I opened my gift. I, too, had received a wallet. Tom Bosley and Marion Ross opened their gifts: wallets! Pretty soon we realized that we had all received the same wallet. It was a quality wallet: fine-grain leather, nice and smooth. No complaints.
Then Henry spoke up. He had not been given a wallet. With some sheepishness, he disclosed to us what he had been given: a VCR.
In 1975, a VCR was a new toy, hard to get and very expensive, worth about five grand in today’s dollars. Henry’s state-of-the-art U-matic three-quarter-inch videocassette recorder cost exponentially more than our wallets. The disparity was outrageous. None of us was in desperate need of a VCR—or a new wallet, for that matter—but the thoughtlessness with which management singled out one person and rendered the rest of us second class was galling. We were all displeased. Henry was a little embarrassed.
That’s when I became Shop Steward Howard, designated by the cast to be the point man in making our feelings known. No one wanted Henry to forfeit his VCR, but we wanted to hold management accountable. Using the pay phone on the set, I called ABC corporate, demanding to speak to whoever was in charge of talent relations. A young executive named Bob Boyett came to the phone. I gave him the third degree.
“This is about our Christmas gifts, Bob,” I said. “I feel a little uncomfortable even complaining about them, but it’s about fairness. Here’s the thing: all of us are happy for Henry’s success. It’s fantastic for the show. We all love him. But on the stage, we are an ensemble. That’s what Garry preaches. And that gets undermined when you give Henry a VCR and the rest of us a wallet. So I’d like ABC to think about what they’ve done. And by the way: I’m sending my wallet back.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Bob, in measured, friendly tones. “I didn’t know that your Christmas gifts mattered so much.”
“Yeah, well they shouldn’t but they do!” I said, now with a full head of steam. “So with all due respect, I am returning mine.”
Poor Bob was not culpable in all this; he was a sweetheart who went on to become a successful TV producer in the 1980s, creating such shows as Bosom Buddies and Full House in partnership with Tom Miller. He just happened to be the person stuck with taking my call and absorbing my tirade. The network higher-ups, though, were another story, and this would not be the last time that they brought me low.
I really did mail my wallet back. I’m pretty sure I was the only member of the cast to do so. Henry still has his VCR.
I OBLIGINGLY DID tons of interviews for Happy Days, but I couldn’t get through a single one of them without a reporter asking me some version of the question, “So how does it feel that Fonzie has taken over your show?”
As much as I tried not to let this get to me, sometimes it did. The eczema on my eyelids flared up. Some mornings I awoke in a funk. Driving in my camper van to Paramount, I’d sometimes feel my throat tightening with anxiety and fantasize about playing hooky. I noted the freeway signs indicating San Diego to the south. Hmmm, Tijuana is just over the border. What if I just keep going and I don’t stop until I get there? I wasn’t tempted by debauchery so much as disappearance.
Garry Marshall was astute in recognizing that he needed to take action to keep us all feeling like an ensemble. His masterstroke was to establish a Happy Days softball team. We started out casually, playing Sunday games in the Valley against the talent agencies and the casts and crews of other TV shows. Even some of the movies that were filming on the Paramount lot got involved. One of our early opponents was the Marathon Man team, whose lineup included Dustin Hoffman and William Devane—though not, unfortunately, Sir Laurence Olivier.
Gradually, our softball exploits commanded bigger and bigger stages. We did promotional tours of Major League Baseball stadiums, including Wrigley Field, Shea Stadium, Dodger Stadium, Candlestick Park, and Milwaukee County Stadium. Our opponents were usually teams of local celebrities and former pro athletes. Making us travel as a team was such a brilliant idea on Garry’s part, because we developed real camaraderie on the road and bonded over something that had nothing to do with the show.