The Wonder Years
The Wonder Years is an American coming-of-age comedy television series created by Neal Marlens and Carol Black.[1] It ran on ABC from January 31, 1988, until May 12, 1993. The series premiered immediately after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII.[2][3][4] The series stars Fred Savage as Kevin Arnold, a teenager growing up in a suburban middle class family in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It co-stars Dan Lauria as his father Jack, Alley Mills as his mother Norma, Jason Hervey as his brother Wayne, Olivia d'Abo as his sister Karen, Josh Saviano as his best friend Paul Pfeiffer, and Danica McKellar as his girlfriend Winnie Cooper, with narration by Daniel Stern as an adult version of Kevin.
This article is about the 1988 American television series. For the 2021 reboot, see The Wonder Years (2021 TV series). For other uses, see The Wonder Years (disambiguation).The Wonder Years
United States
English
6
115 (list of episodes)
- Bob Brush
- Michael Dinner
- Carol Black
- Neal Marlens
- Joey Calderon
- Ken Topolsky
- Michael Dinner
- Bruce J. Nachbar
- David Chambers
22–24 minutes
- The Black-Marlens Company
- New World Television
January 31, 1988 –
May 12, 1993
The show earned a spot in the Nielsen Top 30 during its first four seasons.[5] TV Guide named it one of the 20 best shows of the 1980s.[5] After six episodes, The Wonder Years won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1988.[5] In addition, at age 13, Fred Savage became the youngest actor ever nominated as Outstanding Lead Actor for a Comedy Series. The show was also awarded a Peabody Award in 1989 for "pushing the boundaries of the sitcom format and using new modes of storytelling".[6] In total, the series won 22 awards and was nominated for 54 more.[7] In 1997, "My Father's Office" was ranked number 29 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time,[8] and in the 2009 revised list, the pilot episode was ranked number 43.[9] In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked The Wonder Years number 63 on its list of 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[10] In 2017, James Charisma of Paste ranked the show's opening sequence number 14 on a list of the 75 Best TV Title Sequences of All Time.[11] As of recent years, many critics and fans consider The Wonder Years to be a classic[12] with tremendous impact on the industry over the years, inspiring many other shows and how they are structured.[13]
Production[edit]
Conception[edit]
The series was conceived by writers Neal Marlens and Carol Black, both of Growing Pains fame. They set out to create a family show that would appeal to the baby-boomer generation by setting the series in the late '60s, a time of radical change in America's history. They also wanted the series to tie this setting in to the life of a normal boy growing up during the period. After writing the script for the pilot episode, Marlens and Black began pitching the series to television networks. None of them were interested, except for ABC, with whom Marlens and Black reached an agreement.[22]
Marlens had originally wanted the setting to be Huntington, Long Island, where he grew up. Elements were also taken from Black's childhood from the White Oak section of Silver Spring, Maryland.[23] ABC, however, insisted that the location remain nonspecific (the colloquial "Anytown, USA"), but several items refer to the setting as Southern California, from car license plates to Wayne's driver's license listing Culver City, California.[24][25][26][27]
Writing[edit]
When they started writing the series, Marlens and Black took a script for a future film with which they had been toying, which featured an off-screen narrator. Black explained, "We liked the concept that you could play with what people think and what they're saying, or how they would like to see themselves as opposed to how the audience is seeing them."[28] They based the show, in part, on their own childhood growing up in the suburbs. Black recalled that "we naturally [took] elements of our experience and [threw] them into the pot. The basic setup, the neighborhood, the era – that's the time and place where we grew up."[28] The show's title was a satirical nod to a famous 1970s Wonder Bread ad campaign promoting the highly processed white bread as perfect for "The Wonder Years", ages 1 through 12.[29]
Release[edit]
Syndication and streaming[edit]
Reruns of the show aired in syndication between September 1992 and September 1997. Nick at Nite then reran the show from October 13, 1997 to January 21, 2001.[42] It also reran on The New TNN (January 22, 2001 to September 28, 2001), ABC Family (November 12, 2001 to October 2, 2004), Ion Television (April 2, 2007 to October 4, 2007), and The Hub (October 11, 2010 to August 31, 2012).
In the UK, the show began airing on Channel 4 on August 20, 1989.
In (West) Germany, the show began airing on RTL plus on February 28, 1990 as Wunderbare Jahre. Seasons 1-4 were shown on RTL plus until February 1, 1992 on Saturdays at 6:00 pm. Reruns were shown on RTL 2 between September 6 and October 25, 1993 and December 17-31, 1994. On July 17, 1995, the show began airing again on RTL 2 on weekdays until the end of the year; this time, between October 20 and December 29, 1995, previously unaired Seasons 5 and 6 were shown.[43][44]
In Canada, the show aired on CTS Ontario from September 2010 until September 2, 2011. In Australia, the show aired on Network Ten between 1989 and 1995, then from March 31, 2012, on ABC1. In the Philippines, the show aired on GMA Network.
