The Happy Days of Joanie Cunningham: A Conversation with Erin Moran

There is no doubt about it: the 1970s were the golden age of the television sit-com.  Stuck between the kooky creativity of the 1960s and the bland politically correct sentimentality of the 1980s, the 1970s provided TV audiences with the best writers, producers, actors and envelope pushing that the television sit-com had to offer.  However, none of the sit-coms of the 1970s has come as close as incorporating itself into Americana as Happy Days.  Sure, it wasn’t as smart as MASH, as controversial as All in the Family, or as well written as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but by bringing a portrait of 1950s Milwaukee and one of television greatest ensemble casts into viewers’ homes for ten amazing seasons (not to mention spawning four spin off series and “Fonziemania”, one of the biggest crazes of the 1970s surrounding TV icon and the show’s star Henry Winkler), Happy Days has become one of the most endearing and loved sit-coms in the history of television.  The characters are as familiar to us as our own family – the Cunningham family patriarchs Howard and Marion, straight shooter Richie, kid sister Joanie and mysterious older brother Chuck, goofballs Potsie and Ralph Malph, the rebellious yet loveable Chachi and, of course, the enigmatic Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli a.k.a. “the Fonz.”  These characters have become some of the biggest icons on our pop culture journey.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I was given the chance to sit down and have a one-on-one visit with Happy Days star Erin Moran, who portrayed Joanie Cunningham for all ten seasons of Happy Days, not to mention the disastrous spin off series Joanie Loves Chachi.  Beginning her acting career in commercials at the age of four, Erin was the “jump the shark” kid in Daktari, and eventually wound up striking pop culture gold when she got the part of Joanie Cunningham as a young teenager.  Over ten years America watched as Erin grew up from smart mouthed kid to  beautiful and spunky woman.  She may have loved Chachi, but TV audiences loved her.  Disappearing out of the public eye after Happy Days, Erin turned her attention to theatre, but still makes public appearances with other Happy Days alumnists at autograph shows and media conventions.

I had the great pleasure to sit down with Erin prior to the doors opening at a collectable show in Toronto in June 2007.  Erin is exactly how you would want to imagine her: fun, energetic, witty and quick with a joke or a smart comment.  For about forty-five minutes Erin and I discussed her career, as well as the phenomena known as Happy Days. When did Happy Days jump the shark?  How did Fonziemania affect the Happy Days cast?  What was the spin off that a cast member refused to make…and why?  Did Joanie really love Chachi?  Did the Ted McGinley curse kill Happy Days?  Did Joanie Loves Chachi really have high ratings in Korea?  Come with us, friends and readers, as Erin and I discuss the TV show that is a part of the American identity as Norman Rockwell and apple pie as

CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE ADDICT PRESENTS

THE HAPPY DAYS OF JOANIE CUNNINGHAM: 

A CONVERSATION  WITH ERIN MORAN

I talked with Erin Moran in Toronto, Ontario in May 2007.

Sam Tweedle:  This is really exciting to meet somebody from Happy Days.

Erin Moran:  Oh thank you!  Thank you!

Sam:  So you’ve been working and acting since you were a kid…

Erin:  Since I was four.

Sam:  Since you were four.

Erin:  Yes.  Since I was four years old.

Sam:  And you started in commercials?

Erin:  Yes, and then my very first series was Daktari.  Remember that show?

Sam:  With Judy the Chimp and Clarence the cross-eyed lion!

Erin:  That’s right!

Sam:  So how did you get into acting at the age of four?

Erin:  Well, a friend of my Mom’s had a friend who was just starting out as a child agent, and the friend of my Mom’s said, “just take Erin in and just meet with her”.  So my Mom took me in to meet with her and her name was Mary Grady, a famous child agent.

Sam:  Who else did she work with?

Erin:  Oh.  God.  I couldn’t tell you.  A lot of kids who worked.  So I went in with my Mom and had the interview with her and she signed me right their that day and the first commercial that I went for, which was for the First National Bank, I got and I’ve worked ever since. 

Sam:  You’ve worked ever since.

Erin:  Yup.  I’m still working.

Sam:  What are some of your current projects now?

Erin:  I’ve been doing some plays.

Sam:  Oh!  So you’ve gotten into theatre!

Erin:  Yup.  Finally.  The first play was “Lost in Yonkers” in Utah.  I played Bella and that was in ’98.  Then my next play was “They’re Playing Our Song” and I went on the road for three months.  That was the first time that I sang live on stage, which was a kick.  I loved it!  We toured all back east.  Nothing out west.  Then my last play I did was called “Vanities” with Linda Blair and Jill Whelan and that was fun because I got to play an alcoholic and that was fun because I’ve never gotten to do that before.  So it was fun because an audience member after one of the shows came up to me and said, “there was really wine or alcohol in those glasses?” And I said, “no, we don’t do that”, and I thought “what a great compliment!”

