Parenting Happy Days Style

As we are all waiting, desperately, for the new TV season to start (anything, people, ANYTHING), I turned to MeTV for entertainment tonight, and found first year episodes of Happy Days. You know, when the Cunninghams lived in a different house, there was an older brother Chuck, and Fonzie didn't even wear a leather jacket?

And yet, in the episodes I watched, Richie went to a stag party - after asking Mr. C if he could go, of course (Mr. C agreed, easily) - and he and Potsie got drunk. When he got home drunk, Mr. C tucked him into bed and made a few jokes at his expense. Marion woke up and tut-tutted a bit and then went off to bed.

Is it just me that thinks this is a far better reaction to a kid drinking than the hard core, zero tolerance insanity we have going on now? Let's teach people how to handle alcohol, not ban them from it so it becomes a prize to attain. But then, I also credit people with a modicum of intelligence, and that' not always a good idea on my part...