You have to understand that during the course of our show, we were a family for five hours a day, five days a week, maybe four days a week. And we experienced the same things that we experienced in our own family.
Happy Days was about a family... although the show was shot in the 70s, it was about a family in the 50s. I realized that kids were watching their parents grow up and the parents were watching themselves grow up. That was the key to the success of our show.
I changed my mind because of a scene between Howard Cunningham and Richie. The father-son situation was written so movingly, I fell in love with the project.
So we had life, death, illness, everything - every emotional involvement we had, we experienced. And I think that made what we had to do on stage, stronger. We got very much involved in what we were doing.
