RIP Erin Moran

Happy Days star Erin Moran has sadly passed away at the age of 56.

Moran was a prolific child actress from the age of just five years old, but it was her role as Joanie Cunningham in the 50s set sitcom Happy Days, and its subsequent spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi, that secured her fame. Unfortunately, continuing fame eluded her once the spin-off came to an end and work offers began to dry up. Moran's personal life was subsequently troubled as a result, with rumours of drug and alcohol abuse dogging her down the years. She suffered from depression and money troubles, with her Californian home being foreclosed in 2010. Worryingly she also claimed she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her Happy Days co-stars (though she later retracted this claim) and by her own family. 

Moran's died on the 22nd April. Early autopsy reports suggest she died of an undetermined form of stage 4 cancer.

RIP.

Out On Blue Six: Weezer, RIP Mary Tyler Moore

Weezer's 1994 hit Buddy Holly, with that fabulous Happy Days themed pop video and which namechecks Mary Tyler Moore, who has sadly passed away at the age of 80.

Tyler Moore, will be best remembered for her eponymous role in the US sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she played Mary Richards, a thirtysomething single woman and TV news producer - a role which arguably laid the foundations for the depiction of modern women on TV. Alongside this, she starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-'66) as Van Dyke's character's wife, and in the films Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967, and Ordinary People in 1980 which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

RIP

End Transmission

Theme Time : Cyndi Grecco - Laverne & Shirley

Garry Marshall, the man behind such classic US 70s sitcoms as The Odd Couple, Mork & Mindy, and Happy Days passed away last week at the age of 81. As a tribute I thought I'd focus on the theme to one of Marshall's other hit 70s sitcoms, the one which starred his younger sister Penny, Laverne & Shirley

The show ran from 1976 to 1983 and concerned the titular characters; single room-mates who worked at a Milwaukee brewery as bottlecappers. Penny Marshall played as tough-talking tomboy Laverne DeFazio and Cindy Williams starred as the perky and positive Shirley Feeney. The show was a spin-off from Happy Days (as indeed was Mork & Mindy, later) with the pair having been introduced on that show as friends of The Fonz (Henry Winkler) Like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley was set in the recent American past, from 1958 to 1967.

Each episode title sequence started with Laverne and Shirley skipping down a Milwaukee street, arm in arm, reciting a Yiddish-American hopscotch chant: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated," which was a chant from Penny Marshall's childhood. This then lead into the series' theme song titled Making Our Dreams Come True, performed by Cyndi Grecco and composed by Frank Comstock, John Beal, Charles Fox and Jack Hayes. Accompanied by the Ron Hicklin Singers, Grecco charted at number 25 when the theme was released as a single in 1976, but her subsequent album, and a disco themed single entitled Dancing, Dancing failed to set the world alight. The positive message of striking out and following your dream inherent to the theme with its refrain of how the girls will do it 'our way' was later lampooned by Alexei Sayle for the theme to his sketch series The All New Alexei Sayle Show which was entitled Doin' It My Way 

RIP Garry Marshall

RIP Al Molinaro

Sad news yesterday that Happy Days star Al Molinaro passed away following complications stemming from a gallstone infection at the grand age of 96.

Molinaro was famous for his role as Big Al, proprietor of Arnold's, the diner where everyone hung out in Happy Days and as Murray the cop in the TV series of The Odd Couple.

RIP

Aaaaaayyyyyyyy!