Time Life
288 min. (six episodes), with Fred Savage, Danica McKellar, and Daniel Stern

On October 7, 2014, the first season of “The Wonder Years” sees its first-ever DVD release, 21 years after the series left the airwaves in 1993.

It’s funny to see Fred Savage and Danica McKellar so young and sharing their first kiss in the pilot episode, and then flipping the DVD to the special features section where you get an inside look at the May 28, 2014 cast reunion video to see everyone all grown up. Even though the story lines and fantastic acting of “The Wonder Years” brought tears to my eyes many years ago, it was this reunion video that did it this time around as the actors reminisced about the old days, and discussed what it was like to act like a family for TV.

Another interesting point is discussed by McKellar. After she and Savage shared their first kiss, someone on-set clapped, and for the longest time they thought it was one or more of the real off-camera parents, which caused them a great deal of embarrassment. However, Danica puts that myth to bed during the reunion, saying that their parents were so nervous for the kiss, none of them clapped and that it must have been one of the crew members. Ha!

The collection includes all six unedited episodes from the first season that aired in 1988. A very amazing notable feature is that the episodes include every single song from the original broadcast, including everyone from Jimi Hendrix, to The Monkees, to Smokey Robinson. One of the main reasons this show never made it to DVD is because it was stuck in complicated music rights issues for decades — but after a bit of work from Star Vista Entertainment and Time, more than 300 songs were cleared for usage throughout the entire series. This means you can see the episodes exactly as they aired decades ago.