When you spend three hours a day commuting, you have time to hear all kinds of things on the radio. Today, I heard my local DJ's interviewing Danica McKellar -- aka Winnie Cooper of the Wonder Years. She was on the radio today because she is making a guest appearance on NYPD Blue's finale tonight.
Since the Wonder Years went off the air, Danica McKellar has been doing relatively little acting. That's because she went off to UCLA where she earned a B.S. in mathematics. Now, she maintains a website where, among other things, you can get Winnie to answer your math questions. The questions that are currently published on the website range from fractions to calculus.
As fascinating as all that is, I learned something even more interesting during this interview. Kevin Arnold's other junior high girlfriend, Becky Slater, was played by Crystal McKellar -- Danica's younger sister. Becky Slater and Winnie Cooper were real life sisters. As it turns out, Danica isn't the only smart one in the family. Crystal McKellar studied economics at Yale before graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2003. Crystal is now a practicing attorney in New York City.
Oh, and despite what you may have heard, Paul Pfiefer did not grow up to be Marilyn Manson. Danica was very clear about this and thought that whole rumor was hilarious. So, what did Paul actually do when he grew up? After a little internet digging, I discovered that instead of worshiping the devil and buying a pair of mismatched contacts, Josh Saviano actually took a similar path to Crystal McKellar. Saviano studied political science at Yale and then went on to law school. He is now a corporate attorney at the New York City law firm of Morrison Cohen. His picture at the Morrison Cohen website reveals that he has aged a bit, but you can still recognize old Paul.