Sam:  So after your time on Daktari you worked on stuff like The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and My Three Sons and…

Erin:  Yeah, that was a little later but actually, for my first movie I was five.  It was “How Sweet It Is!” with James Garner and Debbie Reynolds.  Now Garry Marshall, who created Happy Days, was a writer for that movie and Jerry Paris, who directed almost every single episode of Happy Days, was the director! Weird, huh?

Sam:  So did they remember you?

Erin:  No.  I didn’t get Happy Days when I went on the interview.  Another girl did it and did the pilot. 

Sam:  Right.  That was on Love American Style.

Erin:  Yeah.

Sam:  A bit of the Happy Days pilot from Love American Style is available on YouTube.

Erin:  It’s on what now?

Sam:  On YouTube.  I watched it not long ago on YouTube.

Erin:  I don’t even know what that is that you’re saying.

Sam:  YouTube.  You’ve never been on YouTube?

Erin:  I don’t even know what it is.

Sam:  It’s this great website where you can download video clips and old videos and TV footage…

Erin:  Really!!!

Sam:  Yeah.  Actually, in a few places on our website we have links to you and Scott Baio singing the Joanie Loves Chachi theme via YouTube.

Erin:  Oh!  You’ve gotta give me your card.  I’ve got to see that!  My husband does the computer.  I’d love that!  He’d love to see that! Okay.  Now I did a movie, a TV movie of the week [Lisa, Bright and Dark] prior to Happy Days, and Anson Williams was in it.  Kay Lenz was the star and Anne Baxter played her mom, and the girl who did the pilot was fired and, of course, they had to get another Joanie so Anson Williams put in a good word for me so it was really him that got me the part.

Sam:  Now I just re-watched the first season of Happy Days. That’s been on DVD for a while.

Erin:  Oh!  I love that season!  The second season just came out!

Sam:  Yeah.  I went to buy it this weekend but it was already sold out!

Erin:  Really!  That’s good!

Sam:  Now back in the early episodes you were really just the smart-mouthed kid sister that actually had all the best lines. 

Erin:  Yeah.

Sam:  Did you feel that later on the writing changed for you?

Erin:  Well, getting older they were not going to be the same.  I always kept that little sister smart aleck attitude but I actually liked the way they wrote.  I mean there was a few things that I didn’t like but that’s going to happen.

Sam:  Now did the cast… well, the thing about the Happy Days cast is that it’s one of the great ensemble casts in television history.  Now did everybody just mesh together right away?

Erin:  Yeah.  That’s why we were all together for eleven years.

Sam:  Now when did it become apparent that it was becoming Henry Winkler’s show?

Erin:  Oh, well, not the first or second season.  When we went to three cameras, which was in the third season, that’s when it pretty much picked up and became bigger then life and then that was it and he started taking off.  It was about the third season and then by the fourth he really took off.  Big time.

Sam:  And how did thateaffect the rest of the cast?

Erin:  Well, we were fine.  It was kind of hard for Ron Howard because he was the star of the show and then all of a sudden here comes Henry kind of outshining him, not that he was jealous in that but he didn’t really want to act anyways.  He wanted to direct.  But it worked out.  It was really funny because when Henry was taking off and we were becoming number one they offered Henry his own show called, I don’t know, “The Fonz Show” or something ridiculous and I remember Henry going, he said this: “Why would I want to do another show where I have to get another whole cast of people who I am going to have to try to mesh with and get along with when I already got it right here.  We already got it.  We got it going right now!”  So that was it.

Sam:  So what’s the real reason they got rid of Chuck?

Erin:  They didn’t need him.  They just didn’t need him.

Sam:  So it had nothing to do with him.

Erin:  It had nothing to do with him.  Not one bit.  They had plenty going on with the amount of cast members as it was.

Sam:  Sure.  In the first season he was always just going out the door with a basketball in his hand and a sandwich in his mouth.

Erin:  Yeah:  Exactly.

Sam:  And there was no questions from the audience or…

Erin:  Nope.  Just now.      

Sam:  Just one of those weird pop culture enigmas.

Erin:  Yup.  Yup.  It happens.

Sam:  Okay.  So Scott Baio joined the cast in the fourth season, right?

Erin:  I think it was the third season.  He did one little spot and then he came back in the fourth.

Sam:  So how did the addition to Scott to the series impact the series for you?

Erin:  Well I got more to do, which was nice, so then Ron left and then there was even more to do.

Sam:  Because you and Scott became the focus.

Erin:  Exactly, and then the singing and all that was pretty cool.

Sam:  How would you describe your working relationship with Scott Baio?

Erin:  Excellent.  Ah, with all of them!  Oh, we just had a kick!  We really had a good time working together.

