It’s hard to think of Happy Days without Fonzie, but when the series premiered in January 1974, the character portrayed by Henry Winkler was a bit player.
Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli was a minor, recurring character throughout the show’s 16-episode first season. In her 2018 memoir, My Days: Happy and Otherwise, series star Marion Ross recalled how small Winkler’s role was. “As we began shooting the first episodes of Happy Days, if I ever felt as if my role was small, I would just look at poor Henry. He hardly had any lines. They would just have him strut into the bathroom at Arnold’s Drive-In, take a look at himself in the mirror, see that his hair was perfect, put his comb away, and walk out,” she wrote. “That was about it.”
But that all changed when Season 2 rolled around, and Fonzie became the main character in the sitcom’s very first Christmas episode. The episode, titled “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas,” originally aired on Dec. 17, 1974, on ABC, and it marked a new era for the leather jacket-wearing ladies' man.
In an interview with TV Line, Winkler reflected on the episode in which a lonely Fonzie spends Christmas with the Cunningham family. The actor, who was featured in nearly every scene, said the “emotional” episode started "turning the tide for the character of Fonzie.”
“[It] was one of the very first episodes [in which] the Fonz was completely featured,” Winkler said. “I remember being moved by the story that a guy with all this bravado was by himself and left with a canned meal and a tree the size of two ballpoint pens.”
Viewers saw a softer side of the Fonz as he fixed the Cunningham Christmas lights and a malfunctioning Santa before reading “The Night Before Christmas” to the family. Another poignant scene showed the soft spot he had for Mrs. C. (Ross) as he let her “get away with” giving him orders to stay for Christmas.
Happy Days featured several more Christmas-themed episodes over its decade-long run, including "Richie Branches Out" (Season 4) and "Christmas Time" (Season 6). But “Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas” remains the most memorable installment—and the only one to include long-missing Cunnigham kid, Chuck (Randolph Roberts).
Fonzie Became So Popular That the Show’s Name Was Almost Changed
By Season 3, Fonzie moved into an apartment over the Cunninghams’ garage and became a main focus on the show. The Fonzie character was so popular that producers toyed with changing the name of the series to Fonzie’s Happy Days.
In an interview with Vulture, Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, admitted that he threatened to break his contract if producers went through with the name change. “It made perfect sense that you’d build this Fonzie character and maximize that,” he said. “But the optics of now being in a show called Fonzie’s Happy Days, my ego wouldn’t allow for that.”
Winkler also urged producers not to make the change. He told The New York Times, “They came to me at ABC and they wanted to change the title to Fonzie’s Happy Days. I said, ‘If you do that, it is an insult to everybody I’m working with.” Why fix something that isn’t broken? We are really good. I live in the family, and that’s why I’m successful. I’m asking you, if you never listen to me again, leave it alone.’”
They did, and Happy Days went on for 11 seasons—with Fonzie in all of them.
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