Henry Winkler Shares His Life’s Greatest Thrill as He Examines Danger and Fun in Hazardous History (Exclusive)

Henry Winkler isn’t a thrill seeker, but he certainly knows a lot about adventure.

Speaking with PEOPLE about his new History Channel series, Hazardous History with Henry Winkler, the actor, 79, opens up about one of his life’s most thrilling moments.

Of daredevil-like, adrenaline-inducing behavior, Winkler says, “I channel it only when I’m acting.”

“I am not a thrill seeker,” he admits. “I am thrilled… I remember years ago, with my children who are now in their 40s and 50s, I remember being on a chair life in Utah with them, traveling up and over the tops of snow-covered pine trees.”

“[I was] thinking this might be one of the most beautiful moments I have ever had. That’s my thrill,” he adds.

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When Winkler was first introduced to the idea of the show by Eli Lehrer at The History Channel, he says, “I knew from the first description that this was right up my alley.”

“One of the people I spoke to on my radio tour today was talking about nostalgia. And I said, ‘It has nothing to do with nostalgia.'”

Laughing, Winkler explains, “I think the subtitle of this show is, ‘Wait, we allowed that to happen?'”

“It’s just mind-blowing all the different subjects in every area,” he continues. “You could mail your child through the post office to his grandparents. One thing that so many people of the generation have mentioned to me as I talk to them are jarts. Those land darts, the garden darts that you would throw high in the air and they would land in your best friend’s foot.”

While Winkler wasn’t playing with too many dangerous toys in his days, he was well aware his peers were getting into all kinds of interesting situations.

“My parents were frugal on toys. I used to get practical gifts that I could wear to school,” he explains.

“But the toys I heard about… The man, A.C. Gilbert, who invented the Erector Set. He also came out with his wonderful science kits. One of them had radioactive uranium in the kit, so you could make your own atomic cloud. That’s pretty nuts.”

Each 60-minute episode of Hazardous History tells the stories of the things people did for fun, for money, or out of plain boredom that cannot be done anymore. From pastimes, practices, and products that were once allowed, or even encouraged, it’s likely they’ll never be seen again in modern America — and the show shares some of those exciting, reckless, unsupervised tales in Americana history.

Hazardous History with Henry Winkler premieres Sunday, June 15 at 10 p.m. ET on The History Channel.