Henry Winkler Talks ‘Hazardous History,’ Mahomes & More

Henry Winkler arrived in studio with a suggestion that Rich move "a little closer to civilization," joking the FedEx depot is nearer to drinkable water than the show, and then proceeded to charm his way through a full interview about his History Channel series, Patrick Mahomes, and a lifelong friendship that shaped his career.

Winkler's show, Hazardous History, airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern and catalogs the things people once did for fun, money, or misguided safety that no longer fly. He rattled off favorites: a soothing syrup that put babies to sleep across the country until parents discovered it was laced with morphine; wire cages that hung children outside New York City windows for fresh air; a Cabbage Patch doll that was impossible to find, then ate kids' fingers and hair with no off switch, sending them to the doctor with a doll attached to their head; candy cigarettes; and sugary cereals that turned kids' output pink and panicked their parents.

Then came the recurring bit. Winkler is still waiting on Mahomes to accept his standing dinner invitation, chicken with a reduction sauce, mashed potatoes, and a vegetable, an offer he insists remains open. Aware Mahomes is rehabbing a knee, Winkler offered ice, a knee wrap, and chicken soup, the Jewish penicillin, while wishing him well and marveling that anyone could play that hurt. With the Chiefs making two trips to Los Angeles next season, Winkler vowed to make himself available. He even extended the chicken dinner to LeBron James, reportedly talking contract with the Lakers, saying King James could bring the whole family.

The show then ran Rich's pitch for a sports edition of Hazardous History, and Winkler riffed on barefoot kickers, locker-room smoking via a Len Dawson Super Bowl photo, and the maskless NHL goalie who took 33 pucks to the face before refusing to play without protection. Winkler confessed he was a smoker through his Happy Days years until the 1980s, when Garry Marshall sent someone to help him quit and his kids told him he smelled. The closer wrote itself: Winkler water skiing over shark-infested water as the star with no stunt double, the freeze-frame on a smile that was half Fonzie and half disbelief, the stunt that birthed the phrase jumping the shark, which he proudly noted he's done twice counting Arrested Development.

The most moving stretch was about Ron Howard. Winkler described two people seemingly touched by the universe, one the son of Oklahoma farmers, the other the child of parents who escaped the Holocaust in Germany, who could share a space without ever telling each other what they were about to do. That bond carried from the Happy Days set into life, where Winkler became godfather to Bryce Dallas Howard and was asked to take in the Howard children if anything ever happened. He saved one piece of memorabilia, a plywood shelf outside Arnold's where he once wrote that they were starting the sixth year and that Ron had just had a red-headed daughter. A few months later, Winkler had one too.

He also gushed about Arrested Development, hired for two episodes and staying five years, with creator Mitch Hurwitz sprinting onto the sound stage with lines funnier than anything Winkler was about to improvise. When Rich's daughter Taylor once spotted him at a memorial as "Barry Zuckerkorn," Winkler took it as the highest compliment. As for the money in the banana stand, he confirmed, it's always there.