“They wanted to change the title”: when Ron Howard threatened to leave ‘Happy Days’
Ron Howard began his Hollywood career as a child star in The Andy Griffith Show before shooting to worldwide fame six years later as the teenage Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. That beloved sitcom made Howard’s career in many ways, but as the show became more and more successful, he began to get uncomfortable with some aspects of it. He had ambitions to move away from acting and embrace directing, but he also saw another cast member’s popularity inarguably overshadowing his own. In fact, there was even a point where he faced a crossroads and gave ABC an ultimatum – back down on an idea it was toying with, or he’d walk.
From the beginning of Happy Days, Howard developed a close friendship with co-star Henry Winkler, who played the iconic ’50s greaser Arthur ‘Fonzie’ Fonzarelli. The two young actors bonded so much that Winkler would star in Night Shift – Howard’s breakthrough directorial effort – in 1981, while still starring on the show.
At its outset, Happy Days was a show about Richie Cunningham, and ‘The Fonz’ was a hilarious supporting character. However, ABC quickly began noticing that Fonzie’s popularity was outpacing anyone else on the show – even its star. During the second season, ratings dipped overall thanks to the competition of CBS’ Good Times, and the network decided to make a couple of changes. Their first innovation was changing Happy Days to a three-camera show in front of a live studio audience. That terrified Howard, but he found the process exciting, and it proved to be a wise call for the show.
ABC’s other suggestion, though, didn’t go over nearly as well. “The other idea was to move Fonzie character front and centre,” Howard told The New York Times in 2024. “It was kind of a reckoning for me because the focus of the show shifted, and yet that was our way to win.”
Howard couldn’t help feeling nervous, as he worried that the network was trying to move the show away from being a true ensemble piece. He told executives, “What’s happened here with Fonzie is great. Just make sure that you understand, too, that we have a real chemistry here.” However, Howard would be lying if he also didn’t admit he felt slightly insulted that the network was thinking of taking “his” show away from him – and Winkler wasn’t a fan of the idea, either.
“They came to me at ABC, and they wanted to change the title to Fonzie’s Happy Days,” Winkler admitted. “I said, ‘If you do that, it is an insult to everybody I’m working with. Why fix something that isn’t broken?'” Winkler insisted to the network that the ensemble was the reason the show was successful, not just Fonzie. Then he did something very unusual in television history: he begged them not to make him the title character of a hit show. “I’m asking you,” Winkler remembered saying, “if you never listen to me again, leave it alone.”
Hearing that the network considered changing the show’s title was too much for Howard, though. “I told them I would leave,” he admitted. In truth, Howard wasn’t even sure if he’d contractually be able to just walk away from Happy Days, but he wanted the network to know he meant business. If it really wanted to make the show about Fonzie, Howard knew he’d prefer to return to film school and continue learning about directing.
In the end, though, Howard’s ultimatum must have worked because ABC didn’t change the title of Happy Days. He wound up staying on the show for seven seasons before leaving because the network dragged its heels on allowing him to helm a couple of TV movies while still playing Richie. Realising that ABC was unwilling to budge on his demands, he left the character behind him and embarked on his career as one of Hollywood’s most reliable directors.
