The Wonder Years Season 1 (DVD, For Families)
The Wonder Years Season One: Emmy-Award Winning Television Landmark to DVD for the VERY FIRST TIME!
There was a time I thought that technology brought us together as a family. It was the middle to late 1980s and we were one of the only families in our county with a home computer. My dad had to use one for work at Health and Human Services and told me specifically that this was the wave of the future and it would be a good idea to learn code. My dad probably doesn’t remember saying that to me at age 7 or 8, but never really giving me much guidance or direction in life, I took it as a duty. I had to learn to be a computer programmer. Yeah, that ended up being something I truly despised but was a direct correlation to me loving and learning Economics (a required course for a programmer at my school.) But, it did give us all a way to play and learn together. Our ONE Apple IIGS stood in the center of our home, like some sort of prized possession – and we learned to type, use a mouse and make our own Thank You cards (anyone remember those old lovely printers with the serraded edges you had to take off? *Shudder*) and we played games – together.
Why does this remind me of The Wonder Years? Well, we also only had one real television and didn’t get cable until I was nine. The television was limited by satellite access and channels, so we also watched any television shows – together. While my dad worked a lot and we seemed worlds apart most of the day, certain nights there was a television show we would ALL WATCH Certain shows TOGETHER and one was The Wonder Years. *SHOCK!* It was a program for families that dealt with adolescent issues through the eyes of the young boy Kevin and things like his family and his first love, Winnie Cooper, around the time my parents were becoming teens in the late 1960s. It gave me insight into my parents’ childhood memories and it ‘felt’ like we were doing something together that was positive.
I admit I went back and forth on reviewing this DVD. We haven’t really arrived at a place in our family where the adults are just as entertained as the kiddos when watching television. In fact, our youngest doesn’t watch yet and our oldest has a restricted schedule. Was this for us? The answer is – not yet. Brooke is still a little too young to understand all the concepts of Season 1, but going back and remembering and seeing the show again (I swear I haven’t seen this show since I was a kid, so it was almost like a new show I was watching – ha!) gave me pause. It gave me hope. It gave me something I want for my family when watching. TOGETHERNESS. Hey, if you are going to have family TV time, I would hope it would feature something that induced nostalgia and understanding in both parents and kids. The Wonder Years left the airwaves in 1993, the latter part of the year that I started high school so this Emmy-award winning popular show was almost like a staple for us and seeing it again (and, man, what an AWESOME soundtrack) actually brought back memories of my own junior high experience.
I mean, who really LOVED junior high or ‘middle school’ anyway? What an awkward time for kids and The Wonder Years captures some very familiar and RELEVANT concepts even today – love, war, awkwardness, trying to understand this crazy life and your nutso but loving family. Then I read something that made me want to review this for my readers –
The Wonder Years has been the most requested UNRELEASED TV DVD in our marketplace RIGHT NOW. Well, guess what, the soundtrack which features some amazing artists (OVER 300!), took a LONG time to get all the copyright issues straight and the show never compromised. That means you can watch this new DVD release in its ORIGINAL format. No weird new songs to mimic the ‘real’ ones that they couldn’t secure the rights, The Wonder Years Season 1 is in its complete glory. And, it is a glorious show. Just think of the title track, a Joe Cocker rendition of the Beatles song, “With A Little Help From My Friends” and sit back and remember that awkwardness, the navigation in life for youngsters so lest we not forget that our children will be or ARE going through similar issues today. Sure, TECHNOLOGY has exploded and has become more individualized but there will always be diamonds in the rough at our electronic entertainment that brings families together in the US or A and – as they say, if you can’t beat them, join them. Aside from Kevin and Winnie’s first kiss in the pilot program (which is super sweet for pre-teens, just not my preschooler!), it was a pretty G-rated episode and sucked me back into Kevin’s life that I only knew from TV. A fictional family that became a link to my family time.
Say what you will about technology, but I don’t see it going away – just getting stronger. It all boils down to WHAT YOU DO with it as a family unit that can make it positive. The last thing I want is a Momma’s Bacon Couch Potato Club (HA), but I am not going to lie – we watch Sprout with our oldest and we connect through those shows. While I’m not as jazzed to watch certain kid programs (Cough Cough Caillou), I take it in stride and know that watching with Brooke has given us opportunities to talk about real life situations she could be running into right now – making friends, learning how to be a good friend and just having positive communication skills in general. I think that this DVD is a great way to be able to (hopefully) one day watch with the grandparents, parents and our kiddos just like we did when I was a kid. And, it will be beautiful because we will use it as conversation starters that span generations. We aren’t so different – kids and parents – they have just had more time on Earth to learn from our stupid mistakes we all make and my kids learning their past and our countries past at a time when Vietnam was a losing battle and Nixon and Watergate was a scandal that coincide with similarities in all of our childhoods. If we STOP to REFLECT with all of our modern technology, I think you will see that my first inclinations that technology brought my family together will probably be true of my family more and more as they get older.
I do not want to shelter my children, I want them to understand that life is not new and the feelings that they feel are not any different than those that came before. For some reason, The Wonder Years captured that and made it a very family-friendly show. With the millions of choices we have in television programming today, I want to make the right choices and impressions on my children and if that means scanning all of their technology before use, I’m more than happy to do that with Bob. Life, after all, is not a television show, but there are a few that capture life in a more realistic and positive tone for that whole TWEEN group. It’s a tough age just from personal experience and I don’t want to lose any closeness we have worked hard to have as a family unit. Maybe it’s time to take back our technology and have it work for us as families instead of all or nothing. All things in moderation, and entertainment is a personal choice. The Wonder Years is just one of those good choices for family programming and it is cool that we can now see it in its true form – Jimi Hendrix tracks and all!
Want the ENTIRE SERIES? Yes, the ENTIRE collection of The Wonder Years that includes 26 DVDs (nope, I’m not lying!) is being released that includes many memorabilia and lots of great bonus features and interviews is now available through Time Life for a whopping $ 299.95! Wowza!
The Wonder Years Season 1 (DVD, For Families)
List Price: $ 19.95
Momma's Bacon 