Kevin was supposed to lose it in the last ep!!

[McFly121]

Sorry to those who knew, but I flipped when I read it in an archived newspaper article about the shows final ep from 1993:

Paper: Los Angeles Times
Title: Reeling in the Bittersweet 'Wonder Years'

With Rising Costs, Aging Cast, Series Comes to a Close
Author: STEVE WEINSTEIN
Date: May 12, 1993
Section: Calendar
Page: F-1

"The Wonder Years" ends as Kevin Arnold loses his virginity.

At least, that's the way the producers wrote it. ABC executives didn't
like that scenario, however. So the climactic scene of tonight's finale
was shot in a way that leaves what happened to the viewer's
imagination.

And therein lies the reason that Bob Brush, the show's adoptive
father and executive producer, believes this is the right time to bring the
Emmy Award-winning series about adolescence to a close."There has
always been a question," he said, "of just how long the wonder years last.
As the kids were developing and getting older, there were of course new
stories to tell, but the tension and constraints of the deadline of the
concept of the wonder years were beginning to press on us."

As Kevin (Fred Savage) has grown from the doe-eyed, impish
12-year-old he was when "The Wonder Years" began in 1988, the battle with ABC's
standards department has gotten worse, Brush said.

"When he became 16 and 17, there were really things he needed to get
to that we couldn't do at 8 p.m., especially with the kind of venerable
cachet that the show had obtained with its audience," he said. "We
would get notes from the network saying, 'You could do this on any show
besides "The Wonder Years." ' "

Last season, for example, Brush said he ran into a "buzz saw" with
the network because Kevin put his hand on a girl's breast, even though
it was shot and handled in "a mature and subtle way."

"They said, 'No one in the history of television at 8 p.m. has ever
touched a breast,' " recalled Michael Dinner, executive producer and
director of many episodes, who had to cut 1 1/2 seconds of offending
footage to mollify the network.

An ABC spokeswoman explained that the broadcast standards department
"felt it was inappropriate to present Kevin's sexual awakening because
of the setting in the 1960s, the gentle tone of the series and, most
importantly, the 8 p.m. time period"--when many young children were
watching.

"The show was largely viewed by young audiences who watch with their
parents," she added. "And we had to be considerate of the viewer
expectation that they could watch together and feel comfortable doing so."

The real killer of the series, however, was economics, not
prudishness. As Kevin aged, especially after he got his driver's license, the
producers felt compelled to shoot more scenes on location, away from the
Arnold home. Coupled with escalating cast salaries, the budget soared
to a whopping $1.2 million per half-hour episode, Brush said. Many
hourlong dramas are shot for less.

The ending aside, tonight's hourlong conclusion is not the episode
that Brush would have wanted to write as the series' finale, had he been
given the opportunity. That would have dealt with how the winding down
of the Vietnam War mirrored the winding down of the years of wonder.
But since he did not know for sure if the series would be canceled until
after the episode was shot, he had to settle for a finale that suggests
Kevin's breaking with the people from his childhood and looking ahead
to his adult future.

"It's a show about suburban images--sort of a salute to them," said
Dinner, who directed the finale. "It's the last Fourth of July he ever
spent in that town. It's also about standing up to his father and then
reconciling with him. It's one last recollection of his icons of
childhood."

"Some viewers will be surprised that nothing works out the way your
fondest wish would be," Brush said. "The message I wanted in there is
that that's part of the beauty of life. It's fine to say, 'I'd like
everything to be just the way it was when I was 15 and I was happy,' but it
seemed more nurturing to me to say that we leave these things behind
and we go on to forge new lives for ourselves.

"The mail is coming in now and everyone wants a real traditional
kind of sitcom end, which is everyone hugs and everything is OK between
Kevin and Winnie (Danica McKellar)--and there is some of that. It's not a
bitter ending at all. But I never looked at us as being in the business
of providing America with a happy half-hour."

Created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens, who handed the show over to
Brush after the first six episodes, "The Wonder Years" won the Emmy for
best comedy its first year and captured several others for writing and
directing in subsequent seasons. When it aired ahead of "Roseanne" on
Tuesdays, its ratings were blockbuster.

But with the move to 8 p.m. Wednesdays two seasons ago, both the
ratings and the accolades seemed to fade.

Though Brush--who formerly wrote and produced "The 'Slap' Maxwell
Story" and "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd"--has doubts about finding
another show as creatively satisfying, bidding farewell to Kevin Arnold
is not cause for grief.

"It's funny. You work on the last episode, and I'm looking up that
street that I saw Kevin walk down and ride his bike down and drive his
car down, and I'm OK with it. I feel like, yeah, it's time to go. And in
terms of what TV is aspiring to, which is not much, I'm not sure there
is another 'Wonder Years' waiting in the wings. But I feel like a body
of work has been completed. I have some regrets that a lot of episodes
were not a lot better. But I feel like the narrator: that this halftime
of sitting around telling childhood stories is over and it's time to go
play with my own kids."

Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1993

[Belair]

I always just assumed that Kevin lost it to Winnie in the barn.Infact,i thought that definetly happened.I wasn't expecting to actually 'see' it.