A typical week’s plot involved Kevin facing some rite of passage on the way to adulthood. His first kiss, a fleeting summer love, his first day at high school, the struggle to get Dad to buy a new color TV-these are the innocuous narrative problems of The Wonder Years. The resolutions seem simple but often are surprising. Kevin the narrator always conveys the unsettling knowledge that, in our struggle toward maturity, we make decisions that prevent us from going back to the comfortable places of youth. For example, when pubescent Kevin stands up to his mother’s babying, he takes pride in his new independence, but his victory is bittersweet-he realizes that he has hurt his mother, Norma, by reacting harshly to her well-meaning moth­ering, and that he has lost a piece of the relationship forever.

     On the program, mundane situations that would res­onate with most Americans’ youth experiences are played out against the backdrop of everyday life in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hip-hugger pants, army­ surplus gear, and toilet-paper-strewn yards helped to place the show in the collective memory of the baby boomers who were watching it (and whose dollars advertisers were vigorously seeking). Attention to period detail was often thorough. but occasional anachronisms managed to slip through, such as the use of a television remote control device in the Arnold home in about 1970. Episodes often open with TV news clips from the era-showing a war protest, President Nixon waving good-bye at the White House, or some other instantly recognizable event-accompanied by a classic bit of  rock  music. Joe Cocker's rendition  of "I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends” was the show's theme song, played over a montage of home movie clips depicting a harmonious Arnold family and Kevin's friends Paul and Winnie.

     Much of the series· historical identification has to do with oblique references to hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War. Kevin’s older sister, Karen, is a hippie, but Kevin is not, and his observation of the counterculture is from the sidelines. While Karen struggles to define her identity against the grain of her parents' traditions. Kevin, for the most part, accepts the world around him. He is portrayed as an average kid, personally uninvolved with most of the larger cultural events swirling about him. One serious treatment of the Vietnam War does intrude in Kevin's personal experience, however, when Brian Cooper, older brother of his neighbor and girlfriend, Winnie, is killed, Kevin struggles to support Winnie. first in the loss of her brother and, later, after her parents’ separation results from the brother's death.

     Episodes of The Wonder Years often center on chal­lenges in Kevin's relationship with a family member, friend, authority figure, or competitors, Kevin’s father, Jack; mother, Norma: sister, Karen; brother, Wayne: neighborhood best friend, Paul Pfeiffer: and childhood sweetheart, Winnie Cooper, are heavily involved in the storyline, much of the action takes place in and around the middle-class Arnold home or at Kevin’s school (Robert F. Kennedy Junior High and, later, William McKinley High School).

     While each episode is self-contained, Kevin’s struggles and changes are evident as the series develops. In one episode, Kevin’s older sister becomes estranged from their father because of her involvement in the hippie culture. Other episodes reflect that es­trangement, and, in a later season, the program depicts Karen's reconciliation with her father. Kevin’s observations and feelings, of course, remain central to exploring such issues. Although episodes sometimes show how characters’ perspectives shift, the emphasis is on Kevin’s own observation of his world. This acknowledgment of the character’s egocentrism melds with a major program theme-adolescent self­ involvement.

     Sometimes, the primary point of the program is the effect of another character's struggle on the egocentric Kevin. He watches as father Jack quits a stultifying middle-manager's job at the Norcom corporation and as frustrated homemaker Norma enrolls in college classes and launches her own career. Often, Kevin spends much of his time reacting to the personal impact of such events, then feeling guilty about expressing his selfish thoughts. At the end of each episode, relations, although marked by change, typically become harmonious once again.

     As an example of a "hybrid genre," the half-hour dramedy, The Wonder Years never amassed the run­ away ratings of a show such as Cheers (although it did wind up in the Nielsen top ten for two of its five seasons). After a time, it was apparent to producers and the television audience that Kevin Arnold's wonder years were waning. Creative differences between producers and ABC began to spring up from such plot el­ements as Kevin's touching a girl's breast during the 8 o'clock hour usually reserved for "family viewing." Economic pressures, including rising actor salaries and the need for more location shooting after Kevin acquired a driver's license, also helped to end the show. During its 115-episode run, however, The WonderYears generated intensely loyal fans and collected im­portant notices from critics.

     The final episode, on May 12, 1993, exercised a luxury few series have when they conclude their runs: tying up loose ends. Bob Brush, executive producer of the show after creators Neal Martens and Carol Black left in the second season, took a cue from sagging ratings when the last episode was shot. In it, Kevin quits his job working in Jack Arnold's furniture store and strikes out on his own. Sadly, for some viewers, he and Winnie Cooper do not wind up together. Unfortunately, the show's resolution occurs in the summer following Kevin's junior year in high school, so the formal finality of graduation, a rite of passage so familiar to much of the audience, is missing.

     Among the awards bestowed on The Wonder Years were an Emmy for Best Comedy Series in 1988 (after only six episodes had aired) and the George Foster Peabody Award in 1990. TV Guide named the show one of the 1980s' 20 best.