The Pop Culture Addict presents... Television

August 4th, 2003

THE LEGACY OF CHACHI ARCOLA

The other day I had to explain to one of the younger girls I worked with who Chachi Arcola was. What surprises me though is how many people over the years I've had to explain Chachi Arcola to. Shameful because Chachi is an important figure in the history of television. He's more then just a skinny little kid on the 1970's classic sit-com "Happy Days. Oh yes. Chachi is much more. Chachi is a legend. Chachi sets a standard. Chachi is a legacy. Chachi is a phenomena of our modern times. Now I know what you are thinking. I've been sniffing too much glue tonight. Well, dear friends, let me explain...

The year was 1977. The place was the executive boardroom at ABC. The problem was that the ratings to one of ABC's most popular sit-coms, "Happy Days" was slipping. Since 1972 young and old alike were tuning in to watch the 1950's era adventures of Fonzie, Richie, Potsie, Ralph Malph and the Cunningham clan. However, after five years the producers were having a hard time coming up with new plots or stories or interesting concepts to get viewers to tune in. After the Fonz jumped over the shark where was there to turn? I'd like to think that it went a bit like this.

ABC Executive #1 - Okay folks, we gotta come up with a new and exciting concept for Happy Days. Any ideas?

ABC Executive #2 - Why don't we send the whole gang over to the Korean war? It works on MASH!

ABC Executive #1 - Ug - to bloody. Any other ideas?

ABC Executive #3 - How about Fonzie, Ritchie and Ralph discover a swinging chick from the future and they fly off in her space ship to different time periods and planets?

ABC Executive #1 - Too cartoonish. Next?

ABC Executive #4 - How about a family of monsters move in next door to the Cunninghams?

ABC Executives #1 - No....the Addams Family is to passé. Look - we gotta figure out a new concept and fast. We just can't write anymore jokes with the punch line "Ayyyyyyy". Someone throw me a bone here.

ABC Executive #5 - I gotta idea.

ABC Executive #1 - What is it?

ABC Executive #5 - What if...I mean...just what if Fonzie had a cute younger cousin, a bit rough around the edges, but none the less cute, that we could add to the cast to give it a young new hipper feel?

ABC Executive #1 - I think you gotta fuckin' idea there. You draw it up and we'll get on that.

The result was Chachi Arcola, played by a skinny Italian kid named Scott Baio. Chachi was pawned off on Fonzie by his aunt and uncle to kind of look out for. In the beginning Chachi was a handful though. Rude, unstable and tough, Chachi was a member of a Milwaukee gang called "the Lords." The result was sit-com magic. Chachi was an overnight sensation. A new audience of teenage girls began to tune into Happy Days to watch their new teen idol and soon Chachi was on everything from t-shirts to posters to pillow cases to Halloween costumes. Happy Days was saved. It actually ended up running another six years and finally ended in 1984.

In fact Chachi became so popular that he even got his own show - "Joanie Loves Chachi" that ran from 1981 to 1983. In it Chachi and Joanie (Ritchie's kid sister) move to Chicago to start their own band. However, "Joanie Loves Chachi" wasn't that popular and only lasted two seasons. Yet ABC deemed Chachi too much of a commodity by that time and they were not going to let him suffer in cancellation purgatory. Joanie and Chachi returned to Happy Days in its final season.

So Chachi saved Happy Days. However, you may ask just why is this so important?

Now Chachi wasn't the first, but he definitely the most famous of the "introduce a new kid in the show to give it a fresh feel and boost ratings" concept. The first was probably Little Ricky on "I Love Lucy", but then every classic sit com plot originated off of "I Love Lucy".

The addition of a new kid to the show near the end of a series is a TV tradition. Some of the most successful was Tabitha on "Bewitched", Joey Lawrence on "Give Me a Break", Stephanie on "All in the Family," Andrew on "Family Ties" and, more recently, Dawn Summers on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". However, there have been a number of disasters. How can we forget the mental wound that is the Brady Bunch's cousin Oliver? Or does anybody remember the Partridge Family's "cute" (and I use that term loosely) next door neighbor Ricky Segall? Or how about when Tony and Angela adopted that little annoying rug rat on "Who's the Boss". Or when Mr. Drummond got remarried on "Different Strokes" and Arnold had a new kid brother, Sam, who was a white kid with red hair from Texas (talk about new racial tensions). Or even worse was when Kirk Cameron took in Leonardo deCaprio in on the final season of "Growing Pains" (it wasn't enough that the Seavers added a new kid to the family in an attempt to keep up with the Keatons). The Cosby Show seemed to be adding new kids all the time. After Rudy wasn't cute anymore they had to introduce grandkids and step kids and neighbor kids to the point that the Huxtabell house looked like a YMCA day camp. Even cartoons got in the act - the first being when Pebbles Flintstone was born, followed by Bam Bam. Nearly every show you can name - from "Little House on the Prairie" to "Rosanne" did it at least once.

However, it was Chachi who set the standard. If anything Chachi gave it a name. If a kid is added to a sitcom that becomes the shows "Chachi" - get it? Thus Chachi is no longer a fictional character as much as a concept or a term. The goal for these sitcom add ons is to be like Chachi. There presence on the show is to save the ratings so that the show can run another couple of seasons. Its a lot of pressure to put on a child actor. Perhaps that is why so many of them go bad. However, its better then the second most popular sitcom gimmick to save ratings - which is turning the cast into a band (as seen in such shows as "The Brady Bunch," "Just the Ten of Us," and "Petticoat Junction" - all which, incidentally, also tried to save themselves by adding new kids to the final seasons.)

Oddly enough, and often overlooked, is that a number of years later the producers of "Happy Days" tried to pull a "Chachi" out of the hat again - and not once but twice. In the series second last season Heather "They're Heeeeeeeere" O'Rourke, better known as the creepy little girl from "Poltergeist," was added as a regular to the cast as the daughter of Fonzie's steady single mom girlfriend. Then, in the ill fated final season, Fonzie adopted little Orphan Danny. However, in both cases, the original success of Chachi was not repeated. These kids could not save "Happy Days" from cancellation. These kids did not have the power of Chachi. Never underestimate the importance of Chachi on our cultural landscape. As long as their is television the legacy and standard that Chachi represents will exist for some poor kid to live up to..