classic tv

Happy Days (and a Whole Bunch of Other TV Oldies) Are Here Again on Pluto

Aaaay! Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

If you’re looking to stuff yourself with retro TV reruns over the holidays, Happy Days are right around the corner — along with Mork & Mindy, Laverne & Shirley and a cornucopia of other classic comedies (and one 1960s drama) headed to the free streaming service Pluto. Starting on November 24, the ViacomCBS-owned platform will begin offering six new virtual channels devoted to throwback shows from corporate sibling CBS Television Distribution, Vulture has learned. As is the case with much of Pluto’s library, most of the oldies joining the lineup will get their own virtual channels and will stream episodes 24/7, allowing audiences to gorge on a steady diet of canned laughter in between bites of leftovers.

The additions to Pluto’s old-school lineup will cover a lot of ground chronologically, with shows from the 1960s through the 1990s set to join an already robust collection of oldies that includes Three’s Company, One Day at a Time, All in the Family, and game show reruns via the Buzzr network. Among the shows landing on Pluto next week:

• The Love Boat, Aaron Spelling’s anthology comedy in which celebrity guest stars hop onboard each week in hopes of finding romance (they almost always do). It’s a big month for fans of the show: Nine seasons of the ABC series also set sail on CBS All Access earlier this month, marking the first time in recent memory the show has been widely available to stream.

• Family Ties, Michael J. Fox’s Reagan-era comedy about Gen-X kids clashing with their boomer parents.

• Wings, the other 1990s comedy from the creators of Cheers. (Sorry, no Frasier on Pluto just yet.)

• Mission: Impossible, the 1960s original that laid the groundwork for Tom Cruise’s movie franchise.

• The Beverly Hillbillies, another relic of the 1960s, this one a comedy about rural folk who strike oil and head west.

As for the aforementioned trio of Happy Days and its spin-offs Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy, these Garry Marshall–created sitcoms will share the same virtual channel (to be called simply Happy Days, though I’m still holding out for it to be dubbed “Garry,†as well as for the addition of the absolutely awful Happy Days spinoff Joanie Loves Chachi). Although a selection of Happy Days episodes has been available on Hulu and CBS All Access for years, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy have been largely absent from the major streaming platforms for the past five years or so, and neither show has had its full run available to stream. The ad-supported Pluto is available as a free streaming app on most major platforms and via its website.

Happy Days (And Other TV Oldies) Are Here Again on Pluto