more slightly relevant posts, like another rerun…

This week, let’s revisit… The Ten Best THAT ’70S SHOW Episodes of Season Two: https://jacksonupperco.com/2019/09/24/the-ten-best-that-70s-show-episodes-of-season-two/

I see a lot of parallels between Happy Days and That ’70s Show. Not only are they both hangout sitcoms centered around a somewhat nerdy/square/average high school boy who engages with pals in healthy teenage rebellion against his conservative parents, they’re also nostalgic pieces — Happy Days being a 1970s look at the ’50s, and That ’70s Show being a 1990s look at the ’70s. Indeed, the association between the two is even winked at early on when Marion Ross plays Eric’s grandmother, making an implied ancestral link. Then, they end up taking on similar trajectories too — by the start of both series’ second full seasons, the lead’s “bad boy” friend moves into the house, increasing the familial bent of the storytelling, while also elevating the comedic interplay. And, of course, both shows then lose said lead after their seventh seasons, carrying on despite them, but with far less creative success… Yet while Happy Days squeezed out four more years, That ’70s Show could barely manage one. Why? Well, I see Happy Days’ ability to endure the loss of its lead — physically, not qualitatively — as the result of, (A) Richie’s gradual decentralization, as more narrative ground was ceded to Fonzie, the show’s breakout figure and eventually the only actual character, and (B), the larger fact that, beyond Fonzie and maybe Richie at first, Happy Days is otherwise not a series that prioritizes the use of its personified tangibles in the weekly satisfaction of its goals. That is, Happy Days is idea-driven — the loss of a lead character matters less there because, on its own terms, character matters less…. We’ll be talking more about this soon, so now, I’ll only note that, in contrast, That ’70s Show actually embraces its peers’ notions of character, validating the Friends-ian rom-com and its interest in exploring relationships, which in turn forces more personalization and emotional continuity… even with higher concept distractions, like a nostalgic setting. To that point, peak That ’70s Show, we saw, occurred when its nostalgic setting only gave support to its leads’ coming-of-age tensions and romantic tribulations — in other words, when character was king. Thus, Happy Days’ minimized concern for character is my fundamental critique of it — and all of Garry Marshall’s produced efforts — for, as That ’70s Show proves, a nostalgic setting does not inherently demand an idea-driven aesthetic. That’s Garry Marshall’s choice; more soon…

Come back next week for more sitcom fun! And stay tuned tomorrow for a new Wildcard!