The Point Radio: Reliving THE WONDER YEARS

One of the most beloved TV shows of the eighties is finally coming to DVD. THE WONDER YEARS has been collected in a huge box set featuring the complete series and a ton of extras. We celebrate the event by reminiscing about the show with series stars Alley Mills, Danica McKellar and Olivia D’Abo plus you meet a real life crime fighter. Lt. Joe Kenda of HOMICIDE HUNTERS gets the bad guys over 90% of the time .

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Transcript

The Point Radio It's Mike Raub, one of the most beloved television series of the past few decades is finally getting a major DVD release. We sit down with the cast of the Wonder Years to celebrate and reminisce a little bit. Plus, we meet a real-life crime-fighting superhero.

He's Lieutenant Joe Kenda, who gets his bad guys 90% of the time. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point, The Point Radio, get The Point Radio. Well over 25 years since it debuted on network television, The Wonder Years is still a beloved television icon.

And the fans have been waiting for, well, decades for all the episodes that have finally become available on DVD. Now that's finally happened and to celebrate, I sat down with some of the original cast members, Allie Mills, Danica McKellar, and Olivia Diabo to talk a lot about the show. And the first thing that came up was how important the fact was that the show was set in the

turbulent 1960s. Allie Mills agreed with that. The reason the 60s was so important in this show, and I had the great honor of teaching all of it to Olivia, who kept going because she was the big hippie. And I went, we used to talk.

And I got her all these CDs of some music, told her everything. Even though her father was a rock and roll guy, she didn't really know the joy and the hope and the incredible energy behind the movement of the 60s. And I think the whole point of The Wonder Years was this was sort of the beginning of the end of Wonder.

The whole series began with the introduction of the Vietnam War into our little TV in the kitchen. And it was at that very time that the whole country, I think, began to feel the pain of war and the ramifications of sort of that whole joyous movement. It was a little bit different for Danica.

And from my perspective, my character was almost acting independent of the time period, except for the wardrobe. What I thought was amazing about the show was that it paralleled the acute things going on in the world. And then what seemed like a huge thing going on to a couple of kids who their whole life

revolved around whether or not they were about to have their first kiss or, of course, Winnie Cooper's brother died in Vietnam from beginning the show. But he could have died from anything. I mean, it was just loss and these very universal things that happen in every time period, which is why I think people can relate to the show even if they weren't, but they didn't experience

the 60s. So for me, it was, you know, and I didn't. So what I'm saying is I didn't have to know very much about the 60s, unlike these two that I'm sitting with who more interacted with the world around them. My character interacted with school and interacted with, you know, Kevin Arnold and Paul Pfeiffer

and dealt with things that are absolutely universal. Does this guy like me or not? Am I popular? All those, you know, doing well in school, all those things. My parents in the show separated things that happen at any time.

Olivia told me about how important it still is to her that so many people are still affected by the show. I think that's every artist's dream, every artist's dream is that you want to be part of something that's cyclical, that comes around every 20 years and that sort of makes you feel like sort of all the hard work that you've been putting into your craft is actually

paying off. Not only do you, most importantly, because hopefully you get into it to really have a purpose and put something out there in the world that's really going to be, it's going to resonate and be memorable and touch people and make them laugh. And luckily, I think we hit on all of those things with our show, sort of bittersweet,

but there was a lesson in every show, I think, that stuck with everybody. And when you watch it today, it resonates even more, I think, because, you know, the world has changed even since the 80s when we shot it, let alone the 60s. Danny said that her character is still part of, well, her everyday life. Every day somebody recognizes one of us on the street, which is every day.

You know, we get to be that character in some form. We get to see people's looks on their faces and say, oh my gosh, that show meant so much. My family watched it together and we get to feel how special the experience was over and over again. Allie agreed with that, but also added that, well, the way the show was put together had

a lot to do with its success. I totally agree with Danica about that. And I think the fact that the format was that in one half hour, a story was told that would make you laugh and then at the end, always. And I have watched them with my grandchildren recently make you cry is another, you know,

phenomenon that I think is why the show was so successful, like a little more morality tale almost every single week that again transcended these barriers somehow that could affect everybody. Danica just said young and old, but also all walks of life were moved by this and people that didn't even speak English that watch it in different languages. So I think that's another reason that it has and it does hold up.

