Joanie Loves Chachi

The series is set in the early to mid-1960s and follows the exploits of Joanie and Chachi as they moved to Chicago and tried to make it on their own with a rock band and a music career at a time when the British Invasion was looming (one episode was titled "Beatlemania"). It mixed the traditional elements of a sitcom with musical performances on each show by Baio and Moran. In fact, the beginning credit sequence of the show had them singing to each other. Their backup band consists of a spaced-out drummer named Bingo and Chachi's blasé cousins Mario and Annette.

The series also starred Ellen Travolta as Louisa Delvecchio, Chachi's mother (Travolta and Baio would star again as mother and son later in Charles in Charge), and Al Molinaro as Al Delvecchio, Chachi's stepfather (and formerly the owner of Arnold's Drive-In in Happy Days), who opened a restaurant in which Chachi and Joanie performed most of their music. Art Metrano played Chachi's uncle Rico Mastorelli, who was the band's manager and helped Joanie and Chachi advance in their careers. Winifred Freedman (later a cast member of the syndicated soap opera Rituals) played Rico's daughter, Annette, Chachi's cousin and bandmate.

Joanie Loves Chachi was the first Miller-Boyett (and only Garry Marshall-produced) sitcom developed by Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett, and was created by Lowell Ganz, Mark Rothman, and Garry Marshall. This is the only Garry Marshall/Miller-Boyett sitcom that does not have Charles Fox and/or Norman Gimbel as the show's theme song/music cue composer.

An urban legend circulated that the show was the highest-rated American program ever in Korea due to "chachi" being a Korean word for "penis". In actuality, the show was never broadcast to the general public of Korea, only to U.S. servicemen stationed in South Korea, and has never even been dubbed or subtitled in Korean.[1]

Scott Baio later recalled:

All the Happy Days people had written the first four episodes, when the show got picked up for series, but then they left to go back to Happy Days, and we were stuck with new writers who didn’t know us. So that was a problem. And then some of the people on the show had chemical issues, and that was a problem. It was just on and on and on, and it just sort of all crumbled and fell apart. In retrospect, if given the choice again, I would not have done that show. That was just the wrong idea. If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve waited ’til Happy Days was over until I did anything else. [emphasis in original][2]

The show debuted as a mid-season replacement and initially attracted high ratings, benefiting from two factors: it aired immediately following its parent series, Happy Days, and had only reruns competing for its time slot.[1] The ratings plummeted in Season 2 with a move to Thursday nights, which put Joanie Loves Chachi up against the highly popular series The A-Team, and it was pulled from the schedule by the year's end.[1] The characters were rolled back into Happy Days for that program's final season. ABC determined that the show was losing too much of its lead-in, suggesting low appeal if the show were moved.

In 2010, TV Guide Network listed the show at #17 on its list of 25 Biggest TV Blunders.[5]

On February 4, 2014, CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) released Joanie Loves Chachi - The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[6]

In the pilot episode of Friends, taped on 4 May 1994, Rachel Green is watching the show after she breaks up with her fiancé Barry. She says, "See! But Joanie loved Chachi! That's the difference!"[7]

The show is referenced in the Bloodhound Gang song, “Yummy Down on This”, from their third studio album, Hooray for Boobies.

On the Beastie Boys track "Get It Together", released on 17 March 1994, guest vocalist Q-Tip likens band member Ad Rock's close relationship with his then-wife Ione Skye to that of "Chachi and Joanie"; Ad Rock himself then replies, in rhyme, "'Cause she's the cheese and I'm the macaroni!"[8]

In 2002, an episode of the nostalgic documentary series I Love the 80s mentioned "Joanie Loves Chachi" as a topic.

In the 2004 film DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story when White Goodman (played by Ben Stiller) hits Justin with a dodgeball, he says "Joanie loves Chachi!"

In Jason Mraz's 2018 song "Unlonely", Mraz references Chachi and Joanie in the line, "We could keep it sweet like Chachi and Joanie".

In the series Cybill starring Cybill Shepherd as a character with her own first name who is a failing actress, she frequently refers to her role on Joanie Loves Chachi although the actress did not appear on the show.

• Joanie Loves Chachi at IMDb
• Joanie Loves Chachi at TV.com
• Joanie Loves Chachi at epguides.com
• Joanie Loves Chachi at Sitcomsonline.com