I thought Bosley was a terrific character actor, though I never was a fan of "Happy Days", and its lowest-common-denominator sitcom characters, dialogue, and "plotting" really diluted the greatness of its original inspiration--George Lucas' "American Graffiti", which slammed onto the scene in '73 and represented a whole new movie genre--the "celebration" of nostalgia for its own sake, represented by its pop culture iconography. I was 25 at the time, and '62 was the year I entered HS, so it resonated, of course, and gave me my first heavy dose of nostalgia for an earlier time, as a young adult. Now, nostalgia is a cultural disaster and big business, rolled into one.
To think that it represented a time only 11 years prior to its release, and yet orders of magnitude different from '73. I think one reason Lucas picked '62 is that it represented the last year of rock 'n' roll pop culture, before the pre-echoes of the Brit invasion began to infuse our senses.
Having grown up with "The Andy Griffith Show" (Andy began his career doing stand-up "aw shucks" comic observations in the mid '50s, in the same vein as Tom Bodett's "End of the Road" broadcasts in the late '80s), it was a distinct pleasure to see a grown Ron Howard act in "Graffiti", and do a pretty workmanlike job of it, too. We also saw Cindy Williams, Charlie Martin Smith, Paul LeMat, Candy Clark, MacKenzie Phillips, and Harrison Ford (!), get their breakout roles in this single film!
But seeing the whole '60s (usually confused with '50s, too) nostalgia fadism that was in full swing in '74 and '75, and seeing Howard grab at the chance to endlessly reprise his Graffiti character in a watered-down, pale-by-comparison vehicle like "Happy Days", made me lose some respect for him. Then there was "LaVerne and Shirley" and other spin-offs that got worse and worse, (ref: "Arnold's Place") I went back to my own personal reminiscences of those times and split from the phony cultural celebration.
Somehow, Barbara Billingsley's comic reprise in "Airplane" seemed altogether more natural and unforced, though it went completely against character for her.
Yep, it feels strange to see both of these parent figures gone in a single week...anybody remember Hugh Beaumont?
I didn't think so.
