Friday, March 28, 2014

Case Study No. 1330: Unnamed Female Librarian (Happy Days)

Happy Days- Hard Cover
27:29
Happy Days Season 5, Episode 4- Hard Cover
Tags: Happy Days (TV Program)
Added: 6 months ago
From: evielovesrocknroll
Views: 29

[Richie Cunningham and Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli are sitting on the couch, as Richie complains about being able to find a date now that he's in college]
RICHIE: The homecoming dance is tomorrow night, I don't have a date, and I absolutely refuse to take a high school girl!
FONZIE: Now will you cool your heels, Red? The Fonz will set you up socially.
RICHIE: I've only got one day.
FONZIE: Hey, the places I take you, you don't strike out!
RICHIE: Well Fonz, y'see, I-I do want ... kind of a nice girl to take to the homecoming. I mean, not a girl who pops up out of a cake.
FONZIE: Alright alright, forget class ... I'm gonna take you, I'm gonna take you to a place called, uh, the Finster Memorial Li-berry.
RICHIE: A library? For girls?
FONZIE: That's right. See, girls got two things in common. One is that they all love to read.
RICHIE: Uh, what's the other thing?
[Fonzie rolls his eyes at the question, then cut to the two entering a library filled with young women]
FONZIE: Now, didn't I tell ya this place was hoppin' with chicks?
RICHIE: Yeah ...
FONZIE: Go and get a notch in your li-berry card!
[he laughs, then cut to a young female librarian (black hair in a bun, white blouse, black skirt) sitting at the front desk, who taps her pen on the typewriter and shushes them]
LIBRARIAN: Shh!
[Richie heads off towards the stacks, while Fonzie sits down on a table next to a young lady reading ... however, Richie almost immediately emerges from the stacks]
RICHIE: No wait, no! Don't do that! Hey!
[someone from off camera hurls a book at his head, as he runs over to Fonzie]
RICHIE: Fonzie, a girl just threw "War and Peace" at me! Hit me in the head!
FONZIE: Will you keep it down? We're in a li-berry!
[cut back to the librarian, who again puts a finger to her lips and shushes them]
LIBRARIAN: Shh!
RICHIE: Alright, okay, let's just quit! I've tried three times, and I've struck out every time, let's just forget it!
FONZIE: You're not quittin'! Now look, when you're strollin' down life's highway, you don't remember the strikeouts. Only the home run! Now either you're gonna give it your best shot, or don't shoot at all.
[he takes a book off a nearby shelf]
RICHIE: Okay ... Look out, 'cause I'm gonna do it.
[he walks over to a table where a young lady is reading]
FONZIE: Now you're sizzlin' ...
[Fonzie leaves, as Richie starts to sit down, then immediately stands back up]
RICHIE: Oh, excuse me! Uh, is this seat taken?
[she shakes her head]
RICHIE: Oh, good. Good.
[he sits back down, then starts flipping through the pages of his book at an impossible speed]
RICHIE: Oh ...
[he shuts the book, then turns to the woman]
RICHIE: Oh, slow beginning, but overall very very good read!
LORI BETH: You read the entire book so fast?
RICHIE: Oh, you noticed that?
[he laughs]
RICHIE: Well, yes. Yeah, I'm a speed reader. Self-taught.
LORI BETH: Oh, how long have you been reading that way?
RICHIE: Oh, years. I'm a member of the Book-of-the-Day Club.
LORI BETH: Then, uh, why were you always getting chewed out for not doing your reading in Drivers' Ed class?
[she smiles, as Richie gives her a quizzical look]
RICHIE: How did you know that?
LORI BETH: I'm Lori Beth Allen. Uh, you wouldn't remember me. We had different friends, I had different hair, I had this tooth over here--
RICHIE: Lori Beth. You always ignored me.
LORI BETH: Well, um, I'm grown up now. I'm in college.
RICHIE: Do you live at home?
LORI BETH: No, I'm in the dorms. What about you?
RICHIE: Oh. Oh, I uh ... I live in a house.
LORI BETH: Oh, whose? Phi Delta?
RICHIE: No.
LORI BETH: Alpha Tau Omega?
RICHIE: No. Uh ... Mama Papa Sister.
LORI BETH: Who?
RICHIE: Well, uh, my ... my parents. I figure that, either way, you eat a lotta meatloaf, right?
[she smiles, then closes the book and stands up]
LORI BETH: Well, I'm about through here. I finished my book, too.
RICHIE: Oh, uh, Mary Beth?
LORI BETH: Lori Beth.
RICHIE: Oh! Oh right, I remember, right! I-I just wanted to, to ask you something ...
[he gets up and walks around beside her]
RICHIE: Well, I just thought that ...
[he looks around at all of the patrons]
RICHIE: Hey listen, why don't we go to Arnold's where we can really talk, okay?
LORI BETH: We could go back to my dorm room.
RICHIE: [pause] We could do that?
[she smiles and nods her head]
RICHIE: Oh, certainly! Sure, we ... we could do that!
[he looks at the patrons sitting at the nearby table]
RICHIE: Talk, huh?
[they walk towards the exit]
LORI BETH: Good, my roommate's in the infirmary!
RICHIE: Oh ...
[she walks out, as Richie looks at Fonzie (who's leaning against the front desk) before following her]

