Interesting facts

  1. Alicia Silverstone appears in the middle of Episode 80.
  2. Juliette Lewis appears in the Episode 24, 34 and 36 as Wayne's girlfriend.
  3. Crystal McKellar as Becky Slater is a younger sister of Danica McKellar as Winnie Cooper.
  4. Episode 40 was directed by Dan Lauria (Jack Arnold.)
  5. Episode 12, 17, 20, 27, 32, 35, 48, 60, 71 an 75 were directed by Daniel Stern (Narration.)
  6. The cupid boy in the Episode 37 is Fred Savage's brother named Ben Savage in real life.
  7. Danica McKellar is a math major at university now.
  8. In the first episode, at the Gym Class sequence, all the boys uniforms (including Cutlip's shirt), shows a different RFK logo. Instead of the "Kennedy Wildcats" logo, all the guys were wearing "Kennedy Indians" outfits with an indian picture in the place of the cat. It just appeared in the first episode, in the second one, the "Wildcat" logo appears definely.
  9. Episode 42 (The Unnatural): In the sequence where Kevin imagines his father and Coach Baker fighting in Korea (in a B&W TV-movie), some combat scenes (like the mortar shot and the enemy charge) were taken from John Wayne's "The Green Berets" movie. That means, the bad guys in the sequence were Vietcongs, not Korean or Chinese Commies!
  10. John Corbett (Chris Stevens of TV series Northern Exposure fame), appeared on the 4th episode of the Wonder Years as the hippie boyfriend of Kevin's sister.
  11. Josh Saviano(Paul) and Danica McKellar(Winnie) appeared on TV gameshow "Win, Lose or Draw"
  12. David Schwimmer (Ross of TV sitcom Friends fame) was Karen's husband in the fifth season.
  13. Fred savage was a guest star in one episode of TV sitcom Seinfeld.
  14. Movies Fred Savage has acted in - Little Monsters, The Wizard, Vice Versa, The Princess Bride, The Boy Who Could Fly, The Love You Take Is Equal To The Love You Make.
  15. Fred Savage goes to Stanford University
  16. Principal Diperna has appeared in many other television show, most notably "Coach".
  17. Dr. Valenti, the McKinley high principal, has appeared in the movie "Species" as well as elaine's boss in "seinfeld".
  18. Coach Cutlip was a regular on "China Beach". Soleil Moon Frye of "Punky Brewster" fame, appears on episode47.
  19. Actor Andrew Berman "Chuck", has appeared in many commercials, most notably the Burger King "Lion King" commercials.
  20. Carla Gugino from episode 75 has appeared in the movie "Son in Law" as well as on the popular show "Quantum Leap". Wart has also apeared on "Quantum Leap". Sean Baca form episode 27 and 38 also appeared in "Quantum Leap".
  21. The Wonder Years was filmed on stages in Culver City and on location in Burbank, and was intended not to give the impression of being set in one particular location, but to provide a program relevanto to the life of everyone.
  22. Whitney Kershaw, who played Miss Jennifer Hasenfuss in episode 60, was in the original broadway cast of "CATS" as Sillabub. She also played in the TV series "Major Dad" as Merilee Gunderson" and "Knots Landing", in the movie "Quicksilver" (1986) as Rand and in the TV movies "Two Fathers' Justice" (1985) as Karen Stackhouse, "A Letter to Three Wives" (1985) as Babe and "Longarm (1988)" (aka Showdown in Silver City).
  23. Lisa Gerber, who played Cara in episode 70 and 92, was Donna in the movie "Beethoven" (1992).
  24. Melora Walters, who played the beautiful waitress in episode 62, had a guest appearance in the TV series "Dream On" in episode 'Little Orphan Eddie', 1995. She also played Gloria in "Dead Poets Society" (1989), a prostitute in "Underground" (1990), the pet shop owner in "Beethoven" (1992), Gloria in "America's Deadliest Home Video" (1993, only on Video), Karen Blake in the TV movie "Telling Secrets" (1993), a stripper in "Twenty Bucks" (1993), Trina in "Cabin Boy" (1994), Laura Bellstratton in the TV movie "Midnight Run for Your Life" (1994), in "All Tied Up" (1994) and a secretary in "Ed Wood" (1994).
  25. In the first episode, in the dinner sequence (where Paul was eating white bread), have you ever noticed that part of the furniture was in inverted position? Looking in direction of the little round dinner table, the oven, the little round edged shelf and even the (fixed!) kitchen sink is positioned in the "right" side of the kitchen. The freezer and the other shelves are positioned in the "left" side, the entrance door, and the two shelves behind the table was in the same position.
  26. The actor who played Coach Cutlip (Robert Picardo) now plays the emergencey holographic medical program on Star Trek Voyager.
  27. The actor Andrew Bernam appeard in a Superman's episode(the new T.V. serie) as Lex Luthor's son. Olivia d'Abo played in the movie "Wayne's World II" as Garth's girl. Check it.