I mean, my grandchildren, of course, like things that change every 15 seconds, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, on their little iPads and stuff. But they love this show. As a young girl, literally growing up right in front of us on camera, I asked Danny what kind of life lesson she learned from being on the show.

I learned that things aren't straightforward. Things aren't black and white. I remember in the second episode called Swingers and Kevin and Winnie go back to the same place where they had their first kiss, I think, but they don't kiss. They instead get on the swing and they act like little kids again.

And it said that maybe I remember he said something about progress, not being straight lined, but sometimes it's, I don't remember the quote. You could probably look it up. It's a great quote. And I'll be honest, I haven't even seen this episode for probably 25 years, but I still

remember this moment of progress. It doesn't always move forward. Sometimes you have to swing back and forth a little bit. And it does. That's a beautiful and important message that relationships are not straightforward and are

black and white and sometimes things can always go in straight lines. And that's okay. You know, that that's okay. But that's very confusing. You know, the show was told from the point of view of Kevin, though.

So I also learned that women are sickle and not to be understood. I thought it was a little strange, since to me we make perfect sense. But one thing I will say too, is that not even so much me learning from Kevin and Winnie's relationship. Kevin and Winnie's relationship was in some ways defined by my friendship with Fred and

some of the things that we would say. The writers would actually take lines from things that we were saying to each other off camera and put it into the script. There's this whole episode dedicated to, do you like him or do you like him like him? And that was something, that was an expression that he and I used when we were talking about

some guy that I had a crush on in real life. And then it showed up in a script a few weeks later. So there was a lot of blurred lines. And oh, and the other interesting thing is I broke up with my first boyfriend in real life like the week before we shot the episode where I had to break up with Kevin on the

show. It was fascinating how many parallels there were and one of real life informing TV, TV informing real life. It was fascinating. For Ally, the role itself was a learning experience.

I had never played a housewife. I was shocked when they asked me. I was not married. I could not have children. I was Karen in my youth.

I was a hippie. And in the business, I played kind of top single women up until that point. I'd done 10 other series that hadn't lasted like the wonder years. But I was always sort of a rebel character. So they told me, just put on a shirt waist and kids and pearls and keep your smart to

yourself. And so it was a great experience for me. I fell in love with this woman whose priority was her family and not herself. I always looked down on that. My mother was a feminist and a divorcee and worked and very smart.

She went to VASTR and so she was always, you know, be independent and work. But I grew to have so much admiration for that generation of women who carried their family on their backs and who didn't complain but weren't weak either at all. Just kind of kept their strength inside and put other people first. And so I ended up not being a feminist.

I'm in love with those women and have said so all across the country as Norma, Brianna, the past whatever it's been now, almost 30 years since she's a veteran. The Wonder Years, a complete series now available on DVD with well over 20 hours of bonus features. Check it out now at TimeLife.com or at WonderYearsDVDs.com. Watch the cover.

Here's what's going on in pop culture. Judd Apatow is heading back to the small screen. The Freaks and Geeks creator is returning with a new sitcom called Love to be distributed over Netflix. The streaming service has given a 10 episode go to the series when it debuts in 2016 and

then there'll be another series of episodes, 12 altogether, set for Netflix in 2017. The much anticipated USA series Dig was set to debut in a few weeks. Now that debut has been pushed to sometime in 2015, all due to production and location problems that began with a Gaza conflict necessitated a move for the series from Jerusalem to Croatia.

It is now finally ending up back here in the US with production to continue in New Mexico. More news in the category where it started to call it DC to TV Lucifer, the character from Sandman that was spun off for that miniseries not that long ago has now been given a pilot commitment from Fox. Confidence from Fox by the way seems pretty high.

They've given this particular pilot a guarantee almost to be picked up. The series will be produced by Tom Capino's who you know from Californication. More names familiar to comic fans are headed to Fall TV for example how about Captain Boomerang. Digger Harkness is the character that'll be played by Nick Tarabay in upcoming episodes of Arrow on the CW.