[...]

[Richie and Lori Beth are making out in her dorm room, when there's a knock at the door (and she becomes scared that the housemother will catch them)]
LORI BETH: Do something! Under the bed! Uh, in the closet!
RICHIE: Alright alright, stay calm. Keep a cool head ... I'm jumpin' out the window!
[he tries to open the window, but it won't budge]
RICHIE: Can't jump, it's stuck!
LORI BETH: Uh, in here!
[she opens the closet door]
RICHIE: Right!
LORI BETH: And try not to wrinkle anything!
[he hides, then there's another knock at the door (as Richie moves in for one last kiss)]
CHRISTY: [from off camera] Lori Beth, open up! It's me, Christy!
[she closes the closet, then opens the door ... as another young lady (wearing glasses) runs in, holding Fonzie by the hand]
LORI BETH: Thank heavens it's you!
FONZIE: So this is where you want me to hide? I tell ya, very good choice! The more the merrier!
[he puts his arms around both girls, then looks at Lori Beth more closely]
FONZIE: Hey, don't I know you?
LORI BETH: Uh, I don't know. I fixed my hair and my tooth--
FONZIE: No no no, the li-berry! So where's, uh ...
[he looks around, then notices the closet]
FONZIE: Uh huh.
[he calmly walks over and opens the closet]
FONZIE: Peek a boo, get out here!
RICHIE: Oh, hi Fonz.
CHRISTY: You have one, too? And they know each other?
RICHIE: Fonz, this is, this is Lori Beth here.
LORI BETH: I'm sorry we didn't meet before ten.
FONZIE: Hey, that's alright.
[he snaps his fingers, and Christy runs to his side]
FONZIE: The Fonz don't turn into no pumpkin!
[he turns to Richie]
FONZIE: Hey, I gotta tell you something, Rich! I wanna introduce you to Christy Riggerheimer. This is a very cool chick! The things that she did to me, made me feel good all over!
RICHIE: Oh, Fonzie ... Fonz, I don't think Lori Beth really wants to hear about--
FONZIE: Oh yeah, before I knew what was happening--
RICHIE: Fonz!
FONZIE: Before I knew what was happening, I was applying for my own li-berry card! And checkin' out my very first book!
[he takes a book out from under his arm and places it down on a nearby table]
RICHIE: Oh, I thought you were gonna say, uh ... something else.
FONZIE: Oh, I tell ya somethin', Rich ...
[he reaches over and takes off Christy's glasses]
FONZIE: You should'a heard what she said to me.
[he breathes on each lens, then wipes them off on his shirt]
FONZIE: She is the first chick, I'm talkin' the first chick ... that ever said that I stimulated her intellectually!
[he puts her glasses back on]
FONZIE: And now I got my own li-berry card, whoa!
RICHIE: Wait, y-you went to the library all those years, and-and you never got a card?
FONZIE: Naw, I never thought they'd give it to a guy like me! But do you know, there's a card for everybody? That's right, everybody is allowed to read! Who would'a thought such a thing?