In Spain, the series initially aired Mondays 9:30 pm on TVE2 (now La2) as part of the Monday-night comedy block, which also featured Murphy Brown. The series was later promoted to main channel TVE1, where it aired Fridays 9:00 pm. Years later, in the late '90s, commercial station Antena 3TV recovered the series and aired it first in its 2:00 pm comedy hour, later relocating it to a 5:30 pm slot as part of the youth macroshow La Merienda.
Home media[edit]
Initially, the first four episodes were released on two VHS cassettes by Anchor Bay in 1997, with most of the music intact (a select few songs, however, were re-recordings).[45] In the coming years, fees for licensing music prevented further episodes from being released on VHS. The two volumes that were released on VHS were later released on DVD in 2000. Four episodes of the series were also included in two official "best-of" DVD sets (The Best of The Wonder Years and The Christmas Wonder Years), without much of the original music.[46][47]
For many years, full seasons of The Wonder Years remained unreleased on DVD due to music licensing issues.[48] Because of this issue, The Wonder Years routinely appeared on the list of TV shows in high demand for a DVD release.[46][49][50]
In a blog update on the Netflix website on March 30, 2011,[51] and a press release issued the next day,[52] Netflix stated that they would be adding The Wonder Years to their instant streaming service. The other three 20th Century Fox series noted as part of the deal were added to the Watch Instantly service by April 2, 2011[53][54][55] while The Wonder Years remained unavailable. On October 1, 2011,[56] 114 full-length episodes of the series were added to Netflix. The clip show from the end of Season 4, which was released on DVD, was not included.[57]
On September 26, 2011, Amazon Prime's streaming video service announced it would be adding The Wonder Years, describing the series as "available on digital video for the first time",[58] although Netflix added the series ahead of Amazon's release. All 115 episodes (including the clip show) became available to Prime members starting October 6, 2011.[59]
On both digital streaming services, portions of the soundtrack have been replaced. The show's opening theme has been replaced on Netflix[60] and Amazon with the version of the song that played in the UK and other overseas airings. The majority of the show's soundtrack remains unchanged. Songs such as "Light My Fire" by The Doors and "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix have been replaced by generic sound-alikes with different lyrics.
On February 11, 2014, StarVista/Time Life announced the upcoming DVD release of the complete series in the second half of the year, noting that it was "painstakingly securing the rights for virtually every song."[61] On June 11, packaging details for complete set were revealed. The packaging consists of a miniature school locker featuring a replica yearbook with signatures from cast members, behind-the-scenes photos, and classic show memorabilia. Also included are two notebooks similar to those carried by the two lead characters, each featuring detailed episode information, production photos, all 115 episodes, and over 15 hours of bonus features on 26 DVDs. Customized Wonder Years magnets are also included. On September 30, 2014, the complete series was released to those who ordered the set through mail order from Time Life/Star Vista. A box set for the first four seasons was also released. October 10, 2014, though, was considered the official release date.[62]
On October 7, 2014, Star Vista released season one on DVD in Region 1 for the first time.[63] Season two was released on February 3, 2015. Season three was released on May 26, 2015. Season four was released on January 12, 2016. Season five was released on May 24, 2016. Season six was released on September 27, 2016.
On October 6, 2015, Star Vista released The Wonder Years- The Complete Series: Collectors Box Set and The Wonder Years- The Complete Series DVD collections in a wide general retail release.[64]
On May 9, 2016, Fabulous Films released The Wonder Years - The Deluxe Edition on 26 DVDs in the UK. It was intended to be the first release to contain every episode in its original transmission presentation, although in the end this did not happen.[36] The set includes over 23 hours of bonus material.
Reception[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 100% with an average rating of 10.00/10 based on 9 reviews.[68] On Metacritic, the series has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[69]
In 1997, "My Father's Office" was ranked number 29 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time,[8] and in the 2009 revised list, the pilot episode was ranked number 43.[9] In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked The Wonder Years number 63 on its list of 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[10] In 2017, James Charisma of Paste ranked the show's opening sequence number 14 on a list of the 75 Best TV Title Sequences of All Time.[11] As of recent years, many critics and fans consider The Wonder Years to be a classic[12] with tremendous impact on the industry over the years, inspiring many other shows and how they are structured.[13]
Book[edit]
In 1990, the book The Wonder Years - Growing up in the Sixties by Edward Gross was published by Pioneer Books (ISBN 1-55698-258-5). It contains information about the creation and production of the show, interviews with cast and crew, and an extensive episode guide (up to the middle of the 4th season when the book was published). While long out of print and hard to find, the author gave permission to a fan website to publish the book online for free in its entirety.[70]