Happy Days

- Season 5

(1977)

The Cunninghams pack their bags to accompany the Fonz to California after a famous talent scout thinks he's found the next James Dean and invites "his coolness" to Hollywood for a screen test.

Soon after getting the bad news that the studio deemed his James Dean impression obsolete, and gave Richie's wholesome good looks a contract instead, the Fonz finds a bigger fish to fry.

Richie must choose either a 5-year Hollywood contract or college in Milwaukee while the Fonz accepts the California Kid's challenge to perform a dangerous water ski jump...over a shark!

Richie and Fonzie must think fast to outwit a tough housemother after they're caught past curfew in the college girls' dormitory.

Fonzie is furious with his rebellious cousin, Chachi Arcola, after Chachi cheats on a school test using answers stolen from a tutoring session with Joanie Cunningham.

Forced to spend the night in the hospital's children's ward, Fonzie worries more about who will be making time with his girl at the Halloween party than the tonsillectomy he's scheduled for the next morning.

Personality quirks begin to fray nerves after best friends Richie, Ralph and Potsie rent an apartment together.

Richie Cunningham asks Al to give fresh-from-reform school, Leather Tuscadero, and her do-wop back-up girls, the Suedes, an audition at Arnold's Drive-In, but the Fonz isn't sure that the girl who stole his wallet when last they met can be trusted.

Joanie Cunningham decides to run away from home after her parents refuse to allow her to become one of Leather Tuscadero's singing Suedes.

Snobby Cynthia Holmes schemes with her obnoxious cousin, Skippy, to make the Fonz look foolish at a country club soirée.

Richie, Ralph and Potsie endure the harassment of "hell week" to prove themselves worthy to enter their college fraternity, Phi Kappa Nu.

Ralph Malph takes his life in his hands when he tries to steal pretty college cheerleader, Kitty, from her musclebound boyfriend, the football team's star fullback, Rebel E. Lee.

To prove to his college journalism professor that he has what it takes be a good investigative reporter, Richie gets down and dirty to expose who's behind an illegal garbage collection scheme.

Refusing to go quietly into forced retirement from the police force, Howard's visiting dad, former Detective Captain Sean Cunningham, causes upheaval in the household while struggling to define the next phase of his life.

Jealous Richie Cunningham bridles at Lori Beth's too-enthusiastic participation in a charity kissing booth, while unable-to-swim Potsie Weber fears that the traditional dunk in the lake following his fraternity pinning ceremony will embarrass him in front of his intended sorority pin-ee, lovely Jennifer Jerome.

Sophomore Joanie Cunningham gets basic back-seat defense tips from Richie and Fonzie before her first "car date" with a senior boy, and then cramps her older brother's style when she and her date show up at his college "make-out" party.

When she hears that one of hubby Howard's friends divorced his middle-aged wife and married a much younger woman, Marion Cunningham fears that if she can't spice up her marriage, her fate may be the same.

What begins as a humorous escapade with a motorcycle turns into a tragic vigil for the Cunninghams and their friends. Richie purchases a motorcycle from Fonzie, but Howard angrily refuses to let him keep it, leading to a deliberately petulant tantrum from Richie to embarrass his father. But Fonzie convinces Howard that the bike is safe and Richie wears proper safety gear, so Howard reluctantly relents. Richie takes Lori Beth along one day while Fonzie is out and Chachi is repairing a truck rented by Al Potsie, and Ralph. The group is ecstatic when Chachi gets the ...

Fonzie and friends try to dig up what's depressing his faithful canine companion, Spunky, while Howard saddles Marion with a hundred pounds of potatoes to peel for his Leopard Lodge picnic's potato salad.

Romance and nostalgia humorously combine as the Cunninghams and their friends celebrate a merrily musical Valentine's Day.

Trying to convince Chachi that joining a gang isn't "cool", Richie recalls the time he was challenged to a street fight by the Falcon's tough gang-leader, The Fonz.

No one believes Richie's claims that he not only saw a flying saucer but personally interviewed its pilot, an alien named Mork, who tried to take him back to planet Ork as an example of an average, humdrum human.

Richie's girlfriend, Lori Beth, finds that the Cunninghams and their friends re-define the word "typical" when she interviews them for her college term-paper on what it means to be typical, middle-class Americans.

Fonzie's latest romantic interest, a ballet teacher, is secretly yearning to turn professional and dance with the greats in New York. Fonzie, however, has trouble accepting that she may forgo their relationship to pursue her dreams of fame.

Richie interrupts his summer job search to help choose a cute little meter maid from Fonzie's big black book to accompany dateless Al DelVecchio to the Sons of Italy banquet honoring him as Man of the Year.

Richie and Lori Beth fight over her casual friendships with other guys on the eve of a much anticipated trip with his band to play back up for girl-group, Leather and the Suedes, at remote Blue Ox Inn.

Howard Cunningham and Fonzie find themselves the only members of the jury who are not ready to convict the defendant just because he rides a motorcycle.