Before being "happy days", one of the most prevalent sitcoms of the 1970s was almost called "cool". The creator of the series Gari Marshall, who died in 2016as soon as it is revealed how much in a retrospective with the guardianwhere he also shared the strange reason why the title failed.

Some of the problems with the proposed name are obvious; If the audience is told, something is cool before they see it even, it won't do it dirty? Although Henry Winkler's city counterpart on FONC In the end, it was considered the epitome of cool for the whole generation of viewers, I imagine the overthrow of the sweet, cute series as "cool" from day one. Maybe he came across too hard or, well, jumping the shark.

According to Marshall, however, the problem with the title had nothing to do with its implications and everything related to branding specific to the period. Namely, the audience at that time had strong associations with a cigarette brand called Kool. "I wanted the show to be called cool, but the test audience thought it was a brand cigarette, so my producer said:" How about happy days? This is what we will show, "Marshall said in terms of the 2015 Guardian, look back the series. In the book of the Marion Ross Starweet, "My Days: Happy and otherwise", Marshall explained more about the story, saying the show chose the net under the title "Cool", but after the test audience confused on its similarity to the company. For cigarettes, producer Tom Miller came up with "happy days" instead.

Today, the idea that the tobacco company may have its own TV show sounds weird, but for most of the 20th century, Cole actually crossed its famous menthol smokes in a variety of unusual ways. According to research done from Stanford MedicineTobacco companies spent big money trying to catch new clients in decades around "happy days", and Cole was no exception. The company had a friendly penguin mascot, threw fun on the beach on the beach with Playboy Banis, handing samples, and even briefly took over the NeweUrus Jazz festival (he was renamed Cole Jazz festival for some time in the 1970s, after medicine. Stanford). Given all this, the show named after the cigarette brand would not seem outside the area of ​​possibility at the time.

Fortunately, Marshall and his team went with "happy days" instead, and the creator of the series even opposed attempts to change the name of the series in Fonzi of respect for Co-Starvaza Ron Howard When Winkler's character took off, according to Marshall's book "My Happy Days in Hollywood". In the end, the title corresponds to the series for the mythical "simpler times" that never existed. As Effef McGregor ever wrote Smithsonian magazine"The title of the show was suddenly literal and ironic, encouraging better times. On her fans the program was simply a pleasure in complicated age." At best, "happy days" was a weekly dose of escapism during one of the most famous decades filled with a change in recent history. Plus, unlike cigarettes, it can be enjoyed without guilt.