List of The Wonder Years characters


This is a list of characters of the television series The Wonder Years.

Main characters

Kevin Arnold

Kevin Arnold is the main character. Born on March 18, 1956, Kevin grew up in the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s. Right after he graduated from high school in 1974, he went off to college, got married and has a son born in 1981. The voice of the present-day adult Kevin is supplied by Daniel Stern.

Jack Arnold

John "Jack" Arnold is Kevin's father; a gruff, laconic man and a Korean War veteran; he grew up during the Great Depression, served in the US Marine Corps right after he graduated from college, and is seen in photographs wearing the uniform of a First Lieutenant. He works as a product distribution manager at NORCOM, a large military defense company. Later, he starts his own business, building and selling handcrafted furniture. He was born on November 5, 1927, and the series finale reveals that he dies in 1975 near the end of Kevin's freshman year of college - two years after the time of the show's finale.

Norma Arnold

Norma Arnold is Kevin's homemaker mother who was born on March 22, 1930. Unlike her husband, Norma is friendly, upbeat, and optimistic. She met Jack as a college freshman. When he graduated, she moved across the country with him and did not finish college. She eventually gets her degree late in the series and begins work at a software startup called Micro Electronics. She worked her way up in the future as board chairwoman at the end of the series.

Karen Arnold

Karen Arnold is Kevin's older, rebellious, hippie sister who was born in 1952. Her free-spirited lifestyle clashes with her overbearing father's conservatism, and she depends upon her mother as a mediator. When Karen moves in with her boyfriend Michael during her freshman year of college, she has a falling-out with her father. The pair marry one year later and move to Alaska, where Michael has secured a good job working on the Alaska Pipeline. Karen ultimately accepts some of her parents' viewpoints and has a baby, while her husband learns to support his wife and child.

Wayne Arnold

Wayne Arnold is Kevin's older brother who was born in 1954. Wayne enjoys physically tormenting Kevin and Paul, calling Kevin "butthead" or "scrote". Wayne is usually portrayed as a loser in romantic relationships. For a time he dated a girl named Dolores, which was more casual than serious. In later seasons, Wayne matures. In the final season, he begins a serious relationship with a divorcee named Bonnie but is left heartbroken when she reconciles with her ex-husband. In the series finale, it is revealed that he takes over the family furniture business after Jack dies in 1975.

Paul Pfeiffer

Paul Joshua Pfeiffer : is Kevin's long time best friend, a bright and excellent student and allergy sufferer. He is also Jewish and in one episode celebrates his Bar Mitzvah. Although Kevin and Paul are best friends in the series's early seasons, their relationship becomes somewhat strained later. Kevin begins to spend more time with Chuck and Jeff, causing tension with Paul. Paul also attends a private prep school for one season, leaving Kevin alone to start public high school. In another episode Kevin tattles on Paul after Paul loses his virginity. In the final episode it is revealed that Paul eventually attends Harvard and studied law and become a lawyer. He was born on March 14, 1956.

Winnie Cooper

Gwendolyn "Winnie" Cooper is Kevin's main love interest and neighbor for the first three seasons. Their first kiss, and her older brother's death in Vietnam, play an important part in the pilot. In another episode, Winnie's parents separate in grief over the death of their son. In the epilogue of the final episode, it is revealed that Winnie travels overseas to study art history in Paris. Kevin and Winnie write to each other every week for these eight years until she returns; in the concluding moments of the finale, Kevin says that when Winnie returned to the States, Kevin met her accompanied by his wife and first child—despite the hope among Wonder Years fans that Kevin and Winnie would themselves marry, as they seemed destined to do so throughout the series's run. "Like I said," says Kevin at the end, "things never turn out exactly the way you plan them." As suggested in an episode entitled "The Accident" and in the final episode of the series, every important event in Kevin's life has somehow involved Winnie. She was born in either September or October.

