To scare off bullies, you must first have hit one of them

Members of the cast of "Happy Days" at the soda shop, left to right: Scott Baio (Charles "Chachi" Arcola), Anson Williams (Warren "Potsie" Weber), Ron Howard (Richard "Richie" Cunningham), Henry Winkler (Arthur "The Fonz/Fonzi" Fonzarelli), Don Most (Ralph Malph).

I did not watch the TV sitcom Happy Days very often, but one of the shows made a lasting impression on me. It encapsulates why all of us who are outraged at David Letterman’s vile rape jokes about 14-year-old Willow Palin and his unfunny, degrading remarks about her mother, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, must get this bully fired from his show on CBS.

As you may know, Happy Days was about the high school days of an all-American, clean-cut boy, Richie Cunningham, his family and clean-cut friends, and his family’s tenant, the motorcycle-riding, womanizing, leather-jacketed drop-out known as The Fonz, or Fonzi.

Well, in one show some bullies have been harassing Richie, so The Fonz meets him at the soda shop to teach him his technique for intimidating other tough guys out of beating him up. The Fonz demonstrates his technique by looking his opponents in the eye, getting angry and red in the face, and then furiously tearing off his jacket and throwing it down on the ground in order to prepare for the fight. At that point, his opponents look frightened and hurry away.

So, just as Richie is confronting his own tormentors and angrily taking off his letterman’s jacket, he and Fonzi note that the tormentors are unimpressed and stand their ground. Fonzi is startled by a flash of realization and pulls Richie aside and says, “I just remembered! For this to work, you must have once hit someone.”

Well, getting David Letterman fired is our version of scaring off future bullies by having once hit someone.

Unless we like getting pounded for our lunch money every day, we’ve got to get in it to win it. The bullies will only get bolder and more numerous if we don’t.

Comments

4 responses to “To scare off bullies, you must first have hit one of them”

  1. BAW Avatar
    BAW

    Good post, I agree.

    “The bullies will only get bolder and more numerous if we don’t.”

    Which is exactly what “they” have been doing for decades. The PC crowd with their own set of rules, race hustlers like Jackson and Sharpton, feminists like the women who got the vapors when Larry Summers suggested there “might” be innate differences between men and women, and on and on and on.

    It is way past time for decent people with common sense to stand up and say enough. Stop. We’re not going to accept this anymore.

  2. John Avatar
    John

    Just wandering over here from Attila the Girl…

    Letterman is a dexiophobe (irrationally afraid of the right), and I’m curious why. People don’t go to the extremes he does in politics unless they have a dog in the fight. What’s his?

    Gone for one joke? No; gone for not recognizing that his conduct is unacceptable, for holding himself above the rules of human decency, and especially for acting as if he owes no apology to the people he has wronged.

    The spark is so gone with this guy. He used to be funny without offending anybody. Now he stoops. Utterly depressing.

    Time to start listing the advertisers.

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