LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE MARATHON
Decades, 12:00 a.m. ET
The two-day Love, American Style marathon continues on Decades today, and there are a pair of installments of this comedy anthology series that deserve special mention. At 4 p.m. ET, there’s an episode featuring Burt Reynolds and Elizabeth Ashley, just before he became a cinematic superstar. And at 6 p.m. ET, there’s the 1972 episode “Love and the Happy Days,” which was producer Garry Marshall’s pilot for Happy Days, which helped push also-ran ABC to first place when it premiered in 1974. Ron Howard and Marion Ross, respectively, play Richie Cunningham and his doting mother, Marion – roles they would reprise in the long-running Happy Days series. And Anson Williams is aboard, in this early Love, American Style segment, as Richie’s friend Potsie. But in this pilot, Richie has a different dad (Harold Gould plays Howard Cunningham here) and sister (Susan Neher plays Joanie) – and the Fonz, iconically played by Henry Winkler, is nowhere to be seen.