It’s been 50 years since Happy Days fans met Al Delvecchio for the first time. After a full season of Pat Morita in the role of Arnold’s Drive-in owner, Arnold Takahashi, Al Molinaro was introduced in Season 4 as Al Delvecchio, the diner’s new owner—and things would never be the same.
The episode, “Fonzie Loves Pinky,” aired on Sept. 21, 1976, on ABC. It featured an early scene set at the drive-in as an event for the Leopard Lodge took place. With Arnold nowhere in sight, a sign outside the restaurant said, “Arnold’s: New management, same name.”
New diner owner Al was introduced as “a nice guy” who supplied all the free pizza and the free soda pop for the evening. A smitten Marion Cunningham (Marion Ross) gushed, “Isn’t Alfred cute?” Her husband Howard’s (Tom Bosley) sarcastic response? “Marion, Arnold is cute. Alfred is humble. And Italian.”
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The switch was major. Fans had already grown to love Morita’s Arnold character, who appeared in a total of 26 Happy Days episodes, the majority of them in Season 3.
Producer Lowell Ganz told The Television Academy that Arnold had been an “unseen character” in the show’s first two seasons.
“Nobody had ever seen Arnold. Arnold was an unseen character like, you know, Carlton the Doorman [from Rhoda],” he shared. “You know, Arnold was an unseen character and the surprise was that he was an Asian American.”
Known for his offbeat humor and wacky ”bwaaa haha” laugh, Morita’s character was a hit with fans. His final Season 3 episode, “Arnold’s Wedding,” featured a storyline about Arnold’s arranged marriage to a woman named Momo (Nobu McCarthy).
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Morita once reflected on the episode, telling the Television Academy Foundation that he was in “70, 80 percent of the episode suddenly.”
“I was always this little spot character throughout, “ he said. “So that episode for me was the first time that on a national program scale that I got to be the centerpiece of something and it just gave me great, great courage.”
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Following the wedding episode, there was no indication to fans that Arnold was leaving Happy Days. In fact, Morita had signed on for another season of the ABC sitcom.
In an interview with The Television Academy Foundation, Morita recalled that producer James Komack and ABC executive Michael Eisner approached him when his “signature hadn’t even dried barely on [his] pickup option for the next season for Happy Days” to ask him if he would be interested in starring in his own show.
“I said, ‘You guys, I just signed my option for Happy Days next two or three seasons or something,’” Morita recalled. “So they convinced me I would be the right move to make, and of course, you know it was totally exciting.”The series, Mr. T and Tina, was canceled after just five episodes in the fall of 1976.
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Meanwhile, Happy Days fans came to love Molinaro and his character’s catchphrase “yep, yep yep.” His calming, fatherly presence was nothing like Morita’s more chaotic character and marked a shift in the dynamic on the show. Molinaro sometimes did double duty playing Al’s Catholic priest brother, Father Anthony Delvecchio, and ultimately appeared in way more episodes of Happy Days than Morita did: 146 in total from 1976 to 1984.
Morita, who later played martial arts mentor Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid movies, reprised his role as Arnold in Season 10 of Happy Days, where it was revealed that he divorced his wife and was back in the restaurant business. It was Al who left the show this time, to appear in the short-lived Joanie Loves Chachi spin-off, which was canceled almost as fast as Mr. T and Tina.
Fifty years later, fans remember both Arnold and Al as two very different Happy Days characters—owners of the same drive-in who each brought their own flavor to the iconic sitcom.
Related: 1974 ‘Happy Days’ Episode Ranked ‘Greatest’ of the Series Marked the Final Appearance of One Character
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