Deprived of good writing and/or a skilled director, the young Keaton’s undisciplined comic brilliance could come across as unfocused and flailing. A self-proclaimed “idea man” constantly brainstorming can’t-miss innovations into a handheld tape recorder (edible paper, microwavable clothes), Billy Blaze was the role that finally allowed Keaton to properly channel his live-wire, improvisational comic persona. Keaton, who’d go on to become one of the '80s' most bankable comic leads (before winning over skeptical fanboys as Tim Burton’s Batman and emerging as an eventual Oscar nominee) was a former stand-up comic and sitcom actor, with only one minor big-screen role under his belt when he was cast as Night Shift’s Bill “Billy Blaze” Blazejowski.

That’s because Howard’s modestly naughty, knockabout comedy marked the big-screen breakout of Michael Keaton. And Winkler was stretching himself as an exaggerated version of an all-around sweet guy much closer to the actor’s true and enduring reputation as one of the nicest people Hollywood’s ever seen.Īnd Night Shift accomplished both goals just fine, with the film’s modest but undeniable box office success ($21 million on an $8 million budget for Warner Bros.) earning the young Howard a place as studio director, while Winkler broke typecasting to audition for future non-Fonz roles.īut none of that accounts for why people still seek out Night Shift after all these years. Howard, who’d directed only one, rough-and-tumble theatrical feature by that point - 1977’s Roger Corman exploitation quickie Grand Theft Auto - was making his first studio film, an R-rated comedy about hookers, no less.

So the release of 1982’s Night Shift, directed by Howard and starring Winkler as a mild-mannered New York morgue attendant turned unlikely pimp to a photogenic gaggle of prostitutes seemed like a vehicle for both former costars to switch up their perceived images. And while he’d left the series a few years earlier, former child star Ron Howard was still identified with Happy Days’ onetime lead, the freckle-faced, Midwestern nice guy Richie Cunningham. Happy Days was in its waning years by 1982, but for much of America, Henry Winkler was still the Fonz, that cozily nostalgic sitcom’s impossibly cool and effortlessly womanizing icon.

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