By Mallory Mattingly
Actress Danica McKellar just celebrated the 32nd anniversary of her show THE WONDER YEARS.
“Thirty-two years ago today, the finale of THE WONDER YEARS aired on ABC. 🤯 These are personal shots from the last day of filming…the end of an era!” McKellar shared in a post on Instagram. The post included pics with costars Fred Savage and Josh Saviano.
“I graduated from high school a couple months later and went to @ucla…oh the many adventures ahead for that teenager, and what an incredible show that would continue to bless her! Thank you, from myself and Winnie Cooper, to everyone who watched through the years,” she added.
THE WONDER YEARS follows Savage’s character Kevin Arnold as he grows up in a middle-class, suburban family between 1968 to 1973, ages 12-17 (the show ran from 1988-1993). McKellar played Kevin’s “crush-turned-girlfriend,” Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper. According to IMDB, the stories are told from Kevin’s perspective as an adult in his mid 30s.
After her time on THE WONDER YEARS, McKellar went to UCLA and got her degree in mathematics.
“I stopped acting for four years. I just needed to find out who else I was. For me, the way I could find out was just to do something else and really exercise my brain and let go of all the glamour and superficiality of Hollywood. That was really empowering to me,” McKellar told Closer Weekly.
After her time away, the actress decided to return to Hollywood, though she felt like she was playing “catch-up.”
Related: Danica McKellar Almost Didn’t Get Iconic THE WONDER YEARS Role
“I was doing all these independent films that weren’t very good,” she revealed. “Then I started getting some traction. I did THE WEST WING for a season.”
She then made different appearances in NCIS, NYPD BLUE, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and THE BIG BANG THEORY before finally finding her niche in Christmas movies with Great American Family and Hallmark.
“These movies make you feel good,” McKellar said of why she loves the Christmas genre. “They’re about a simpler time almost. It shows you the best in human nature, these movies. And what makes them so good and so needed is that they don’t have any real bad guys. No one’s taking advantage of each other. It’s people who are in earnest trying to make their way through life.”
Last year, McKellar starred in GAF’s A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS BALL, a project she wrote the script for.
“This is a wonderful experience for me. It’s been amazing, because I got to write the script with someone else, but it’s the first time my name is on the script for one of these movies, and it’s really gratifying,” McKellar told Fox News Digital. “Plus, I get to waltz in it! I love ballroom dance, as I think everybody knows who follows me on social media.”
McKellar got her start with the wholesome WONDER YEARS, and it looks like she plans to keep making uplifting content for her fans to enjoy.
Read Next: Danica McKellar Celebrates Family-Friendly Entertainment: ‘Bring People Closer to God’
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