Maybe calling them "one trick ponies" is an unfair assessment since they did also have Growing Pains and These Friends of Mine (https://ew.com/article/1994/03/25/these-friends-mine/) (later called Ellen (http://reviewingeverytvshowiown.blogspot.com/search/label/Ellen)) under their belt. But with all due respect, exactly how much credit should Black (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Black_(filmmaker)) and Marlens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Marlens) get for the success of those shows when compared to The Wonder Years?

According this this New York Times article (https://web.archive.org/web/20200322074642/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/10/archives/television-the-short-life-and-unhappy-death-of-laurie-hill.html) about their short-lived "dramedy" series for ABC, Laurie Hill (https://books.google.com/books?id=RxHbPxbBM1AC&pg=RA14-PP32&lpg=RA14-PP32&dq=laurie+hill+DeLane+Matthews&source=bl&ots=AXV0yf11FZ&sig=ACfU3U3uZBx4HSAF7P32IMd6UHh2sqYZfw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjo-vmlhej1AhX_lGoFHV4BDW44UBDoAXoECAkQAw#v=onepage&q=laurie%20hill%20DeLane%20Matthews&f=false), they were both miserable by the end of the first year (http://carstairsconsiders.blogspot.com/2013/06/tv-show-on-dvd-growing-pains-season-1.html) of Growing Pains. It appeared that they weren't entirely comfortable doing a four-camera, joke-driven show.

So when a single-camera, laugh-track free show in The Wonder Years came about, they felt they had found a half-hour format compatible with their writing style.