Meanwhile on Agent Carter said the debut early in the new year on ABC. James Darcy is playing the human version of Edwin Jarvis on that series. TNT has struck a deal for Marvel to pick up the big Marvel movies and bring them to the television over the next few years. They'll in fact be the home of the network television premieres of the next five movies

from Marvel including the upcoming Avengers Age of Ultron set to air two years after it hits theaters. Of course the movie hits theaters next summer so that would put it somewhere around 2017 for the beginning of this deal between Marvel and TNT. Things like Marvel's moving ahead pretty quickly for its plans on a Doctor Strange

movie. The filming is now set to begin at Pinewood Studios in England. Of course the same place has done so many other films for Marvel including Guardians and the upcoming Avengers Age of Ultron as well. And yet one more bit of movie news this time again concerning Marvel.

20th Century Fox has now announced their Deadpool movie will be set for the 12th of February 2016. They also seem to think that Ryan Reynolds still may be attached although he has not been officially signed. Pretty strong rumors on that though.

They've also moved their Fantastic Four movie from June to August of next summer. The point, the point. Investigation Discovery series Homicide Hunters centers on Joe Kendra. He's a retired 25 year veteran of the police force and a guy with a 92% success rate in the homicide cases he tackled over that quarter of a century period.

In every episode he goes over his cases starting from the initial 911 call all the way to the final resolution. But first of all I was curious how do you get a 92% success rate? What system I found was a simple one. It was willingness.

I'm not going to go home until I find out who did this. It is a matter of treating it not as a job but as a mission. I require that of myself and other people around me. The result is as they've often said the harder you work the luckier you get. So what do we see on the show?

The show is broadcast on Investigation Discovery, one of Discovery's many networks. And what it's going to show you is we're going to discovery human body and we're going to take you to our courtroom and that hour we're going to tell you how we got there. I am going to describe the event, the process. It is my case.

They are real cases. They are not invented. I have no script. I say whatever I like and they basically reenactment around what I say. These are cases I handled during my career of 25 years in homicide.

We talked to moms and dads, brothers and sisters of the victims. People don't want their loved one to be forgotten. So it is an insight into how homicide investigation actually works as opposed to how it's portrayed and scripted drama on television. I was curious that even though he's retired these days, if sometimes current news cases

tend to catch shows on. I'm smart enough to know that unfortunately and it's the reality of the business, press accounts are not all that accurate. So I tend not to focus so much although I do raise an eyebrow occasionally when somebody talks about a current case.

But ultimately the only way to know is to read the report and it's not to read a comment by a journalist or a 30 second blurb on TV about what's going on because it's such inaccurate anyway. These days we hear a lot about cold cases and I was curious that even though Joe worked his cases from beginning to end, if any of this could be help, can a set of fresh eyes

really make a difference? It's much simpler to have it from the beginning. Cold cases can be very complicated, particularly if you didn't do the work. What oversight was done that isn't noted anywhere? What mistake was made that isn't written down?

So it's very, very difficult to pick up a work product from 15 years ago and make sense out of it because no one's going to say the truth in there as to why an arrest was not made. You may have to discover that the hard way. So it's a much simpler affair to do it from the beginning when you know that you're not

going to make mistakes as you perceive. So his toughest case? That's an easy answer. It was each and every one of them. They are difficult.

It is a difficult way to make a living. They all have their issues. They all have their complications. They all have their maddening qualities. One does not stand out over another.

They're all absolutely awful. Violent death always is. It's the fourth season of Homicide Hunter already rolling on. Investigation Discovery with new episodes every Tuesday at 10 or you can always see more at investigationdiscovery.com.

That's it for the podcast but we're days away from the kickoff of the new TV season and there's lots to talk about and you're going to catch it all right here. We've got exclusives on the way with the cast of The Flash, Constantine and so much more. And you can't miss a minute of it and you won't if you check us out on websites like ComicMix.com, michaeldavisworld.com, getthepointradio.com and the iTunes podcast directory as well.

You can catch up on what's going on in our world on Twitter, Facebook and of course Instagram with The Point Radio and we'll see you back here in a few days.