  28. The Winnie's parents who appeard in epidode 2 aren't the same in the rest of the serie. Pay attention in the beginning of the episode. Check it.
  29. Watch the episode #34 (Don't you know anything about women?) there's a mount mistake. In the chemistry class, after they finished the experience, Kevin put your glasses off and look at Susan Fisher, then a scene of Susan is shown, but the next scene shows Kevin with your glasses on!!! Check it.
  30. In Episode 2 ("Swingers"), which is supposed to take place in September 1968 the week after Brian Cooper's death, Kevin and Paul steal a copy of EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK from a bookstore. That book was not published until November 1969, 14 months later. (They should have checked the copyright date. I did!)
  31. In Episode 5 ("The Phone Call"), Kevin fakes being sick with the flu and stays home from school before finally getting the nerve to call Lisa Berlini, the same night that Apollo 8 entered its orbit around the moon. Apollo 8 did that on Christmas Eve, 1968. School would have been out and there should have been Christmas decorations all over the place, not to mention some kind of holiday celebration at the Arnold home.
  32. Fred Savage chose Episode 43 as his favorite episode.
  33. In episode 66 "The Accident," the song "We've Got Tonight" by Bob Seger is used. I looked up this song on a Bob Seger web page and found that it didn't appear on an album until 1978, well after episode 66 should have taken place. Maybe you could take a survey of other songs used that didn't come out until after their respective episodes had supposedly taken place.
  34. It was Ayre Gross who narrated the very first episode the FIRST time it aired. The second time it aired, they had re-recorded Daniel Stern's voice in order that it would match the rest of the episodes.
  35. Like his character Jack Arnold, Dan Lauria was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was on active duty from 1970 to 1973 and served in Vietnam, at the point in his life corresponding to the time (1950 to 1953) that Jack would have fought in the Korean War. The part in the dinner table scene in Episode 4 "Angel", where he blows up at Karen's boyfriend and says "What the hell would you know about it? I was there!" was drawn from his own experiences and feelings.
    [This information came from the book by Edward Gross that was mentioned in Richard's Mailing List. I've known this since I bought the book years ago, but it didn't occur to me until now that it would make a good entry for your Interesting Facts.]
  36. In episode 66 "The Accident," the song "We've Got Tonight" by Bob Seger is used. But it didn't appear on an album until 1978, well after episode 66 should have taken place.
  37. Despite the Wonder Years' pains not to identify the series setting (geographically), one episode shows the name of their local mall, Stonewood Mall--probably the name of their town, too. (Now I just wish I could find Stonewood on a map...) Well, I trekked to mapquest.com to find "stonewood" on the map and it returned three results: Stonewood, West Virginia; Stonewood Acres, North Carolina; and Stonewood Farms, Pennsylvania. I guess these are the most likely locations for the series. (They're all on the East Coast; hmm...)
  38. While watching today's episode, I caught an additional tidbit: The show doesn't take place in the Central Time Zone, which would jive with the Eastern possibilities I submitted earlier. (Winnie asked Kevin "What time is it in Chicago? [Illinois]" which is on CST.)
  39. In episode 19, "Pau l's Bar Mitzvah", Kevin lets us know that his birthday is March 18 th. And in that particular year ('68, '69, or '70???) he tells us it comes out on Saturday. Well, after a check of those years there seems to be a problem. March 18th does not fall on Saturday in any of those years.
  40. The score played at the "4th of July parade" sequences in episodes 114/115, was not composed by W. G. Snuffy Walden. They were excerpts of Randy Newman's original soundtrack for the movie "The Natural" starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and Glenn Close.
  41. In Episode 41, Kevin came home from school to watch the liftoff of Apollo 13. This is highly unlikely, since Apollo 13 lifted off on Saturday, April 11, 1970, and splashed down on Friday, April 17.
  42. In episode 19 ("Birthday Boy"), Paul's bar mitzvah is set, according to tradition, for the first Saturday after his 13th birthday; set for March 18. This conflicts with Kevin's 13th birthday "party" that actually falls on that Saturday. Funny, March 18, 1969 was a Tuesday.
  43. Episode 110 ("Eclipse") opens with the words, "On the afternoon of March 21st, 1973, at exactly 2:15pm, a rare astronomical event occurred: a total eclipse of the sun." There were no solar eclipses observable from North America in 1973. (I can't blame them for using a fictitious eclipse, though; if they'd chosen an actual one, we'd know where the story took place. :)
  44. In part of the episode 4, Kevin is watching an old movie on a color TV in his home. However, several episodes later Wayne constantly badgers his father to purchase a color TV. Perhaps the one they had broke?
  45. In Episode 30, when it shows Jack working on the car the licence plate on the front is California.
  46. When Chuck Coleman(ANDY) appeared in his first episode(the soccer one), they were filming outside and there were bugs everywhere. He started squinting and twitching to keep them out of his face. The director saw this and told him to keep doing it in future episodes because he thought it would add to his character. Thus begun Chuck's trademark twitches.

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Last updated on 03/10/97