Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Getty Images (Emma McIntyre, Chris Delmas)

What’s with these homies dissing the Fonz? Henry Winkler is still processing what happened on the set of Turner & Hooch; he originally signed on to direct the film, and after 13 days of filming, he got the boot. Jeffrey Katzenberg, then a studio executive at Paramount Pictures, hand-picked the Happy Days star for the job, but at the time, Winkler had a bad feeling about accepting it. “Okay, so here is a lesson: When your instinct says, ‘Uh-oh, danger! Warning sign!’ You do not question your tummy. You can question your brain, but never your tummy,” Winkler told Graham Bensinger in a new interview. “I went completely against my tummy, and it hit me in the face with a 2×4.” Winkler began his search for the two top dogs of the movie, auditioning humans and “puppies” alike, and landed on Tom Hanks and Mare Winningham for the two lead roles.

But his directing style didn’t seem to jive with Hanks. “I, yes, at that time, being insecure, I talked too much, and I gave them direction —what I thought was my job— and I wanted to do it over again, and apparently that pissed them off,” he explained. Winkler was pulled into Katzenberg’s office and told him it wasn’t “the dailies” — he was being fired. “I then go to the set. I get my things. I drive home. I’m fired as a director,” he added. “I don’t handle it well. I’m devastated.” His relationship with Hanks has seemingly not recovered since. A Happy Days retrospective wanted to use footage with Hanks, who guest-starred in the series, but they “did not get permission,” according to Winkler. “I am still working on my perspective,” he concluded, with an openness to repair the relationship if there was ever an opportunity to.

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