Happy Days - Happy Days Actors To Sue Cbs For Fraud

Anson Williams, Don Most, Marion Ross, Erin Moran and the estate of the late Tom Bosley claim the network owe them a considerable amount of money under their contracts. The show, which originally aired from 1974 to 1984, "Represented to the public what the best of America has to offer", according to Williams, who played Potsie. The actor added, "Unfortunately, now Happy Days also represents the worst of America, of what major companies are trying to get from it, trying to use it for, and forgetting the family it created". All four actors plus the estate of Bosley, who died last year, claim they have been cut out of the merchandising profits from books, t-shirts, scrapbooks, trading cards, lunch boxes, toy cars, greeting cards and DVDs. The cast members said when their images began appearing on slot machines they started to wonder where all the money had gone, saying, "When these slot machines came out, it was like Barnum and Bailey came to town. We were bombarded with, oh look at these pictures, they'd be all over the country".

Under the actor's Happy Days contracts, they were supposed to be paid 5 per cent from the net proceeds of merchandising if their sole image was used and 2 and half per cent if they appeared as a group. Marion Ross noted, "It takes a lot to make me angry because so often my expectations are so low. But the other day someone came up to me and said, You must be cleaning up on those casinos".