Kind of a follow-up to both of yesterday’s posts, really: The Edwin Hawkins Singers did "Oh Happy Day" for yesterday’s Song of the Day, and we featured Gary Portnoy, writer of a couple of TV themes.
Happy Days was a show that aired from 1974 to 1984, a sort of follow-up to the movie American Graffiti, although the show actually came from a sketch on the TV show Love, American Style called "Love and The Happy Days." In its first season, the opening theme was Bill Haley & The Comets’ "Rock Around The Clock," while Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox wrote the closing theme. Thereafter, the Gimbel and Fox song was used at the beginning and end of the show. Jerry Pratt and Truett McClain sang the closing theme in the first season, after which the theme was done by Jim Haas for most of the rest of the shows, Bobby Arvon replacing him for the last season. Pratt and McClain recorded a full version of the song in 1975 for their eponymous first album, and it reached #5 on the Hot 100. Needless to say, it was their only hit.
The Sound of One Hand Typing 
I always think of American Graffiti too, although I did watch Love American Style.
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Ron Howard was in both, so it kind of stands to reason…
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Happy memories, being young and from the UK we found this program so glamorous! On reflection the Fonz was too old to be hanging around with those kids… We loved it 💜
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He was almost 30 when he starred in “Happy Days,” and by the time the show ended he had become the central character. He sounded too “New York” to have been from Milwaukee, frankly…
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Well us hapless Brits had no idea about accents 💜
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You have enough of your own, from what I gather….
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Yes indeed we do and honestly it can be like a tower if Babel sometimes 💜
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I still have this single I bought when I was 8 in 1975…somewhere.
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Going to try and dig it out? Wish I still had my records from when I was 8…
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I don’t have many at all…I lost a lot of them in moves. My sister saved it for me so I need to hunt for it.
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This song is iconic and he knew how to hit the mark with the show,
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It did. I think they used “Rock Around The Clock” as the opening theme for the first season to draw in the people who liked “American Graffiti.”
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I knew all of the history. Loved the show, loved the song.
Did you know the phrase “the show jumped the shark” cane from an episode of Happy Days?
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Of course I do! There used to be a site called JumpTheShark.com, but TV Guide bought it and destroyed it. They tried to build a new site, but it just flopped.
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John,
Good history on this very recognizable song. It makes me feel good every time I hear this song play. How magical is that? I loved the TV sitcom, “Happy Days”. We saw the movie American Graffiti many years later and while it was fun, I prefer the TV spin-off. I had forgotten about “Love American Style”. I liked that program, too. Boy, did they have some good stuff on broadcast TV back in the day!
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I’d rather watch a 60-year-old episode of “Perry Mason” than anything on TV today.
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I didn’t know it came from Love American Style! Good piece of trivia 😀
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A lot of people think it was a TV adaptation of “American Graffiti,” particularly since Ron Howard was in both, but yeah, it was “Love American Style.”
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