Answer: The Wonder Years

If you’ve watched even a few episodes of the late 80s/early 90s coming-of-age comedy drama The Wonder Years, then you know there are certain key elements to the show that make The Wonder Years, well, The Wonder Years. There’s Fred Savage as the plucky Kevin Arnold, navigating the treacherous terrain of adolescence along with his best friend Paul (played by Josh Saviano), and his perpetual love interest Winnie Cooper (played by Danica McKellar). While the trio formed the foundation of the show on screen, there was a critical and defining element off screen: the omnipresent narrator who told the stories, as they unfolded, with the wisdom of an older Kevin Arnold looking back at his teenage years.

The show simply wouldn’t have been the same without the iconic narration. In fact, if you look up fan edits online with the narrator removed—“The Silent Wonder Years”—it becomes incredibly apparent how critical the narrator was to the success of the show. While people loved the narration, what most people didn’t realize was that the brilliant narration was done by Daniel Stern—a movie actor best known for his roles in Home Alone (seen above) and City Slickers.

Sterns narrated all six seasons of The Wonder Years (except for the pilot episode, which was narrated by Arye Gross), but insisted that he go uncredited. Why pass over such a high profile credit given the popularity of the show? Back then, the delineation between movie actors and television actors was much tighter and he didn’t want to hobble his film career by getting pigeon-holed as a TV actor.