With Wonder...

Found a box of old VHS tapes (unlabeled, of course), so I found a VCR (remember those?), hooked it up and explored a bit.

And I stumbled across some episodes on what is perhaps my favorite television show, "The Wonder Years."

Watching a few episodes reminded me just how much I loved this show, especially for the writing and the amazing use of music, the one that tugged on my heartstrings the most being Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight" at the end of the episode, "The Accident." (the song wasn't released until 1979, but that's beside the point).

They don't make 'em like this, anymore...

 

I agree. Great show -- one that should still be on, regularly, even if only in reruns.

 

I've been watching a bunch of episodes through Netflix. I love that show.

 

Get Netflix.

 

Also available online through Amazon. I think right now they have the entire series free to Prime members.

 

They had to change a bunch of the songs for Netflix and Amazon streaming. Still no DVD release for that reason. Sucks. I'd love to own that.

 

I never (not once) watched the show when it was originally broadcast, but occasionally I heard and read good things about it.

Then a few years ago I was channel-surfing after getting out of work late at night and it was on the Hub. So I started watching and over a year or so, saw most of the episodes.

Kevin's fictitious age was within a couple years of mine, so most of the topical pop culture references were right up my alley. Overall I'd give the series about a B+ for chronological accuracy (although I do remember there were a few glaring gaffes).

Having never seen the shows in original broadcast, I didn't hear the original soundtracks, but I do remember thinking some of the background music seemed weird and kind of arbitrarily stuck in there.

 

What is the deal with the songs?

 

Copyright and royalty issues. The producers probably got only limited performance rights to many of the songs and would have to pay extra to use them in re-releases.

I suppose if I had been the series producers, I would have scoured around and come up with a really really good 60s/70s cover band, and simply had them do cover versions of the songs for the show, since period music was obviously going to be a big part of the show from the get-go.

 

Copyrights

 

Holding the rerun music against The Wonder Years is silly. Most of the stuff that seems out of place is that way because it wasn't the original music.

Has any show ever gone against contrivance more than The Wonder Years? I think it's the most realistic depiction of male adolescence ever in any pop-culture format.