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s01e01 Rachel: See, but Joanie loved Chachi, that's the difference

Who is Joanie? Who is Chachi?

Rachel stays at Monica's to cry over her messed up life. Earlier this morning she has run away from her own wedding. Later that day Rachel has gotten into fight with her dad over leaving Barry at the altar. Now in order to process what has happened Rachel watches a TV show while hugging her wedding dress. There are some couple getting married on the screen.

Rachel: See, but Joanie loved Chachi, that's the difference

Who are those Joanie and Chachi? Is there extra joke or meaning hidden for a native-speaker?

Chachi and Joanie are the characters from a successful TV show "Happy Days". The show tells a nostalgic story for 50ies story of a US family - a dad, a mom, a son and a daughter Joanie.

Happy Days has been airing for 11 seasons from 1974 to 1984. So Rachel must have grown up watching the show as a teenager, and looked up to the show's characters. Especially Rachel must have related to Joanie, as the girl on the show who is closest to her age.

The story of Joanie meeting Chachi and falling in love with him had become central to the show in its later seasons. No wonder that now in the midst on a life crisis Rachel is both absorbing comfort from the show of her childhood, and trying to see what went wrong in her own Joanie / Chachi love story. And apparently it is LOVE, or to be more exact the absence of it, that was missing for Rachel and Barry's story.

Plus this scene is an extra way to introduce us to Rachel's character, who is really into soup opera shows and takes her life lessons from its characters. But aren't we all? At least in some way.

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I'd love to hear your take on it

Katia

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Location: New York, NY, USA

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