Sitcom: Happy Days
Episode: Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas
Year: 1974
Story line: Richie realizes Fonzie will be alone for Christmas.
Details: This one is a classic and it even includes the disappearing older brother, Chuck. It’s long before Fonzie moves into the apartment above the Cunningham’s garage, and he still has some of his hood edge here, threatening Ralph Malph early on. This is long before Fonzie jumped the shark.
Killer quote: “You’re the ginchiest.” Inscription on the Christmas gift lockets that Fonzie gives to the waitresses at Arnolds.
Runner-up quote: “It’s not quite Christmas if your Santa doesn’t work.” Howard, referring to the broken mechanical Santa in the Cunningham’s front yard.
Ebenezer alert: Howard Cunningham. Totally. He insists that Christmas Eve be family only with no outsiders allowed. Of course, cuddly leather-jacket clad Fonzie melts Ebenezer’s heart in the end.
Childhood memory: This one’s a classic. I guess I was about 12 when it aired and it’s one of the Christmas episodes that have always stuck with me. I’d rank it right up there with the Walton’s Homecoming, where Mary Ellen scandalously calls the other kids piss ants. Very edgy stuff in 1971 …