The Episode of Happy Days where Richie goes to the strip club

[yesthattom]

Last night Ying and I were flipping channels and the episode of Happy Days where the boys get fake IDs and go to the strip club (and find Richie's father is there) was on.

Wow, talk about memories.

Ying grew up watching very little TV. However, she remembered this one just as well as I did.

We both remembered "Pockets", the guy that made the fake ids. The funny way they just barely got past the id-checker at the door. The way the strip show was, in reality, quite boring.

And of course, we both waited with anticipation to hear the famous exchange at the end. The father (Tom Bosley) saying that the mother knows and understands. Richie says, "So it'll be ok with her that I was there?" and the father replies, "That... she won't understand."

Ah nostalgia!

--Tom

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

the sad thing is, you couldn't have a "good kid" like Richie Cunningham doing something like that on TV today. It seems TV was more liberal years ago. :-(

now the "family shows" are a bunch of treacly crap...of course, they're offset by daytime talk shows and stuff.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

I endured a fair amount of forced "Happy Days" viewing at my babysitter's place, but I didn't see this episode. I can easily imagine a variant on this plotline on a sitcom today (maybe not a white sitcom), where dad and kid are _both_ worried about mom's reaction if she finds out they were there, happening today.

I think the fact that the culture no longer sees the wife as this sexless being who "understands" that her husband has needs she doesn't (poor dear) is a good thing. But it also makes it more difficult to explain a relationship where the wife is nonetheless still comfortable with the husband going into a sexually-charged situation without her present, at least in the 22-minute laugh-track-bound sitcom format.