Danica McKellar has some good news for those who didn’t like the original ending to “The Wonder Years”: things may have changed! The actor, who played Winnie Cooper in the sitcom from 1988 to 1993, told how she views the controversial ending.
In the series finale, which aired on May 12, 1993, the narrator revealed that Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and Winnie did not end up together, despite their on and off relationship throughout the series. She went to Paris to get her art degree and Kevin married someone else, but the couple remained friends.
“Fans are still angry about it,” McKellar continued the November 25 episode of “Pod Meets World.” She explained that in the show, often “not everything worked out in the end,” which was a way to be relatable to the audience.
“Most of our lives don’t turn out the way we wanted them to or thought they would, so in that same way, Kevin and Winnie didn’t end up together,” she told hosts Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle. . ‘But I like to say: look. All we know is what the narrator said happened… He had a baby with his wife and they were the first to greet me off the plane.”
She continued, “That’s just the beginning of the story. Personally, I am divorced and remarried, and many people are too. Maybe Kevin and Winnie ended up together after all.”
At the end of the series, executive producer Bob Brush reflected on the ending, which upset some fans.
“Some viewers may be surprised that nothing turns out as your greatest wish would be,” he told the BBC Los Angeles Times in 1993. “The message I wanted in it is that that is part of the beauty of life. It’s fine to say, “I’d like everything to be the way it was when I was fifteen and happy,” but it seemed more nurturing to me to say that let’s leave these things behind and forge new ones. . lives for ourselves.”