Issue 32: Sydney Brown's Sixty Seconds
By Sydney Brown

This Will Take Longer than Sixty Seconds Edition

A departure for the Sixty Seconds this go-around, first because the only film I’ve seen in the last two weeks is Spider-Man 3, and odds are you don’t need me to tell you how mediocre it was. But more importantly, I have something I want to talk about, a topic that requires more than the usual paragraph.

I have a new guilty pleasure for the first time in years. I am always in front of my TV or have the DVD recorder on at 9:00pm, Monday through Friday. The national network ION, (formerly PAX), is broadcasting reruns of The Wonder Years from 9-10pm, and I’m rediscovering just how great this show is.

For the uninformed, The Wonder Years was a show on ABC that aired from 1988 to 1993 and covered that same time period twenty years prior, (the show started in 1968 and ended in 1973.) Fred Savage was Kevin Arnold, your typical teen just starting junior high, and the entire show was narrated by the adult Kevin voiced, by Daniel Stern.

I may be biased because everything that happened on the show was literally one year ahead of my own life, so watching this show is almost a time capsule- reliving moments from my own life, (which back then was getting a glimpse of what was to come.) The Wonder Years was never really a show that was a big hit in syndication, (Nick at Nite picked it up for a few months years ago, but that’s about it.) So as a result, I’m watching most of these episodes for the first time in fifteen years. And they have aged amazingly well. And they still play so true-to-life.

The overly obnoxious older brother. The almost-never-there sister. The awkwardly communicative father. The doting mother. The dorky best friend. All highlighted by the ultimate “hottie that doesn’t know she’s a hottie” girlfriend Winnie Cooper. Granted, some of the episodes weren’t keepers, but yet so many were so tremendously great, they’ve stayed etched in my brain for years.

Two of those shows aired just this past week, and demonstrate just how accurately they capture the human emotion. Oddly, both of them are possibly “jump the shark” moments in the series.

1) Kevin and Winnie have broken up and Kevin sets up a party at Paul’s house to get back with her only to find that she’s bringing her new boyfriend to the party. So Kevin sets up a date with Madeline…

And let’s just stop there. Any person even vaguely familiar with this show knows who this girl is. Madeline was the new student introduced in season 4 who had the hots for Kevin, (arguably because he was the only male who had the balls to say a word to her), and sent Kevin in a tailspin for half the season avoiding her advances. Madeline was the epitome of every 14 year-old’s dream when this show aired, (and it’s okay to lust after her in the show because she was 20 playing 14.) But she was THAT girl. THAT girl in school who was HOT, and you didn’t dare talk to her, and even if you had a shot with her, you wouldn’t know what to do about it.

So Kevin sets up a date with Madeline and proceeds to be the life of the party solely to make Winnie jealous, except not only does Winnie not notice, but Madeline does, and gives Kevin an ultimatum: her or Winnie. A distraught Kevin seeks solace in the curtained-off back room only for Winnie to find him there. Kevin then proceeds to verbally tear Winnie apart in a manner that, (as an equally rejected young man at the time), I applauded, but in my older years almost winced at as Kevin let loose with emotions that he didn’t mean, but only so that she could feel the same pain he did. Winnie reacted naturally. She teared up, and exited stage left.

What followed was one of the most awesome TV moments ever. As Winnie ran away crying, Madeline entered and asks “Have you made your decision?” which clearly, but never openly states that Madeline purposely led Winnie to her doom.

And what does Kevin say? It’s been argued for years whether he made the right call. You’ll just have to wait for the rerun to see. Though quite frankly, Kevin Arnold…….was a F***kin’ idiot.

2) This one has stayed with me for years. And the irony is that the scene that hit the hardest I didn’t even remember until I saw it recently.

It’s basketball tryouts and Coach Kutlip is asking for volunteers. No one wants to play for him, so Kutlip drafts the players himself, (a thinly-veiled Vietnam reference.) Oddly, the inept Paul Pfieffer gets drafted to the shock of everyone, especially Kevin, since he’s beaten Paul one-on-one hundreds of times. In a row. He expects Paul to fail and that will be that.

But something odd happens as Paul joins the team. He gains confidence. He plays well. He makes new friends. Cool friends. And he doesn’t seem to have time for Kevin anymore. And Kevin takes it personally. He questions Paul’s abilities, reminds him how bad he is, and in a display of complete dickishness, humiliates Paul by destroying him in a one-on-one game.

One scene makes this a standout episode and one where you realize all the rules have changed:

Kevin is studying quietly in his room when his brother Wayne starts pestering him, noticing he’s awfully down. Kevin denies it. Wayne thinks differently. He knows that he’s bothered about Paul. Kevin looks startled. But doesn’t deny it. And Wayne hits the nail on the head (I’m paraphrasing):

“You’re upset about Paul. He’s doing good on the basketball team. He’s making friends.” (And here comes the dagger) “Paul’s beneath you. And he’s a loser. How dare he make something of himself without you.”

And Kevin freezes. And we, the audience also freeze. Because Wayne has been an asshole the entire series, and suddenly, while he’s still an asshole, he’s exactly right. Kevin responds with “Paul’s not a loser.” But he says it in such a tone that you’re not sure if he even believes what he just said. So Kevin responds by attacking him.

All of this leads to an impromptu one-on-one game as Paul challenges Kevin and Kevin verbally bitchslaps him by saying “I’m not in the mood to let you win.”

The outcome? Wait for the rerun. And The Wonder Years really does jump the shark here as Paul clearly has gone through puberty between this episode and the previous.

And that’s just two episodes. We didn’t even touch on Madeline and the bowl of chocolate, the infamous “Sex Book” shoplifting with one of the all-time great sitcom punchlines, the gutwrenching episode where Kevin goes on a pity date with Paul’s sister, the “Winnie likes Paul” two-parter with the kick-ass cliffhanger, and most of all, the godawful series finale where pretty much everything that we hoped would happen to Kevin doesn’t, and we discover that basically the only reason adult Kevin is flashing back to those years were because they were the best of his life.

I love this show because Kevin Arnold is the typical teenager. He does what he thinks is right, but in retrospect, damn, he was really an asshole. I envy those who don’t feel the same looking back at their youth.

The Wonder Years. 9-10pm. Monday-Friday. ION television. Channel 17 on cable. I don’t have a clue what it is on regular TV. Now keep in mind we’re on season 4, and the dreaded season 6, (which is where the show completely falls apart), is coming soon. You may be better off waiting until mid-June when the series starts again. Thanks to the tons of music clearance rights, it’s unlikely the show will be on DVD anytime soon, so check it out now. While you can.