Happy Days and Good Times premiered just weeks apart in early 1974. Despite tough competition, both of these mid-season replacement sitcoms were hits in their first season. Replacing flop The New Temperatures Rising Show on Tuesday at 8 p.m. (ET) on ABC, the nostalgic Happy Days, from The Odd Couple producer Garry Marshall, finished 16^th in the season’s Nielsen ratings, even though it aired against CBS’ top ten hit Maude. The Maude spinoff, Norman Lear’s Good Times, took over the Friday at 8:30 slot on CBS from the low-rated sitcom Roll Out and landed in 17^th place. Another new series, The Six Million Dollar Man, airing opposite Good Times on ABC, finished even higher, in 11^th place.

Sensing Good Times’ potential, CBS announced it would move to Sunday at 8:00 the following season. Maude would escape the potentially tough competition of Happy Days and replace the retiring Here’s Lucy on Monday. CBS would replace Maude on Tuesday with Planet of the Apes, a one-hour drama based on the hit movie of the same name. However, the FCC announced that the big three networks would not get an expected extra hour of programming on Sundays until the fall of 1975. As a result, CBS decided that Good Times would now air on Tuesday at 8:00, opposite Happy Days, while Planet of the Apes moved to Friday, where it quickly flopped.

While Happy Days would continue to be followed by 90-minute made-for-TV movies, Good Times would be paired with M*A*S*H, entering its third season and coming off of winning an Emmy for outstanding comedy series and finishing in 4^th place in the Nielsen ratings on Saturday night.

Good Times dominated the timeslot for the first few weeks of the 1974-75 season. By late October, Good Times ranked 10^th in the Nielsens, while Happy Days trailed in 40^th. Comedian Jimmie Walker became the breakout star of Good Times, helping the series steer youthful viewers away from Happy Days. Little changed as the season went on, and Good Times ended the TV year as the seventh highest rated series, with M*A*S*H doing even better, in 5^th. Happy Days dropped to 48^th and was rumored to be on the chopping block.

Two things saved Happy Days from cancellation. ABC was lacking in successful comedies, as That’s My Mama and Barney Miller (not yet a hit) were the only other sitcoms returning to the network for the fall of 1975. Happy Days, which had been filmed with one camera with a laugh track added in its first two seasons, experimented with filming an episode with multiple cameras and a studio audience. The performers seemed to thrive under these conditions, and it was agreed that the show would switch to this format in the 1975-76 season.

In addition to filming before a live audience, Happy Days would undergo one other significant change. Henry Winkler’s Fonzie character would move to a space above the Cunningham family’s garage and would become much of the series’ focus. New ABC Entertainment President Fred Silverman was big on the change and heavily promoted the new version of the show.

In another key change, ABC dumped its Tuesday movie and slotted a new youth sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter at 8:30 behind Happy Days. At the same time, CBS moved M*A*S*H to Friday and put a new domestic sitcom, Joe and Sons, behind Good Times.

The first week’s results were largely unchanged from the previous season. Good Times finished in 11^th place, while Happy Days trailed in 42^nd. However, Joe and Sons proved to be no M*A*S*H, tying with Welcome Back, Kotter in 36^th place. One week later, Good Times held steady in 10^th, while Happy Days bumped up to 28^th place. Good Times moved up to 8^th in week three, with Happy Days dipping to 35^th. Joe and Sons and Welcome Back, Kotter traded the lead at 8:30, despite Joe and Sons having a better lead-in.

ABC had a breakthrough in week four as Happy Days jumped to 23^rd in the ratings, trailing Good Times by only 10 spots. Welcome Back, Kotter easily beat Joe and Sons, hitting the top 20 for the first time. Joe and Sons sank to 43^rd. As the season continued, Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter continued to climb in the ratings, with Good Times undergoing a slight decline and Joe and Sons falling even further.

At mid-season, CBS and ABC both made changes on Tuesday at 8:30, but for different reasons. With Welcome Back, Kotter growing in popularity, ABC moved it to Thursday nights, where it would lead into Barney Miller. The move worked well as Kotter continued to thrive and helped increase Miller’s ratings. CBS cancelled Joe and Sons and replaced the disappointing sitcom with Popi, a comedy based on the movie of the same name, about a hardworking, single Puerto Rican father.

In Welcome Back, Kotter’s place, ABC quickly assembled a Happy Days spinoff called Laverne & Shirley, centered around two characters introduced as Fonzie and Richie’s dates in a recent Happy Days episode. The spinoff was an instant sensation, finishing at the top of the Nielsen ratings in its first segment. Leading into that premiere, Happy Days finished with its highest rating to date. The duo continued to dominate the ratings for the rest of the season, with Laverne & Shirley finishing as the number three show for the year. Despite its early so-so ratings, Happy Days moved up to 11^th for the season. With Fonzie replacing Jimmie Walker’s J.J. as TV’s favorite young character, Good Times fell to 24^th for the season, despite its early high ratings. Popi never had a chance and was cancelled quickly.

CBS waved the white flag and moved Good Times to Wednesday night for the fall of 1976, where it placed a respectable 26^th place, even though John Amos had departed the show. The ratings would drop considerably a year later when Esther Rolle took a one-season hiatus from the series. Even her return in the autumn of 1978 couldn’t stop the falling ratings, and Good Times was cancelled after the 1978-79 season, with its remaining episodes burned off over the summer.

Happy Days continued its momentum from the 1975-76 season, opening as the number one show for the first week of the fall of 1976. It finished the season as the top show, finishing 2^nd and 3^rd over the next two years. It finally dropped out of the top ten in 1979-80 but remained popular until 1983, when NBC scheduled The A-Team to compete with it.

Winner: First Good Times, Then Happy Days