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Scott Baio almost lost out on the role that made him a household name.
During a recent interview with Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo, who hosts “Arroyo Grande with Raymond Arroyo,” the 65-year-old actor shared on the podcast that he was almost fired from the hit 70s sitcom, “Happy Days.”
The actor explained that he started “getting a big head” because “I was doing two shows at the same time.” One of the shows was “Happy Days” on ABC, and while he didn’t name the other show, he noted it aired on NBC.
“And I’ll tell you something that a lot of people don’t know is that the producers on ‘Happy Days’ wanted to fire me because I was not doing my job,” he said. “I wasn’t taking it seriously. I thought I was, you know, the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wasn’t performing well. I just thought I could get by on being cute and, you know, and funny, and it doesn’t cut it after a while.”
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In the end, legendary director, Garry Marshall, convinced producers to give Baio another chance.
Marshall then took things a step further when he told Baio’s father, who the actor described as an “old world Italian guy who didn’t take any c–p,” what was going on set.
“And my father came home to me, and he said, ‘Listen, you got one shot at this, and you’re blowing it,'” Baio explained. “He says, ‘Shut up. You’re blowing it. You want to go back to Brooklyn?’ And I went, ‘Uh, no.’ He says, ‘Okay, well, get your act together and get to work.’ Now, when my father told me that, I had a lot of fear from my dad, which I think is a good thing.”
Baio credited both of his parents, as well as his brother and sister for keeping him grounded, noting, they “never treated me any different” because of his career.
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“So I was still the same guy, but my head got a little big and then everybody slapped it back,” he said.
“Happy Days” aired on ABC for ten years, from 1974 to 1984 and helped launch the careers of many of its young stars, including Baio, Henry Winkler, Erin Moran and even Robin Williams, who appeared in two episodes as Mork.
Williams’ guest appearance as Mork was so popular that it launched a spin-off show, “Mork & Mindy,” starring him and Pam Dawber. The show aired on ABC for four seasons from 1978 to 1982.
Baio’s character Chachi had a romance with Moran’s character, Joanie, which led to another spin-off show, called “Joanie Loves Chachi,” which aired on ABC for two seasons.
“‘Joanie Loves Chachi’ was a mistake,” he told Arroyo. “It wasn’t, it just wasn’t the right premise. The people were great. The actors were fine…but it just was not the timing was off and… it was destined to fail.”
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He later added: “The writers on the show, as good as they were, they didn’t know us. They didn’t know how we worked. It always goes back to story. If the story is not good and the premise isn’t good, you’re in a lot of trouble. The premise was not good. You don’t put a guy, me, who was super popular at the time and this is my opinion, you don’t put him with a girlfriend forever.”
In his opinion, the spin-off would have been more compelling had they “put a single guy like me in a new world” rather than in a relationship.
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