Like many people who have seen it, Danica McKellar will always feel warmth in her heart The Wonderful Years and for Winnie Cooper, the cute character she played on the show for six seasons from 1988 to 1993. McKellar was just a teenager himself.
“I feel very close to her,” the actress tells Yahoo Entertainment. “It’s representative of a large part of my childhood.”
McKellar, 48, notes that the dramedy – which rebooted in 2021 – stuck with audiences for a reason.
“It was a show that really addressed the universal issues and issues that all children go through,” she says. “And what also really struck me about the show is that … I’m pretty sure it was the first of its kind to honor children’s feelings in a sitcom. Like a lot of shows are really about the adults and the kids were there too and they were there for a punch line or “How cute!” and they walk in, they walk out The Wonderful Years said, no, no, the feelings, the emotions that children have are valid and worth looking at and appreciating.”
McKellar and the rest of the cast continue to regularly promote the show, as it will this weekend 90s con in Hartford, Connecticut. Her co-star Olivia d’Abo will also be there, along with alumni from TV shows and films including mumbo-jumbo; Beverly Hills, 90210; Saved by the bell; and full house.
The latter means McKellar’s “really good friend” Candace Cameron Bure will be there.
The Candace Cameron Bure connection
McKellar recalls meeting Bure the ’90s way, back when they were both teenagers on ABC shows.
“I think it was bop magazine… like, Teen Beat, all these kinds of magazines… they used to throw parties and invite all the kids that were on TV shows back then. We all went, and then they took a lot of photos, and then they had content for their magazines. We had fun and made friends,” McKellar shares. “And apparently she was dating [Growing Pains actor] Jeremy Miller back then and I didn’t know it. And Jeremy asked me to be his girlfriend that night and I said yes. I found out later that they were dating at the time. It was this whole big drama.”
When both McKellar and Bure competed Dancing with the stars in 2014 Bure finally (and jokingly) confronts McKellar.
“And that’s when she told me they were dating. I thought what?!”
McKellar and Bure became close after that. They also started working together again.
“Candace was already doing Hallmark Channel movies at this point. And I always had my suspicions…because Hallmark first called me not long after that, and I ended up making 17 films for that channel,” says McKellar. “And I always thought, oh, they were watching because Candace was there, and then they were like, ‘Wait a minute, Danica is a perfect fit for this type of film too. Let’s hire them.’”
Last year, McKellar and Bure left Hallmark for the new network Great American Family, which is run by a former boss of Hallmark’s parent company. Bure faced backlash in November when he said, “I think the Great American Family will keep traditional marriage [between a man and a woman] at its core.” McKellar defended her at the time. “When she was discussing the portrayal of heterosexual couples in films, she started the sentence with ‘I think,’ which isn’t definitive, and ended it with ‘at its’ core,” which doesn’t mean exclusively,” she notes, adding, that she supports the LGBTQ community.
Behind the scenes at Camp Cucamonga
But long before the women starred in those romantic comedies or vacation tales, the pair starred in a very different made-for-TV movie, a 1990 teen flick Camp Cucamonga, which gathered TV stars galore. Just a few of the other cast members: McKellar’s The Wonderful Years co-star John Saviano; Chad Allen (Our house); Jaleel White (family matters); Sherman Hemsley (Amen); Johann Ratzenberger (applause); and a preFriends Jennifer Aniston.
McKellar remembers it fondly… and vividly!
“We shot it over the summer, so I didn’t have to do any schoolwork. Because as a child actor, you’re always going back and forth between classrooms and then shooting a scene,” she says. “You could do this emotional crying scene and then come back and do the last 20 minutes of your math test and then go back. You learn how to split up. But it was such a luxury to be able to go back to my trailer between scenes and be like, ‘I can just hang out.'”
There was a cassette player in her trailer – it was the 80s, after all – and Billy Joel, whom she had just discovered, was on repeat. (Well, she would rewind and play the tape over and over again.) White, who is also a friend and McKellar’s co-star in a couple of Lifetime films, had everyone laughing. And Breckin Meyer, still a few years away cluelessShe gave McKellar the nickname Ica. She plans to ask him about it at the 90s Con because he will be there too.
your favorite wonderful years Consequence
McKellar will be the main focus, however The Wonderful Years at the convention, which aired its first episode on January 31, 1988 in the prime post-Super Bowl slot. The audience was introduced to junior high student Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and, yes, his crush, McKellars Cooper, who has just learned that her older brother was killed in the Vietnam War. In a classic TV moment, the two share their first kiss while “When a Man Loves a Woman” is on.
The moving episode will always be McKellar’s favorite of the series’ 115 total episodes.
“I think it’s one of the best televisions ever made,” she says. “It took us 10 days to shoot 22 minutes of TV. It’s truly amazing to look back on all the love that went into this first episode.”
And the fans are still giving love back.
A few tickets to the 90’s con are still available on the official site.
Source : www.yahoo.com