---

From tv.com:

Happy Days Season 5 Episode 4
Hard Cover
Aired Tuesday 8:00 PM Sep 27, 1977 on ABC

Facing a dating slump, Fonzie suggests that Richie go to the library to meet girls. Richie meets Lori Beth Allen at the library who invites him to her dorm room.

---

From alaeditions.org:

Happy Days (September 27, 1977, TV series), "Hard Cover." Concerned about the lack of action in his love life, Richie (Ron Howard) asks Fonzie (Henry Winkler) for some dating advice. The Fonz suggests that they go to the local Pfinster Memorial Library to meet sophisticated girls. Susan Cotton plays a shushing librarian. One girl throws a book (War and Peace) at Richie at the library. He sits down next to Lori Beth Allen (Lynda Goodfriend) and pretends to speed read a book. Fonzie meets Christy Riggerheimer (Teris Wyss) who inspires him to get a library card and check out his first book.

---

From ala.org:

As stated on the reunion of the cast of the 1970s ABC-TV television show, Happy Days, is it true that after the airing on September 27, 1977, of the episode titled, "Hard Cover," in which the show's most popular character, Fonzie, portrayed by actor Henry Winkler, got a library card, that library card registrations by children suddenly received a dramatic increase, as much as 500%?

Yes, as discussed in the Happy Days 30th Anniversary Reunion television special that first aired on the ABC network on February 12, 2005, the Fonzie character did encourage his buddies to get a library card (the "Hard Cover" episode already has a claim to fame as being the first episode after Fonzie, ahem, "jumped the shark" in the season's three-part opener), but the American Library Association has been unable to document an increase in signups of the magnitude suggested by Winkler. Only a few states track the number of library cards held with any reliability, and there is no report in ALA's American Libraries or in any other library press periodical telling of a surge in signups in the months following the episode.

The number of library cards in the United States is one statistic that wasn't collected for the Public Libraries in the United States federal survey series by the Institute of Museum and Library Services until the FY2008 (2010) edition. No such numbers appear in The Bowker Annual Library and Book Trade Almanac for that year or any other. There's a hesitation to collect and present such numbers, due to the fact that the accuracy of them would vary from library to library.

For example, ALA publishes its own annual public library survey through its Public Library Association (PLA, a division of ALA), the Public Library Data Service (PLDS) Statistical Report, which is conducted on a random sampling of about 1,000 public libraries all over the US, of various population served sizes and locations. The survey questionnaire does ask each library to provide its number of "library registrations" but with the caveat: "Report this figure only if the library has purged its file at least once within the last three years. If not, indicate by putting N/A in the space." Many of the participating libraries, which are individually named in the report, do provide a number, but dozens of them do not. Patrons move away, or pass away, and citizens are under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to inform public libraries of their own or a relative's status and its effect on the library’s number of registrations.

In short, there is no way to prove--or disprove--the statement.

Winkler, part of the Auditorium Speaker Series at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference, having previously provided the keynote speech at the closing session of ALA's 2005 Annual Conference, has spoken before of what he has overcome to become successful in his chosen profession, and he is obviously passionate about inspiring others, especially children, through literacy.

For more information, see the article, From the Desk of Norman Lear: The Fonz, Drunk Drivers, and Trash, available from the Environmental Media Association, and the Happy Days Wikipedia entry. Also see the Entertainment Education and Health in the United States article that appeared in the Spring 2004 Issue Brief of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

No comments:

Post a Comment