StarVista Entertainment
Please read this in Daniel Stern’s voice: As I lay there on my couch in a NyQuil-induced haze with tissues (with Vicks actually inside them – the future is now!) and cough drops by my side, the mantra I kept repeating as I binge-watched all of The Wonder Years Season 3 DVD set was, “Kevin Arnold really gets me.” I mean really gets me, and he may be the only one! Was there ever a television show containing more perfection than this one before me? From the strong acting and writing to the kaleidoscope of music and heartrending emotions, there’s a reason why The Wonder Years was so critically acclaimed and stood out from most of the other popular programs from 1988-1993.
Very few shows are as enduring as The Wonder Years. tweet
Programs come and go, especially in today’s Internet-streaming, constantly-on-the-lookout for new and old shows to binge-watch on their computers or Smartphones culture, but very few seem to have a staying power as enduring as The Wonder Years. We waited almost 25 years for the show to finally see a DVD release due to the holdup of securing the music rights to the rockin’ soundtrack of our lives. From the moment I heard the familiar strains of Joe Cocker’s cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends” and I saw the “home-recorded” images of the Arnold family happily waving at the camera, a wave of welcoming nostalgia washed over me. It feels good to own a piece of the show on DVD.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen the episodes or how many years ago junior high and high school actually were for you, this show still rings true in the purity of its storytelling. It represents a slice of Americana in the late 1960s/early 1970s, a bygone era of family station wagons, summer barbecues with neighbors, meals spent discussing the events of your day and of evenings spent watching The Ed Sullivan Show, the latest lunar landing news or the endless – and increasingly depressing – Vietnam War updates on the television together as a family unit. It represents a time of radical and turbulent changes, both in our nation’s history and on a more personal level, as it accurately depicts the transitional period of adolescence. Those agonizingly painful years spent wondering about your future, pondering the perplexities of pimples and puberty. A time when you no longer felt like a child, but the world – and certainly your family – didn’t yet view you as an individual with a voice that actually mattered.
There’s a universal relatability about Kevin Arnold. tweet
The uniqueness of the show centers on the fact that everything is seen from the perspective of the youngest member of the Arnold family – Kevin (Fred Savage). There’s a universal relatability about Kevin; that is just about everyone can relate to him in some form or another. The supporting characters enhance the overall richness of the experience. Kevin’s older brother Wayne (Jason Hervey) is hilariously mean to him, while his older sister Karen (Olivia d’Abo) is a spoiled brat/hippie teenager who thinks she knows everything about the Feminine Mystique and the ways of the world. Parents Jack (Dan Lauria) and Norma (Alley Mills) are polar opposites – Jack is a gruffy, “never show ‘em how you feel” hardworking blue collar sort, while Norma is the epitome of the perfect housewife and doting mother of the Eisenhower Era. Kevin’s best pals Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) and Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) are always there to lend a sympathetic ear to Kevin’s plights even though they’re also going through adolescent struggles of their own. And of course, what would The Wonder Years be without the wit and wisdom of an older Kevin, as narrated by Daniel Stern?
The third season of The Wonder Years sees many memorable changes in the Arnolds’ world. The very first episode, “Summer Song,” tenderly deals with the fact that family vacations evolve over time as the kids grow older and want to explore more on their own. Kevin gets his first French kiss – from an older woman of 15! – as his parents reflect upon how much the vacation destination has changed since their honeymoon. The endless summery music of The Beach Boys spectacularly sets the bittersweet stage for the third season. As a former kid who never understood the importance of math equations I never fully committed to memory, I could appreciate the several episodes this season devoted to Kevin’s struggles in math class. The writers build up your fondness for the math teacher Mr. Collins only to (spoilers) take him away in a tear-jerking episode titled “Goodbye,” in which Kevin begins to understand more about death. As a kid, you don’t really think much about death and getting closure until you’re suddenly confronted with it and it’s too late.
Family dynamics are crucial to episodes like “Mom Wars,” in which Kevin struggles to declare his independence from needing his mother to baby him as he wants to play tackle football with the guys unsupervised after school, and “The Powers That Be,” in which Jack’s father comes to visit and there’s a classic power struggle between the two men for dominance of the family tribe. “Daddy’s Little Girl” reminds you that no matter how old you get, your parents will still keep the proverbial light on for you, like a lighthouse beacon calling to you whenever you feel lost (which I clearly think 18-year-old Karen feels like at the end of this season as she prepares for the next chapter in her life, as does Kevin when he finds out Winnie is moving across town and Wayne as he enters the working world in the final episode).
From the psychedelically fabulous (The Byrds, Three Dog Night, The Who and Iron Butterfly) to the folksy (Paul Simon, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, etc.) and the soulful (Nat King Cole, James Brown, Diana Ross and The Temptations), the original music is all here to take you on a melodic journey through the past. And there are lots of familiar faces who guest star along the way – Fred’s little brother Ben Savage makes an appearance as a cherubic Cupid in “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” while Juliette Lewis appears as Wayne’s girlfriend in a few episodes, including the memorable “Wayne on Wheels,” in which Wayne gets his driver’s license and resents being made Kevin’s personal chauffeur to the mall. Also look for Ben Stein as Kevin’s science teacher, Donkey Lips (Michael Ray Bower) from Salute Your Shorts in “Faith,” Samuel “Screech” Powers (Dustin Diamond) from Saved by the Bell in “Glee Club,” Baywatch/California Dreams’ Kelly Packard in “Don’t You Know Anything about Women?” and Jason Patric’s younger half-brother Joshua John Miller as Larry Beeman in “Rock ‘n’ Roll.” I want to be an Electric Shoes groupie, who’s with me?
The best nuggets of wisdom found in Daniel Stern’s narration this season include one of my all-time favorites: “All our young lives, we search for someone to love. Someone who makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope – all the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, there’s someone perfect who might be searching for us.” (“Don’t You Know Anything about Women?”) Sigh, Kevin, sigh. I’m 33 and I’m still dancing to that song of heartbreak and hope!
The bonus features of the DVD set are equally solid and include a stripped-down roundtable discussion between Paul, Winnie and Kevin titled “Hall Pass,” examining such burning questions as “Kevin and Winnie … did they or didn’t they?” a featurette examining the family dynamics and casting of the Arnolds, and interviews with Danica McKellar, Crystal McKellar, Jason Hervey and Olivia d’Abo. The most fascinating thing I learned from the bonus features was that Winnie Cooper and her arch-nemesis Becky Slater were in real life sisters – I had somehow missed this bit of trivia until now! I also got a chuckle out of the fact that Kevin’s nickname from Wayne (“scrot,” short for “scrotum”) somehow made it past the censors all those years ago in primetime family programming! It’s clear after watching this season and the behind-the-scene stories and memories of those involved how much this group of people loved and respected each other during the filming. I think that’s a huge testament to the realness of the show. The Wonder Years: Season 3 is a set anyone should be proud to own and/or share with future generations.
Thanks to StarVista/Time Life and Foundry Communications for providing HOTCHKA with a DVD for review.
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