Still, the real heart of Happy Days was the interplay between all-American high schoolers Richie (Howard), Ralph Malph (Donny Most), and Potsie (Anson Williams). Howard and Most hadn't left the series yet - that's when some say the show really jumped the shark - and Happy Days was still one of the funnier '70s sitcoms, in no small part because of the chemistry between its cast members. Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, in particular, remain the very model of TV parents. The third season also gets bonus points for actually looking like the 1950s. (Compare it to some of the later seasons, when the characters were wearing distinctly '80s hairstyles.)
But you can see the sharks start circling as Fonzarelli gets more and more overexposed each week. He didn't jump over any sharks, but an early season two-part episode - in which he jumps over 14 garbage cans on his motorcycle, on the TV series "You Wanted to See It" - illustrates how the show was getting gimmicky and Fonzie-centric.
The third season certainly deserves a better DVD treatment. The set features no special features at all, except for a "second anniversary show" - in other words, a clip show - which originally aired in January, 1976. The framing device? A birthday party at Arnold's restaurant for one character. Guess which one.
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