The key premise of “Shallow Hal” isn’t too complicated — while under hypnosis, the titular character pictures women to be as beautiful outside as they are inside. As such, he sees his boss’ daughter, Rosemary Shanahan (Gwyneth Paltrow), as a slim woman despite the fact that she actually weighs around 300 pounds. In order to achieve this illusion, Paltrow had to wear a fat suit for scenes where she appeared as the real Rosemary. And much like Jack Black felt negatively about “Shallow Hal” years after the fact, Paltrow would later admit that wearing the prosthetics proved to be a miserable experience. “The first day I tried the fat suit on, I was in the Tribeca Grand and I walked through the lobby,” she explained (via The Guardian). “It was so sad. It was so disturbing. No one would make eye contact with me because I was obese. I felt humiliated.”

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While many of the fat jokes and other bits of humor in “Shallow Hal” may have aged like milk, it can also be argued that the Farrelly Brothers’ hearts were in the right place when they were making the movie — focusing solely on one’s physical attributes is indeed a shallow and immature way to go about dating. Even Black seems to have relaxed his stance on “Shallow Hal” since that time he confessed to feeling like a sell-out for appearing in it. “It was a really funny script and a funny story, but it had a lot of emotional underpinnings too,” he said in a later interview (via YouTube). “It had some cool resonance … and I think that’s why it stuck around for all those years.”

According to a 1980 article in the Mansfield News Journal, Howard’s departure was motivated by ABC’s refusal to let him get more involved in the show off-camera. Per Howard, he was unhappy with “ABC’s unwillingness to really let me get into the production area as deeply as I wanted to — they see me pretty much as Richie. They didn’t take me very seriously.”

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This was a total own goal on ABC’s part. Howard had already directed one feature in 1977 (the Roger Corman-produced “Grand Theft Auto”), and was not shy about discussing his eagerness to direct again. So when former ABC executive Fred Silverman offered Howard a decent chunk of change to join him at NBC, the actor bolted “Happy Days.” It was an attractive deal for Howard, if only because Brandon Tartikoff, the president of NBC Entertainment, took him much more seriously than the folks at ABC did. “Howard does it all and does it extremely well as creator, actor, producer and director,” Tartikoff told the AP.

How did ABC feel about this? As one unnamed exec told the News Journal, “It was like those legends you hear when an eagle swoops down and snatches a baby from the cradle and flies off.” The series did a quick retool by adding Ted McGinley to the cast as Mrs. Cunningham’s nephew Roger. While McGinley’s a terrific actor (as you know if you’re watching Apple TV+’s “Shrinking”), he didn’t mesh well with Winkler, Anson Williams, and Donny Most. “Happy Days” managed to stay on the air for four more seasons after Howard left, but people mostly watched it out of habit.

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As for Howard and NBC, he appeared in three made-for-TV movies, but, for whatever reason, he never got to direct one of them. When he satisfied the terms of his contract, he quit television and directed the R-rated comedy “Night Shift” starring Winkler and a brash, hilarious newcomer named Michael Keaton. The film was a hit, and Howard’s filmmaking career was off and soaring.