Bronz Fonz and Happy Days
He’s not just there for show. The bronze statue of Arthur ‘Fonz’ Fonzarelli along the Milwaukee river walk is a remnant from one of city’s best-known pop culture institutions, “Happy Days.” The series, which aired for 11 seasons between 1974 and 1984, was set in Milwaukee and drew inspiration from around the city. The fictional Arnold’s Drive-In was based on the real life Milky-Way, a custard stand in Whitefish Bay which closed in 1977 and was replaced by a Kopp’s.
Wayne’s World
Wayne Campbell: So, do you come to Milwaukee often?
Alice Cooper: Well, I’m a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers were coming here as early as the late 1600s to trade with the Native Americans.
Pete: In fact, isn’t “Milwaukee” an Indian name?
Alice Cooper: Yes, Pete, it is. Actually, it’s pronounced “mill-e-wah-que” which is Algonquin for “the good land.”
Wayne Campbell: I was not aware of that.
+Credit to Alice Cooper, the word ‘Milwaukee’ does translate roughly into, ‘the good land,’ except it’s Potawatomi in origin, not Algonquin. We were not aware of that, Wayne.
Chris Farley is arguably one of the most well-known pop culture figures with ties to Milwaukee and Marquette University, which you can see in a lot of his work. The movie “Tommy Boy” begins with Farley’s character, Tommy Callahan, graduating from Marquette after a seven-year career (Farley himself did it in four).
+While the opening college scenes are supposed to represent Marquette, they were instead filmed at the University of Toronto.
In the 1999 Kevin Smith movie “Dogma,” two fallen angels played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are banished to an eternity of Hell on Earth: the terminal at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport, which we’re sure we could find some students to agree with that. However, the actual filming was done at an airport in Pittsburgh.
A few skyline and exterior shots were filmed locally, but SNL co-stars Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph actually traveled to Southern California to film the majority of the 2011 comedy, which was one of the first major films in recent history based in the city. And no, Helen, we are not sorry we live in Milwaukee… sometimes.
Ron Burgundy: [answers the phone in a very distressed manor] “Hello? Who’s there, I’m talkin? Hello? Who is this? Baxter… is that you? Baxter! Bark twice if you’re in Milwaukee… Is this Wilt Chamberlain? Have the courage to say something! Hello?”
Bark, Bark! We’re here, Ron!
+We guess Will Ferrell couldn’t get enough of the Brew City, because he stared in a series of low-budget Old Milwaukee ads that were set in Milwaukee.
Jane Kaczmarek
Best known as Lois in the early 2000s TV show, “Malcolm in the Middle”, actress Jane Kaczmarek was born in Milwaukee, and attended school at UW-Madison.
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace, the Liberace, the guy with the outrageous wardrobe, grew up practicing piano in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis.
David & Jerry Zucker
The dynamic brotherly duo directed cinematic hits like “Ghost,” the “Naked Gun” series, “Friends with Benefits” and “Airplane!” – some directed together, some independent endeavors.
Jim Lovell Jr.
Commander of Apollo 13, Lovell will forever be remembered as a hero, famous astronaut, captain of the United States Navy and Tom Hanks–who played him in the 1980s film.
Jessica Szohr
Playing Venessa Abrahms in the CW’s “Gossip Girl,” Jessica is a Milwaukee suburb native. She graduated from Menomenee Falls High School and then moved to Los Angeles at 17.
MKE READS
The Westing Game
This award-winning novel by Ellen Raskin published in 1978 is basically the book version of Clue. It’s set in an apartment building on the shore of Lake Michigan, where 16 heirs are involved in a complicated puzzle to solve the mystery of who killed Sam Westing—the late millionaire who’s money the characters are after.
Red Weather
It’s a story of love, family and political turmoil set in the 1970s and published in 2007. By Pauls Toutonghi, the novel follows the life of a young first-generation immigrant living in Milwaukee’s Third Ward who falls in love with a politician’s daughter. The New York Times praised Toutonghi for his “sense of magic and his sense of humor.”
Father Lands
Father Lands is a novel about an eight-year-old girl growing up in Milwaukee. The author, Emily Ballou grew up in the city as well, but moved to Australia, where the book was originally published in 2002. In one review, the Weekend Australian called it, “one of the best American novels to come out of Australia.”