Sam:  So Ron Howard and Donny Most left about the sixth season?

Erin:  I believe… Ron left…. uh… yeah, about the sixth season.  I think you’re right about that.  The sixth season.  Yeah.

Sam:  Now how did that impact everything, and also, a lot of Happy Days fans feel that’s when they should have… uh…

Erin:  Ended the show?

Sam:  Yeah.

Erin:  Yeah.  Well they thought about doing that but it was still such a big hit then they just thought, “why?”

Sam:  The show must go on.

Erin:  The show must go on.  It impacted all of us because we loved Ron so much, and it was a family and it was established and we were all together for that many years, so that was hard because he had left.  And Donny as well.

Sam:  Now Ron left to do directing, right?

Erin:  Yeah.

Sam:  Then why did Donny Most leave?

Erin:  He left to do some more serious acting.

Sam:  Did he?

Erin:  Um… I believe… a little bit.  Yeah.  Yeah.  It was hard.

Sam:  Because you guys have all had to deal with typecasting.

Erin:  Yeah.  That’s right.  And that quickly…  That was pretty quick.

Sam:  Has typecasting impacted your career a lot?

Erin:  Yeah.  Yeah.  It sure has.

Sam:  How do you get over that?

Erin:  You do plays.

Sam:  Well, that’s how Roddy McDowell did it.  So then we come to Joanie Loves Chachi.  Now the series seems to have a bit of a bad stigma.  It only lasted one season on the air and everybody remembers it being a kind of a flop, yet it was in the top twenty in the ratings and, by all accounts, did very good. 

Erin:  Well they put it up against Magnum PI.  It was never meant to go.  It was a season replacement, you see. That’s why.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault except for the producers and what they added and why they had it going, they never wanted it to be anything more then a season replacement.  They never wanted it to go.

Sam:  So they told you that they were going to bring you and Scott back to Happy Days.

Erin:  They had every intention of bringing us back to Happy Days.  It was a done deal. 

Sam:  Well because the ratings didn’t seem to be that bad.

Erin:  No, they weren’t bad, but then they put us up against Magnum PI, and that would shoot anybody done no matter how good the ratings were.

Sam:  Is there any proof to the story that ratings for Joanie Loves Chachi were high in Korea? (long pause)  Because of “Chachi” being Korean for penis.

Erin:  Oh.  I dunno.  Jeez.  I’ve been getting this question on and off.  Whatever.

Sam:  It’s just one of those pop culture urban myths up there with Barry Williams sleeping with Florence Henderson and the kid from Mr. Belvedere being Marilyn Manson.

Erin:  Oh.  I haven’t heard that about Marilyn Manson.  I didn’t know about that.

Sam:  Oh… uh.  Well he wasn’t.  It’s just an urban myth.

Erin:  Yeah.

Sam:  Do you still know all the words to the Joanie Loves Chachi theme song?

Erin:  No.  None of us do.  It’s sad but true.

Sam:  I know all the words to the theme song.  Uh… it’s on my MP3 player.

Erin:  (Laughs) That’s good.  That’s excellent.

Sam:  Well it was released on a .45, wasn’t it?

Erin:  I don’t know.  Probably.  You know what really upsets me is that the second season on the Happy Days DVD they changed the songs.  That sucks.  That’s just not right.

Sam:  Well it was a copyright thing, wasn’t it? 

Erin:  Yeah, I know but… they don’t have enough money to pay them?  C’mon…

Sam:  WKRP in Cincinnati had the same problem.

Erin:  Did they really?

Sam:  Yeah.  The first season just came out on DVD and they had to change all the music to generic stuff.

Erin:  That bites.  Doesn’t it?  That’s awful because that’s just not the way it was!  It should just remain the same!

Sam:  So in the sixth season you had Cathy Silvers come in and Ted McGinley.  Well Ted McGinley talks about something called the Ted McGinley curse where he joins the cast of the show and it comes to an end within a few years.

Erin:  Really?

Sam:  Yeah.  He says he killed Happy Days.  He killed Love Boat.  He killed Falcon Crest. 

Erin:  Silly.  He’s silly.

Sam:  Well what was it like to work with Ted?

Erin:  He’s excellent.  He’s such a nice man.  We adored him.

Sam:  Now in the later seasons they seemed to take a lot more liberties and they started making the series look and feel like it was taking place in the 1970s and the 1980s.

Erin:  I know.

Sam:  I thought that was really weird.

Erin:  We all thought it was really weird as well.

Sam:  Did they do it because they were having a hard time with the costumes or the cars and sets, or were they getting lazy or something?

Erin:  I don’t know.  Maybe.

Sam:  In some later seasons I’m not sure what decade you guys were in.

