Over his storied career, William Shakespeare coined thousands of terms that would eventually become commonplace—bated breath, break the ice, laughing stock, watchdog, and skim milk, to name a few. One of his most famous would appear in Act I, Scene 2 of Henry V, when the king says, “Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour/That may give furtherance to our expedition.” 400 years later, however, “Happy Hour” has come to be associated less with The Bard, and more with after-work gatherings of friends to sip on cocktails, a way of dividing the day between work and play as you ease into the evening.
Not surprisingly, Happy Hour has appeared countless times since then, not just in real-life, but in works of pop culture, spanning literature, journalism, theater, stand-up, film, television,…
