Fuel Road Trip Dreams with AMERICAN ROAD

This issue of American Road pays tribute to the Happy Days television series and the impacts it made on pop culture. It’s a nostalgic number played with doo-wops that takes to the highways with the oomph of a Triumph motorcycle roaring toward Arnold’s Drive-In. It begins with a flashback to that most famous episode of Happy Days—the 1977 juggernaut that saw Fonzie slip waterskis onto his feet and jump a great white shark in West Coast waters. The episode was filmed at Paradise Cove in Malibu—a strand of golden sand that has long defined how California sees itself and, by extension, how the rest of the country sees California.

We stop by to lose ourselves amid the surfboards and production stills—scenes from the Frankie and Annette “Beach Party” films, the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ Safari,” and even an episode of The Munsters that saw a snorkeling Herman snagged in the fishing nets of a Russian trawler. Talk about must-see TV.

Actor Don Most is best known for his Happy Days role of Ralph Malph—a teenage cut-up who drove a yellow Ford highboy and capped the punchline of every stale joke with the self-compliment “I still got it!” Most is still acting, and he’s made for himself a second career as a pop and jazz singer. We visit with him in our American Road Interview. He talks about the old days, the new days, and that time he shot a movie inside a concrete teepee at the funky Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino.

The results of our Happy Days Photo Contest are sure to add a grin to wherever you’re going. Our departments broaden that smile. We track down Howard Cunningham’s 1948 DeSoto in Washington State, drop by the National Neon Museum in Oregon, and seek out Laverne & Shirley’s old bottling line at Wisconsin’s Lakefront Brewery. We find our thrill at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis, rock around the clock with Bill Haley and His Comets on the banks of the Hudson River, and finally find ourselves at the thumbs of the Bronze Fonz on Milwaukee’s waterfront.

Here’s hoping our efforts earn two thumbs up from you— for today and for 1975.

Pack your suitcase and prepare to embark on an engrossing journey to the roots of America!