Ron Howard Says Happy Days Execs Disrespected Him — And It Was All Due To One Co-Star

Ah, Happy Days. What a warming slice of American pie it was. People of a certain age know that you only needed to hear the familiar “Sunday, Monday, Happy Days…” theme music, and you instantly felt great. But in a twist of irony, there were bitter tensions behind the scenes of the beloved TV sitcom. And for some of the cast, it seems that their time spent working on the show wasn’t always happy — especially for Ron Howard.

Disgruntled star

Before he became a big-time Hollywood movie director, Ron Howard played the series’ star, Richie Cunningham. Happy Days pivoted around the lives of teen Richie, his friends, and the rest of the Cunningham family in 1950s America. Now, you’d think that leading the cast of a popular primetime show would make Howard a very happy chappy. Not so, according to the Frost/Nixon director.

Disrespect

Howard revealed on a November 2021 episode of The Graham Norton Show in England, that he was far from happy about the way he was treated on the show. And the respected director’s grievance was down to one particular co-star. Because of whom, Howard claimed, network executives had stopped showing him the kind of respect that he had deserved.

Trouble from the start

But who? And why? After all, the star of a show is usually the one that everybody is running around to please, right? Well, you see, right from the get-go there was trouble behind the scenes of Happy Days. Believe it or not – given how popular the sitcom would ultimately become – it struggled to get off the ground.

Stuck in an airport

Paramount Studios executive Michael Eisner recounted the tale in a 2006 video interview for the Television Academy Foundation. According to Eisner, in the winter of 1971, his flight from Newark Airport was grounded due to snow. During the wait, he just happened to bump into the studio’s head of development, Tom Miller. And Eisner had an idea for him.