By Season 3, “Happy Days” had well and truly found its feet – it rated highly; it had a more recognizable theme song (yep, that one) and Henry Winkler’s ‘The Fonz’, who was merely a recurring character in the first season, had been upped to the series’ star due to his increasing popularity (the network even wanted to rename the show to ‘Fonzies’ Happy Days’ but creator Garry Marshall wouldn’t have a bar of it). It was pretty clear that the show was going to be around for quite a while at this stage. And it was – right up until Fonzie ‘jumped the shark’ (literally).

By season 3, Ritchie’s older brother ‘Chuck’ was gone (the character was a bit of a wet fish, so nobody much noticed) and for producers didn’t feel the need to really replace him with anyone – seems anyone they’d try to introduce, besides the core cast, didn’t go down well with the audience so we didn’t actually see a new permanent character until Chachi played by Scott Baio, joined the series in it’s fourth season. (Al, the new owner of ‘Arnold’s’, wasn’t introduced until Season 4 either. He was written in to replace Arnold, played by Pat Morita, because the future “Karate Kid” star had scored his own sitcom).

The third season of “Happy Days” was a treat – Laverne & Shirley made their TV debut; there were a slew of guest-stars (everyone from June Lockhart to Dick Van Patten), but mostly, it was funny. It struggled a bit in it’s early days, but it had really hit its stride now and was no longer resembling the “American Graffiti” TV spin-off it resembled in its junior year.

What the DVD lacks in original music (once again, it was too expensive – say the distributor – to use the original tunes, so they’ve replaced a lot of them with other songs), it makes up for in extras this time – or rather, an extra… a good one; it’s an anniversary special on the show – a treat for all fans of this legendary sitcom.

Rating :
Reviewer : Clint Morris