The Fonz is back in town ... or back on screen in town.
UPAF has rediscovered a pair of 1979 television commercials featuring Henry Winkler and has tapped Mindpool Productions to update them to promote this year's United Performing Arts Fund campaign to support the arts in Milwaukee.
In the first spot – made just two years after the closing of the Milky Way on Port Washington Road, which served as the inspiration for Al's on "Happy Days" (had anyone broken the news to him?) – Mindpool uses pop-ups to bring the commercial into the new millennium...
In the second, new footage with The Fonz has been included...
"Just in time for UPAF’s 2016 15-week Workplace Giving Campaign, which launches March 1, Henry has given the community another gift by extolling the value of the performing arts and the importance of supporting UPAF," said Deanna Tillisch, UPAF’s president and CEO, in a statement.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
