Happy Days (1926, Weiss Bros.) features characters from Martin Branner's famous comic strip Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner, which debuted in 1920. Unlike most period strips that centered on unmarried women and romantic entanglements, the early Winnie Winkle storylines focused on the title character's simple life as a working woman who toils to support her aging parents. Baseball-wise, the spotlight in Happy Days is on Winnie's adopted brother Perry; he plays "in the mangy baseball league," whose participants come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Needless to say, the featured contest is not a heated pitching duel between, say, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson.

Director: Arvid E. Gillstrom
Screenplay: Martin Branner
Cast: Billy Butts, Ethelyn Gibson (Winnie Winkle).
BW-14m.

by Rob Edelman, author of Great Baseball Films and Baseball on the Web