Interview: Anson ‘Potsie’ Williams on His Book ‘Singing to a Bulldog’

Submitted by PatrickMcD on December 18, 2014 - 1:20pm

Another View of Anson Williams, Promoting His New Book, ‘Singing to a Bulldog.’
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com

HollywoodChicago.com: ‘Happy Days’ began as a tougher, harder edged show and morphed into more of a domestic comedy. What show from the first season really defined that edge before the show entered into the other direction?

Williams: It was still comedic all the way through, but from the early days there were the car race episodes, the stripper one and Ritchie getting drunk. It was more of the tone of those 1950s films. At the end of the second season, we were almost canceled, and that’s when they put the show up in front of a live audience. The next season Henry [Winkler] broke out, and it became a domestic comedy, and then it went to Number One.

HollywoodChicago.com: Henry Winkler rose to be the main driver of the show’s popularity almost overnight, pushing you and Ron Howard from headliners to the ensemble cast. Was there are any on-set tension regarding that evolution?

Williams: Ron had control of that, contractually, and he was the first one to back off when the Fonzie character went through the roof. We all felt that. As far as I was concerned, Fonzie was buying me a house. [laughs] ‘Ayyyyyyye, Woah,’ whatever, I was hanging onto his coattails. Go bro go.

HollywoodChicago.com: I’ve always been curious, and maybe you’d know this. What specific years did ‘Happy Days’ cover during its 11 season run?

Williams: I don’t think anyone ever knew. [laughs] It wasn’t historically specific. It started out being accurate, but loosened up after that.

HollywoodChicago.com: So we all know that famously, the Fonz literally ‘jumped the shark’ in the fifth season premiere of ‘Happy Days,’ but in your opinion when do you think the series really jumped the shark?

Williams: I think when Ron and Donny [Most] left the show. There was an ‘it’ factor to that casting. You can’t create it, it just happens. It was the magic with the people involved. If you take some of those pieces out and try to replace them, that to me is jumping the shark.

HollywoodChicago.com: Did you like any of the post-Ron Howard episodes?

Williams: Not really, but there were a couple that I thought were interesting. There was the one that was a whole half hour musical, and the episodes when Ron came back also had some good moments. It was just a different feeling when the transition of the cast was made.

HollywoodChicago.com: One of the anecdotes in the book is the day you spent some time with John Lennon. Do you remember where you were when you heard John Lennon had been killed in 1980, and your reaction to it?

Williams: I remember I was at home, and actually heard it on the radio. And because I had met him, I just started bawling, because I knew what kind of man he was. The 12 hours we had during that on set visit [pictured], brought me back to that 12 year old kid hearing The Beatles the first time. I got to spend a day with him? That meant everything to me, it was totally special.

John Lennon – with Son Julian – and the Cast of ‘Happy Days’ in 1974
Photo credit: Anson Williams

HollywoodChicago.com: Ron Howard made his first feature, ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ which also featured Marion Ross, while he was doing ‘Happy Days.’ As his friend, what was your reaction to the film and did you feel and/or know the potential that Ron was heading for in that directorial debut?

Williams: Even before that. Just as a regular person at 12 years old, Ron entered and won first place in a Kodak contest for ‘Best Film Edited in Camera.’ He was already on his way. Ron Howard, no question he was going to be great.

HollywoodChicago.com: Your own directorial debut occurred in the 1980s, and flourished in the 1990s. What do you find different about the pacing of series directing now as opposed to when you were doing it in the 1990s?

Williams: When I started directing, it was my stuff – an ‘ABC Afterschool Special’ and a TV movie I wrote – so it’s a much different experience when it’s your ‘island,’ then when you come into the island of somebody else. That’s series TV directing, the director himself becomes the odd person out. The actors think they know everything, the Director of Photography thinks they should be directing. It’s a real psychological challenge in segment television. The pressure is huge. I found a way to handle it – I knew what I was doing, I respected everybody there and I was always clear about what I needed. It’s been a good run.

HollywoodChicago.com: You’ve done so many genres during your directorial run – sitcoms, sci-fi and nighttime soap operas – how do create the atmosphere for those different genres?

Williams: It’s different storytelling. The camera works differently in each genre as well, so you have to know your craft. In the end, it’s being true to the story and the characters. And then play the moment.

HollywoodChicago.com: Your friend Willie lived through a difficult era for African Americans, and I’m sure was partially defined through that journey. In what you know about him, what advice do you think he would give to a young African American male who is frustrated with the decisions of Ferguson and New York City?

Williams: Willie had a hard life, but he’d tell them what he told me – ‘Stop getting in the way of yourself.’ Move forward. The Ferguson incident reminds me of a 1950s movie that Billy Wilder directed – ‘Ace in the Hole.’ It was about a reporter who intentionally extended a crisis in a story he was covering, because it was selling newspapers. That to me is a parallel to Ferguson. The media companies are getting something out of it. They are using emotions, ignorance and past difficulties – and instead of moving forward, it’s being manipulated, and that’s destructive.

HollywoodChicago.com: What was your relationship with the Vietnam War draft, since you were of the age to be drafted?

Williams: At the time, I was scared to death, because I had lost my student deferment. I had to do the physical, and passed. My draft lottery number was 149, and the previous year they took everybody up to 175. The year I passed the physical, it went up to 125. I missed it by 24 numbers. I had friends who died over there. There was a lot of blame at the time on the military, but that was just another manipulated situation during a bogus war.

HollywoodChicago.com: Finally, what endures in you from the character of Potsie, and what do you like most about what the character represents in television history or ‘Happy Days’ in general?

Williams: There is a little ‘Potsie’ in everyone, the insecure, vulnerable person with a good heart. That’s what I liked about the character, he was flawed in the best way. They loved the character because he was real.

”Singing to a Bulldog” by Anson Williams, is available at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois, or wherever books are sold.