THE WONDER YEARS! Unfortunately, this isn't on any TV stations right now and there are no plans to bring it out in any format for the consumer to purchase. It probably won't be available to buy for a long time. The difficulty is due to all of the great music in every episode, it's way too expensive to buy the rights to sell the episodes with the original music. Too bad, although I have the entire series on my computer hard drive, and YES, it pretty much takes up all my space. I recorded all the episodes a few years back when it was being re-run on ION television.Anyways, isn't this just a classic show? There are so many feel good, warm and fuzzy moments, and they outnumber any awkward or uncomfortable moments about a hundred to one. What junior high guy didn't have a crush on Winnie Cooper? And what girl didn't have a crush on Paul....okay, well, maybe not that many. But didn't Kevin's relationships with his family just mirror our own? His less than perfect family was just that, less than perfect and so they were much more easy to relate to. Remember the episode called "Heroes," where the basketball star befriends Kevin and yet by the end of the episode, Kevin and his dad are sharing a soda at a restaurant and Kevin reflects on why his dad is his hero? And who can forget Mr. Collins, the beloved math teacher. My favorite episode of the series is the one where he takes Kevin under his wing and then passes away unbeknownst to Kevin who turns bitter due to a missed study session and intentionally fails his math test. Yet, Mr. Collins made it possible for Kevin to retake his test and once he finishes it, he tells the principal, "You don't have to grade it, it's an A." Then, when walking out of the room, he turns to the desk and tells the empty chair, "Good job, Mr. Collins." (Geez, I'm getting a little misty-eyed just typing about it).
We need more shows about real life, not television life. Shows that, at their heart, are not only about the relationships of the characters they portray, but try to make those relationships easily applicable to the lives of the viewers as well. The Wonder Years was a show that almost helped you growing up, and then when viewing it later it causes you to swell with nostalgia and feel overcome with gratitude for all the good that was around us during our lives growing up. And yeah, it even helped us remember the bad times but also what we learned from them. This is a show that I am looking forward to watching with my own kids as they grow up and I hope they learn a thing or two about how to live a good life and not expect everything to be perfect, but realize that it can at least be good despite what goes on around us.
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