![\"Anton](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Anson-Williams-and-Paul-7-2016.jpg\")
<\/a>For 11 years, \u201cHappy Days\u201d ruled the airwaves and made us laugh.\u00a0Many of those laughs came from the \u201cthree amigos\u201d of Richie, Potsie, and Ralph.\u00a0Richie was obviously played by Ron Howard, Opie to most of us when he started on TV.\u00a0Ralph was played by Donnie Most and was often quoted for saying boastfully, \u201cI\u2019ve still got it!\u201d\u00a0Potsie was played by Anson Williams and could often be heard singing on several episodes.<\/p>\n
Back to last January: I was in New York City going from booth to booth looking for talent to bring to the Niswonger and I just happened to come to a booth of one of my agent friends, Tom Fowler of Capital Productions International.\u00a0Tom said, \u201cHey, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Anson Williams.\u201d\u00a0Well, it didn\u2019t take me long to see that I was shaking hands with Potsie himself!\u00a0We shared a few pleasantries and I told him thanks for all the happy days on TV.\u00a0 My, how he made my dad laugh!\u00a0I would love to hear my dad laugh again.\u00a0Many of you know what I mean.\u00a0Well, I had the wits to ask Potsie for a picture.\u00a0The results are what you see above.<\/p>\n
Anson was a nice, down-to-earth man and was very approachable.\u00a0He told me about the stage show he was starting to take on the road with his old friend, Donnie Most (Ralph Malph).\u00a0He said they have a great time sharing stories and watching film cuts of \u201cHappy Days\u201d, as well as performing music from that era. Ironically, although it was Potsie who sang on the TV show most often, it\u2019s Donnie who has gone on to perform the most (no pun intended) since the TV show went off the air.<\/p>\n
Donnie, or Don Most as I think he now prefers to be called, is a very good big band singer and will be accompanied on their stage show with a big band as he and Anson sing music from the \u201850s and \u201860s.<\/p>\n
Anson convinced me we should bring this fun show to the Niswonger and now you have the opportunity to see these guys and relive those happy days on our stage come October 1 at 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t you know as I was walking out of the Hilton in Manhattan after meeting Anson, who should I see but Don Most standing alone in the lobby?\u00a0Well, I just had to take the opportunity to meet him, too. So I walked up to him and said I hope to see you in Van Wert, Ohio, next year.\u00a0He was a bit more timid than Anson, but said, \u201cThanks, I\u2019ll look forward to it!\u201d\u00a0We\u2019ll see if he remembers our chance meeting come October 1.<\/p>\n
Many tickets have been bought up already through Grand Series and Select Series purchases, but now you can purchase individual tickets for \u201cHappy Days Live!\u201d beginning today (July 20).\u00a0We still have some great seats available, with tickets starting at just $20, and they can be purchased by calling the box office, stopping by, or online at NPACVW.ORG<\/a>.\u00a0 Come October 1, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll want to say, \u201cGoodbye gray skies, hello blue\u201d and get some laughs at the Niswonger with \u201cHappy Days Live!\u201d\u00a0Potsie and Ralph will be expecting you!<\/p>\n This Friday night in Fountain Park will be an exciting and fun one. Country fiddler Chris Higbee (formerly of Poverty Neck Hillbillies) and his band will entertain.\u00a0He has been referred to as a young Charlie Daniels.\u00a0One thing for sure, he will fiddle up a storm; and there could be some real surprises come Friday night!\u00a0 I\u2019m just sayin\u2019.\u00a0 Come and find out.\u00a0 Music begins at 7 p.m. and Portal 2L20, a new non-profit teen center, will be serving the food.<\/p>\n FIN\u00c9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last January, I met for the first time a person I had grown up watching on TV.\u00a0 I imagine you are like me and also watched TV\u2019s \u201cHappy Days\u201d.\u00a0 It ran from 1974 through 1984 on ABC and was one of the highest rated shows for many of those 11 years.\u00a0 You remember the gang […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 17:01:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}