Happy Days/The Spirit Is Willing

The Spirit Is Willing
Season 11, Episode 14
Airdate	April 24, 1984
Written by	Larry Strawther
Directed by	Jerry Paris
Produced by	Jerry Paris, Ronny Hallin
← 11x13 Social Studies	11x15 → Fonzie Moves Out
Happy Days — Season Eleven

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The Spirit Is Willing is the fourteenth episode of the eleventh season of Happy Days, and the two hundred forty-seventh episode overall.

Based on the 1965 Dickey Lee song "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)" and the vanishing hitchhiker urban legend, the story focuses on Fonzie's encounter with a woman who isn't all she seems ... and may not even be alive.

Starring: Henry Winkler (Arthur Fonzarelli)

Also Starring: Marion Ross (Marion Cunningham), Scott Baio (Chachi Arcola), Erin Moran (Joanie Cunningham)

Co-Starring: Anson Williams (Potsie Weber) (credit only), Ted McGinley (Roger Phillips) (credit only)

and Starring: Tom Bosley (Howard Cunningham)

Guest Starring: Kevin Sullivan (Tommy), Alexa Hamilton (Nancy Haley)

Co-Starring: Patti Karr (Woman)

Plot Overview

Fonzie's latest car restoration project is a 1955 Chevrolet convertible. While proudly boasting of the car's virtues, Fonzie tells to Chachi and Tommy — whom Fonzie had annoyed by pulling them from a movie theater, just to look at the car — that he wishes it would be "1955 forever."

After they leave, a beautiful young woman named Nancy Haley walks in. Nancy explains she is stranded and needs a ride home. Fonzie obliges, and the two spend most of the overnight riding on Fonzie's motorcycle through Milwaukee. The next day, Fonzie realizes Nancy had left her purse at the garage and goes to her house to return it. Instead of Nancy, Fonzie is met at the door by a puzzled woman; she explains that Nancy doesn't live there, but that the couple who lived there previously had a daughter who was killed in a car accident about 10 years earlier and that the family had since moved away.

Fonzie goes to the Cunninghams to get an explanation, but they simply laugh at him. Later, at the garage, Fonzie shows off his restored car to Chachi and Tommy — whom he has pulled from the movie theater, again. After they leave, Nancy returns. After Fonzie tries to ask Nancy for an explanation, she manages to convince him to take her for a ride in the car. He agrees, but the car soon stalls on some railroad tracks. Fonzie tries to get the car re-started but can't, and just then the signal lights begin flashing ... there's a train coming! Fonzie begins to panic when the doors become jammed shut. But Nancy is in no hurry to let Fonzie escape the car, and tells him that she is aware that Fonzie wishes it were "1955 forever."

Just as the train strikes the car, the scene dissolves back to the garage, where Fonzie is moaning and screaming. Chachi and Tommy awaken their friend and help him realize he was only dreaming. After telling them about the dream, Fonzie retracts his earlier remark about how he wishes it was "1955 forever."

The show ends with a zoom-in on a purse left on the front seat ... one that looks just like Nancy's.

Trivia

The Show

• The car Fonzie is restoring is incorrectly said to be a 1955 Chevrolet. It is actually a 1954 Chevrolet convertible.
• A reasonable explanation for Nancy's death 10 years earlier might have been that her car – possibly the same wrecked car Fonzie is trying to restore - had stalled in the middle of a railroad crossing and either forgot she locked the car door while trying to escape or, while trying to unlock the driver's side door the lock button broke ... but either way she did not escape the car in time and died when the train hit the car. (As Season 11 episodes were set in 1965, it also seems reasonable that Nancy died in 1955 (10 years earlier, as suggested by the owner of what was once Nancy's house)).

Allusions and References

• "Laurie (Strange Things Happen)" -- The main "vanishing hitchhiker" plotline is loosely based on the 1965 pop hit by country-pop singer-songwriter Dickey Lee. Particular moments in the song that inspired scenes in the episode include the main protagonist making contact with the occupants of the deceased person's house (in this case, Fonzie meets the new owner of Nancy's house); his friends and family laughing at him when he tries to ask them for an explanation; and a momento of the deceased person being left behind (Nancy's purse, although it is found in the wrecked frame of Fonzie's car, instead of at a cemetery).