Ron Howard and Henry Winkler reunite for Happy Days 50th anniversary at 2024 Emmys

These happy days are yours and mine — but the reunion between Happy Days costars Ron Howard and Henry Winkler at the 2024 Emmys was a win for us all.

The Jefferson High school alums, now all grown up, joined forces in a recreation of the Arnold's Drive-In set to commemorate the classic series' 50th anniversary. The pair presented the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, which went to Christopher Storer, for The Bear.

"This is fantastic" Howard began, appreciating the meticulous details of the Happy Days set around them, complete with a live actor dressed in a '50s fit perusing the menu at a booth to their right. "Did you notice anything?" he asked Winkler, who replied, "well there was was no music when that thing went up." Howard reminded him, "Candice Bergen had a theme song," referring to Bergen commemorating Murphy Brown in an earlier segment. Winkler joked, "well she would get one."

"I have a solution," Howard proposed, urging Winkler to channel the Fonz and bang on the jukebox behind them both. "First of all, I'm out of practice. Second of all, it takes rehearsing," Winkler demurred.

"You went to the Yale School of Drama, Henry!" Howard reminded him, to the cheers of the full house. "Come on, you know you could do it." Winkler immediately sashayed his hips, and channeling his Happy Days greaser, got the iconic theme song running on the jukebox, signing off with a Fonz-arrific "nice to see 'ya."

On Happy Days, which premiered on January 15, 1974, Winkler played bad boy Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli, and Howard played good guy Richie Cunningham.

As host Eugene Levy explained in his intro to the segment, "In 1974 a strange phenomenon was bubbling under all the political turbulence - a wave of nostalgia for the 1950s." Levy cited the release of Grease, American Graffiti, and finally, "a brand new sitcom called Happy Days," which featured "the coolest, toughest cat who would ever put a comb through a ducktail" (aka the Fonz).

Winkler couldn't let the pair leave the stage without reminding the crowd that, before any awards were even handed out tonight, Howard had already won an Emmy this year.

"I just wanna say last week my very good friend for 50 years won an Emmy for his wonderful documentary." Winkler gestured to Howard, who smiled humbly. Howard did indeed win Outstanding Documentary for the Sesame Street doc Jim Henson Idea Man at last weekend's Creative Arts Emmys ceremony.

Howard and Winkler's reunion had the whole audience and everyone at home in their nostalgic feels. But they've stayed close in the 40 years since the show went off the air, reuniting as recently as February at an Australia stop on the tour for Winkler's new memoir, Being Henry: The Fonz... and Beyond.

A fuller assortment of the cast reunited in 2019 to pay tribute to the legacy of Happy Days creator Garry Marshall, who died in 2016. Joined by Howard and Winkler were Don Most, Anson Williams, and Marion Ross, who played Howard's mother and Winkler's mother-figure on the show. “You never saw two guys who filled the top spot so beautifully,” she said. “I’m proud to be their mother.”

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Howard and Winkler weren't the only living connections to Happy Days in the room on Emmy's Sunday, actually. Dick Van Dyke, who was in attendance as a presenter (and whose special won a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Variety Special last weekend), starred opposite Jerry Paris on six seasons of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Paris would go on to direct every episode of Happy Days from season 3 to the end of its run on May 7, 1974, excepting three episodes.

Winkler just finished an Emmy-winning run as Gene Cousineau on HBO's Barry, and Ron Howard premiered his new survival drama Eden, starring Jude Law and Sydney Sweeney, at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.