Recurring characters

Introduced in Season 1

  • Brian Cooper : Winnie Cooper's older brother. He was seen in the opening scene of the pilot episode working on an El Camino car when Wayne and Kevin are fighting, ordering Wayne to cut it out, to which Wayne agrees as Brian "defined cool" for all the kids on the block, being the eldest of the neighborhood kids at 19. He was then conscripted into the US Army. When Kevin is disciplined by Mr. DiPerna for throwing food in the cafeteria at school, Mr. & Mrs. Arnold are called in. However Jack and Norma's attention turns to a more serious matter, as they are told Brian was killed in Vietnam, and go to comfort Mr. & Mrs. Cooper. Kevin is later seen with his family and the Coopers attending Brian's funeral, which Kevin recalls was the first funeral he attended which was "not for an old person". Brian's ghost then appears to Kevin at the wake, saying that he is fine with Kevin's growing relationship with Winnie; only for Kevin to give Winnie some space so she can help get over his loss.
  • Ed Cutlip : Kevin's insecure gym teacher, who excels in bullying his students and always wears a red cap to hide his bald head, which has a steel plate in it. He enjoys drawing diagrams on the board that nobody can decipher, and Kevin describes him as having an inferiority complex. However, he is shown to be somewhat of a more sensitive person than usually indicated when he plays a department store Santa in a Christmas-related episode, where Kevin is the only student to know of Coach Cutlip's part-time job. Coach Cutlip is also aware of his mean personality towards the students, and admits to Kevin, "kids like me when I am Santa".
  • Mr. Diperna : the strict, by-the-book vice principal of Robert F. Kennedy Junior High and Kevin's nemesis. In the pilot episode, Kevin gets in trouble and is disciplined by Mr. Diperna. Mostly in the series, he usually gives Kevin and the students a hard time. He later fires Kevin's mom shortly after she is hired by the school as a receptionist. A more sympathetic portrayal of Mr. Diperna was shown in "Goodbye", where he privately confers with Kevin that Mr. Collins died and that he will replace him as Kevin's math teacher until they find a suitable hire.
  • Miss White/Mrs. Heimer : Kevin's junior high English teacher. Kevin harbors a crush on her and sometimes imagines that she feels the same way. She gets married after the second season and becomes Mrs. Heimer, but Kevin continues calling her Miss White, which she always corrects. In one episode, a pregnant Mrs. Heimer needs Kevin to drive her to the hospital on the day of his junior high graduation as she's going into labor and can't find her husband.
  • Lisa Berlini : Kevin's junior high school classmate on whom he develops a strong crush. After Kevin works up the courage to call her on the phone to break the ice, a steady relationship between the two seems promising — until Lisa unceremoniously breaks a date with him to the Fall Dance to go to the same dance with another guy, revealing to Kevin that she only liked him as a friend.
  • Carla Healey : Kevin's junior high school classmate and one-time girlfriend of Paul.
  • Kirk McCray : A popular 8th grader whom Winnie starts dating in 1968. She ultimately breaks up with him early the next year.

    Introduced in Season 2

  • Rebecca "Becky" Slater : Kevin's junior high school classmate and one-time girlfriend. He dates her purely to make Winnie jealous and she punches him when she finds out he still likes Winnie. Because of that, she holds a grudge against Kevin and becomes a recurring, physically violent aggressive nuisance throughout Kevin's junior high school years.
  • Randy Mitchell is Kevin's friend, described as loyal and brave, though noticeably lacking Paul's intelligence. Though he appeared throughout the entire series, he usually had only minor parts in episodes. Randy and Paul are the only characters to remain on throughout the series as Kevin's friends in both junior high and high school.
  • Mr. Cantwell : Kevin's junior high school science teacher. He often shows filmstrips to the class while speaking in a monotone voice.
  • Doug Porter : Kevin's junior high school classmate and friend. He also becomes part of Kevin's entourage. In one episode, he briefly replaces Paul as Kevin's best friend after the two have a falling-out. Doug is very agreeable and loves to eat junk food. In later episodes Doug befriends both Kevin and Paul where they engage in activities such as touch football or sneaking to a sleepover attended by older teenage girls.
  • Debbie Pfeiffer : Paul Pfeiffer's little sister who has a crush on Kevin. Kevin takes Debbie to a cotillion dance in one episode, as Paul went to the football game.

    Introduced in Season 3

  • Arthur Collins : Kevin's math teacher in junior high. Despite his difficulty, and some misunderstandings between them, Kevin grows to have a respect for him and more than once regards him as a hero-figure. He dies of a heart condition in 1970.
  • Craig Hobson : Kevin's junior high school classmate. He often teases Kevin and Paul over their emotional hang-ups resulting from girlfriend problems, only to accidentally start a relationship himself by falling for Becky Slater when she hits him with her bicycle. Craig's relationship with Becky stops her from harassing Kevin and allows the couples to happily co-exist. However, Hobson ends the relationship with Becky when his family enrolls him in a military academy for his ninth grade year, reviving her hatred of men and blaming Kevin.
  • Albert Arnold : Kevin's paternal grandfather, a loving but stubborn old man who constantly annoys his son, Jack. Though their relationship is strained, Kevin's father and grandfather have a strong bond that has a lasting effect on Kevin as he grows older. Grandpa gifted Kevin with a beagle dog, which Kevin named Buster, and sold Kevin his very first car—for one dollar. He also appeared in one episode being less jovial, when he announces the death of a family member named Rose and escorts the entire family to her funeral. Grandpa is also a widower, as Kevin's paternal grandmother was only seen in flashback scenes of family films.
  • *Buster: Kevin's dog, a loving and loyal brown and white beagle. Buster was a gift given to Kevin by his grandfather Albert, much to Jack's disapproval. Eventually the family all fall in love with the dog, especially when it is feared that he is lost after running away in the park. Though physically appearing in only four episodes throughout the entire series, Kevin reminisces that Buster would always be there happily waiting for him throughout the most important events in his young life, including his graduations from high school and college.