Erin:  Yeah.  None of us did.  (Laughs)

Sam:  So Happy Days jumping the shark.  You’ve heard the term jumping the shark?

Erin:  Yes.  Yes.

Sam:  So, did Happy Days jump the shark and if it did, when did it?

Erin:  About then.

Sam:  When Fonzie jumped the shark?

Erin:  Yeah (laughs). It’s funny because Anson Williams, Donny Most and I did a signing at Dragon Con and we did a whole Q & A thing and they talked about jumping the shark and Anson said that’s when it happened.  When Fonzie jumped the shark.  Oh god.  It’s too funny.

Sam:  Where there ever a time when you folks and you got a script and you folks thought it was so outrageous that you didn’t want to do it?

Erin:  Oh yeah.  Yeah. 

Sam:  A lot?

Erin:  No, not a lot, and it didn’t happen with the whole cast.  It was usually singular members that had it going on with their character.  I would never say that.  We all came across that.

Sam:  Did Henry want to jump the shark?

Erin:  I really don’t know.

Sam:  That’d be a question for Henry.

Erin:  I’m sure he did.  Sure.

Sam: So you said you’ve done shows with Donny Most and Anson Williams.  Do you still keep in touch with any other co-stars?

Erin:  Oh god.  All of them!  Two weeks ago I just got back from a two week cruise on the Emerald Princess that Marion Ross and I christened.  Yeah.  We’re the godmothers of the Emerald Princess and the two of us went on a two-week cruise of all the Greek islands.  First we went to Rome.  We got on the ship in Rome and I’ve never been to Rome.  It was excellent!  It was great!  And then about two weeks prior to that I did a signing with Henry, Tom Bosley, and Cathy Silvers.

Sam:  How is Tom Bosley doing?  I haven’t seen him on anything lately.

Erin:  He’s doing great.  He does plays.  He loves doing plays.

Sam:   He is such a great character actor.  I love seeing him doing guest spots on The Mod Squad or Night Gallery.

Erin:  He was on Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball too.

Sam:  Oh was he?

Erin:  Yeah.  He plays the doctor.  You’ve gotta rent it.  It’s a great movie!

Sam:  So how did doing Happy Days change your life?

Erin:  Oh well.  My goodness.  Well, in the matter of fans and more of the public recognizing me, and in return me getting that response.  That smile.  That feeling is just out of this world.  I love it.

Sam:  Now we’ll always remember you as Joanie Cunningham, but how do you want to be remembered as?  Who do you want to be remembered as?

Erin:  Just both.  Erin and Joanie.  When somebody accidentally calls me Joanie and they apologize I say, “don’t apologize.  I wouldn’t be here otherwise”. 

Sam:  I know a lot of people that do a role as long as you played Joanie to be so strongly identified with the character that it becomes a thorn in their side.

Erin:  Oh no no.  It’s a blessing.  I’m so thankful for that because in Happy Days there were shows that changed peoples lives.  I’ll never forget it.  I’ve gotten it throughout the years when communicating with the fans.  I got a letter from a girl saying that she saw an episode in which I was talking to my dad and she wrote that it had helped her so much to be able to help to her father and before she saw that episode she never talked to her father and now they were talking and communicating.  So in that… are you kidding me?  That’s excellent!  I don’t think that could ever be a thorn!  It’s just excellent to have that in my life.

Sam:  Well that’s so wonderful, because you folks are such an important part of our journey and our existence and shape who we become, so it’s good to hear that our icons like you realize that.

Erin:  Yeah.  We all feel the same way.  Marion Ross feels the same way too, and she has such a heart of gold and she just lights up when fans recognize her, and it’s like the first time every time.  When we get compliments and get that recognition it’s just wonderful.

Sam:  Are you surprised that Happy Days has had the lasting appeal that it has had?

Erin:  No.  I’m not surprised at all.  Nah.  Well, I shouldn’t say that at all.  I am for the matter that this far down the road that it’s only because of the reruns, but even if there wasn’t the reruns, people really keep the show in their heart.  I came to realize recently about how much of a closeness there is with older people from the 50s era.  They love that era, and there is such a thing for that era, so that was such a big eye opener for me.  That’s what made it big for that matter.

Sam:  Well I guess that’s it.  Well thank you Erin so much for taking the time to talk with us today.

Erin:  You’re welcome!

With the 1970′s being my favorite era of pop culture, possibly because I was a child of the late 1970′s/early 1980′s, meeting Erin Moran was a real thrill and being able to sit and talk to her so candidly was an experience that I’ll cherish forever.  However, without the help of Bob Kotsopoulos of the Kots Kollection this interview would not have probably gone so smoothly.  I want to thank Bob so much for the opportunity and for arranging the talk between Erin and myself.  I really appreciate it and you’re a good friend on this pop culture journey and I hope one day we can work together again.