Ron Howard Looks Back on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ as Show Turns 65 (Exclusive)

Ron Howard is reflecting on 65 years in Mayberry!

Speaking with PEOPLE at the YES Scholars 25th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles, the 71-year-old Happy Days alum reflected on the upcoming The Andy Griffith Show anniversary, which will celebrate 65 years since its 1960 premiere in October.

For Howard, reflecting on the series brings up some of his favorite childhood memories — though he acknowledges that he doesn’t remember everything about the series, as production began when he was just 6 years old.

“It does represent my childhood,” he says of the show. “And I mean, there were other aspects of my growing up. My brother Clint and I published a book a few years ago called The Boys. He was a child actor as well. And there’s a lot on the subject that we delved into.”

“But to think about that being 65 years now,” he adds. “It’s pretty mind-blowing.”

According to the director, the years since the Andy Griffith Show‘s premiere have flown by.

“It’s my childhood,” he reaffirms. “And I don’t remember everything about it, but I remember a lot and I’m really grateful that, you know, those memories are fondness.”

Howard played Opie on The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 to 1968. The show starred Griffith, who died in 2012 at 86, as Sheriff Andy Taylor, a single dad and beloved sheriff raising Opie in the fictional Mayberry, N.C. Don Knotts played Griffith’s deputy, Barney Fife, a role that garnered him five Emmy Awards.

Howard went on to star in another beloved TV series, Happy Days, but eventually pivoted to directing, helming movies like Splash, Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Beautiful Mind.

The Oscar winner shared with PEOPLE in 1986 that back on The Andy Griffith Show, he told his costar and the producers that he wanted to be a “writer-producer-director” one day, so they bought him his first camera. 

In an interview with Vulture last month, the actor-turned-director said that “growing up” on the set of the show gave him “a lot of advantages” because the environment was “super-creative.”

“The show looks so simple, but it was all about this very precise problem-solving,” he told the outlet. “I would see scenes suddenly become funny or work. Because it wasn’t done in front of an audience, and even though we were working quickly, what Andy wanted was a truthfulness. But it still required perfect timing and exactly the right tone.”

Though Howard has mostly turned his attention to directing these days — working on films such as his survival thriller Eden, Thirteen Lives, which tells the true story of the rescuers who saved 12 adolescent soccer players and their coach after became trapped in a flooding cave in Thailand, Hillbilly Elegy and others in recent years — he has teased that he might want to return to acting sometime soon.

Speaking to PEOPLE in March, he teased that he would “love to do some acting,” but doesn’t see it in his future. “I happen to play myself in an upcoming episode of The Studio, and I had a lot of fun doing that… but it’s hard to make time for.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

What would entice him to return to acting? His daughter, actor-director Bryce Dallas Howard.

“I think that if my daughter Bryce cast me in something, that would compel me to put down the directing obligation, put them on hold for a minute and show up,” he says of his daughter.

“But otherwise, between what’s going on at my company, Imagine Entertainment, with Brian Grazer and our team, and what I’m personally trying directorially, I keep my calendar full in ways that are exciting and I want to succeed at,” he added at the time. “I want to focus.”

“I remain really exuberant and forward-thinking about what I’m doing,” he said, “as long as I can physically enjoy it.”