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Happier Days: Paramount Television's Classic Sitcoms 1974-1984

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Excellent choice to go behind the scenes of Paramount's 1970's and 1980's powerhouse of sitcoms that was produced by Garry Marshall, along with his team of Miller-Milkis-Boyette on ABC--many of whom worked behind the scenes with Marshall on The odd Couple--the most interesting to me is the series Angie because it shows how a network can screw up their own destiny. I remember Angie started as a hit, but ABC made the mistake of giving Laverne & Shirley its own night and shuffled their whole schedule around to do this, which in return put many of the other Marshall produced shows in jepordy, which many got canned because of it in the long run. Angie was a great show because Doris Roberts really got her fame from this show and I am surprised that Paramount has not released it on DVD since her popularity on Everybody Loves Raymond reached iconic status. Paramount is like Universal--they are rather slow on releasing TV on DVD. They are missing the boat and the money. This book does go into detail about these shows for the first time and it's a great reference to depend on.

I remember the shows so well but had hardly any knowledge of the production background and the casting. I especially like the short bios on all the personalities and where they are now feature. Brant did an excellent job as always. I've read all of her books on various subjects. This is another subject that the author actually "lived." Good work.

During the period from 1974 to 1984 Paramount Television fielded a series of classic sitcoms ranging from "Happy Days" to "Cheers." Author Marley Brant, who worked in Paramount Televsion's Publicity Department during that period, takes us for a behind-the-scenes guided tour to some of television's funniest programs and the people that created them.

Paramount owed its success during the period in question to talented producers and directors like Garry Marshall, James Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, Ed Weinberger, Jim Burrows, Glen & Les Charles, Gary David Goldberg and others. Alone and together they created the classic shows listed above plus "Laverne & Shirley," "Mork & Mindy," "Taxi" and "Family Ties" along with other promising shows that failed to score with the public.

Brant covers each show in turn, relating its genesis, high-points, low-points, critical acclaim and bios of the cast and crew. The collective cast includes Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Robin Williams, Penny Marshall, Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Ted Danson, Michael J. Fox - a veritable who's who of '70s comedy. Brant's insider views of the various shows and who the stars related - or didn't - in the case of "Laverne & Shirley" makes for fascinating reading.

HAPPIER DAYS packs a great deal of information within its 282 pages. It's an absolutely first-class and FUN guide to classic Paramount sitcoms. Highly recommended.

Brant offers a fine history of chronicling Paramount TV's hits (Happy Days, Taxi, Family Ties) and misses (The Associates, Angie, The Bad News Bears) and reveals some little-known facts along the way. Did you know that:

- The Happy Days ep where Mork makes his 1st appearance was based on an idea that came from Garry Marshall's young son?
- The characters of Lenny and Squiggy, from Laverne & Shirley, were based on characters created for a stand-up routine by Michael McKean and David L. Lander?
- Andy Kaufmann had an alternate persona who showed up in one ep of Taxi as a special guest star?

These facts, and many more, await in this fine read that's perfect for any classic TV fans out there...check it out!

I was amazed at how intuitive the selection of shows and talent was. Seeing how relatively junior people at the time, like Michael Eisner, developed these shows and got their bosses to OK them, was very interesting. Reading about how the actors developed as a result of their casting was also a great insight into what a casting break can do in the acting field. And Tom Hanks was pretty enough to pass as a woman. A great book about the television business.

I was one of those people who had specific plans for certain nights -- I was meeting up with Mork & Mindy or settling into Laverne & Shirley with a big bowl of popcorn. Reading all about what was going on behind the scenes was very enjoyable in this entertaining book. The author was actually there and the way she relates the tales is great. Oh, the things I've learned!!! I would highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed these shows or likes to read about actors "before they were superstars."

This book is frustrating to read because it is written by a PR woman for the TV shows she is writing about, so this book oozes with lots of praise for the shows she covers. Her "insights" are simplistic: Robin Williams was "hilarious," Garry Marshall's shows were "fun," Laverne & Shirley was "the very finest in entertainment."

There are no objective views of the famous Paramount TV shows of the mid-'70s to mid-'80s, just some interesting inside stories (many of which are common knowledge or told better elsewhere). Then she has the guts to slam MTM productions, claiming that the Taxi producers that used to work there found more creativity by moving to Paramount! These Paramount shows don't even belong in the same category as MTM comedies! She seems to simply be doing a PR sales job for her own shows.

The Paramount sitcom failures (and there were some big ones) get glossed over in a quick paragraph or two. Instead she makes statements such as in 1979 "Happy Days was now a television institution." Uh--no it wasn't. All in the Family was. Mary Tyler Moore was. Happy Days was just a cute comedy that had a couple years of success.

She had odd chapter groupings and starts with a chapter on Paramount's live tapings being "an institution." In that first chapter she ignores the fact that Happy Days started as a filmed show without an audience and that MTM and Normal Lear had long been doing much more successful comedies in front of live audiences. She wants to give Paramount more credit than it deserves.

She also has some bloopers in the book, such as saying that "Garry Marshall has produced over a thousand television shows." Really? Does she mean more than a thousand EPISODES of TV shows? Certainly he didn't produce over 1,000 different shows! She says of Penny Marshall, "She was sent to Jewish summer camp even though she was Italian." Sorry to shock the author, but being Jewish is a religious choice, being Italian is a nationality--one can be an Italian Jew (Marshall was Catholic but that doesn't get mentioned here).

She also has just plain incorrect information. She claims Michael Eisner wanted "to pursue a career as an all-American doctor, like that of Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best." Huh? Pretty much any TV history buff knows that Anderson sold insurance and was NOT a doctor!

The book is purely for the person who likes TV history but it is very frustrating to read. It isn't as good as it could have been if the author would have been someone from outside the TV studio PR department who would have written a more accurate, objective critique of the shows.