It's 'Happy Days' for Lake Mills sculptor

By Adam Tobias of the Daily Times staff
Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:05 PM CST

Lake Mills residents now have a reason to put on a leather jacket, give a thumbs up and yell out the famous catch phrase “Ayyyy.”

Gerald Sawyer, an artist from Lake Mills, has been hired to create a bronze sculpture of the “Happy Days” television show character Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli that is scheduled to be unveiled in October 2008 near the Chase Plaza office tower in Milwaukee.

Visit Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization that promotes tourism in the city, has raised $57,000 of the $85,000 needed to commission the life-size sculpture of Fonzie. Visit Milwaukee plans to raise additional funds by selling “Bronze the Fonz” T-shirts.

The T-shirts can be purchased from the Web site www.bronzethefonz.com. The shirts cost $22, with $10 going toward the fund-raising campaign. The Web site also provides information about the project.

Sawyer, a 1966 Watertown High School graduate, was selected for the Fonzie project out of a number of applicants from all around the world. Sawyer said that a few of the applicants were from as far away as Europe and some even called Henry Winkler, the actor who portrayed Fonzie.

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“As it turns out even some people from Europe wanted to get involved because apparently the Fonz is still a big hero out there,” Sawyer said. “I guess Henry Winkler had people calling him and telling him that they would like to do the sculpture. It was pretty nuts.”

The Lake Mills artist has already submitted a few designs for review and he hopes to start the project early next year. Sawyer could not reveal the design for the statue, but he did say it would be a classic Fonzie pose.

“We want to create a certain amount of anticipation so we are basically saying it is going to be a classic Fonzie pose, probably with the thumbs up,” Sawyer said.

Sawyer has completed numerous projects over the decades, including a sculpture of flamingos at the entrance of the Milwaukee County Zoo, life-size bronze American Indians in downtown Fort Atkinson and several statues of Frederick Miller for Miller Brewing Co.

He also creates simulators, items such as artificial slabs of bacon, human ears or spines for companies including Nasco Plastics in Fort Atkinson.

Visit Milwaukee has commissioned the Fonzie project to add another destination point for tourists visiting the city. TV Land, a cable network owned by Viacom International Inc. that shows reruns of classic shows, has donated six sculptures commemorating memorable television events or characters - including Mary Richards from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Dr. Bob Hartley of “The Bob Newhart Show” - to various cities.

TV Land is scrapping the statue projects, but Viacom, which owns the rights to the Fonzie character, has approved the Milwaukee sculpture.