Colouring Book Theatre: Happy Days
Happy Days Colouring and Activity Book
Another colouring book I found rummaging through Planet of the Stuff a couple of weeks ago.
Like a lot of 70s kids, I non-ironically stood in a mirror going “Ayyyyy!” and begged my parents for a leather jacket. I loved Happy Days, had a Mego Fonize doll and even bought the (lame) Gold Key comic, so it seemed fitting that this would be a fun colouring book to review here.
However all that positive energy leaked out when I realized this book was from 1983, a time when Fonzie was a 35 year old shadow of himself and most of the interesting cast members were long since gone, paving way for a big pile of who gives a crap.
Let’s take a look at this after the jump…
First off, it seems the artist uses the same image of Fonzie throughout the book, he’s depicted as having this weird, almost psychotic grin for every page.
It seems the overall malaise of the series has trickled down to the (probably underpaid) staff of Playmore Publishing as this book has a large chunk devoted to spring cleaning in the Cunningham house.
Yes, that’s Ted McGinley, who was to this show what Beau was to “Welcome Back Kotter”.
I’ll take this page to mention that the kid who had this coloured exactly two pages of this snore fest. I’m also being generous when I say “colouring” because it’s more like stabbing the page with a crayon as if to express their displeasure.
Fonzie, Roger and Flip (Who the $&%* is Flip?) go camping but my hopes for Deliverance style antics go sadly unabated.
Agggghhhh END!
I don't think you have one coloring book in your collection that you don't hate. Ha ha! Well, at least this one is not as bad as Dune.
All my moaning is done out of love, although Dune is just so wrong headed…
I remember Flip from a few 1983 episodes of Happy Days when Heather O'Rourke ("Poltergeist") guest starred as the daughter of Fonzie's then-girlfriend, Ashley (played by Linda Purl).
I didn't watch the show much during the last two seasons, but during that time the Cunninghams' nephews and nieces were living with their aunt and uncle. Their cousin Richie of course was long gone, and Joanie was starring in her spinoff show with Chachi. I looked up Flip and saw that he was Roger's brother. Roger was played by Ted McGinley as you stated and Flip by Billy Warlock, later of several daytime soaps and the first two or three seasons of "Baywatch" (including the lone NBC season). Crystal Bernard was their niece KC. She of course later played Amy on "It's a Living," and Helen on "Wings."
I would love to see a Welcome Back, Kotter! colouring book.
Seriously, "Fonzie beats a rug" was one of their ideas for a coloring page? I would loved to have sat in on that design session. This book accurately depicts how far one of my favorite series (honestly, it still is) had sunk by this point. If Happy Days hadn't "jumped the shark" by then, it most certainly had "beat the rug".