Let's state this plainly, Ron Howard has no right to compare himself with Jay North, Johnny Crawford, Jerry Mathers or Tony Dow, his character was not a lead character. North was playing the lead character, Dennis the Menace depended on his performance. Jerry Mathers was playing the lead character, LITB depended on his performance and the performance of Tony Dow. Johnny Crawford while not playing the lead character had the second most important role on the show, his performance was critical to the success of The Rifleman. Howard was a flop when he played the lead character in Happy Days, his role was reduced with Henry Winkler taking over the lead.
Howard was good in TAGS but Opie was not the lead character, that a whole different level of acting and he never demonstrated he could pull that off.
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