*“The Wonder Years” is BACK for a second season and we caught up with the cast to dish on what fans can expect.
Inspired by the beloved award-winning series of the same name, “The Wonder Years” is an original coming-of-age comedy that tells the story of the Williams family during the late 1960s, spotlighting the ups and downs of growing up in a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama, and the friendship, laughter and lessons along the way — per the press release.
The Peabody Award-winning series stars Don Cheadle, narrating the series as Adult Dean Williams, Elisha “EJ” Williams as Dean Williams, Dulé Hill as Bill Williams, Saycon Sengbloh as Lillian Williams, Laura Kariuki as Kim Williams, Julian Lerner as Brad Hitman, Amari O’Neil as Cory Long and Milan Ray as Keisa Clemmons.
“It shows that Black people in the ‘60s were not always dealing with pain. They were happy. They had a lot of joy. They had humor in their life,” said Kariuki about the show in a 2021 interview with ET Online. “Our show does a really good job at showing that.”
In the same interview, Sengbloh added: “This show is so fly, y’all. I don’t think y’all understand how fly the ‘60s were. It wasn’t just a lot of hard things that people think about. There was some smoothness and flyness to it that we can’t wait for everybody to see.”
Lee Daniels serves as an executive producer on the show. In a 2021 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said of the series … “It’s the period when I grew up. I know it so well and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Black family from that period on a weekly basis. It’s a middle-class family. When we think of Black families of that time, we think about them being impoverished. We don’t think of “Wonder Years.” But that period was a great time for me. It will be great for America to be able to look at that time from my point of view, Saladin’s point of view.”
So where will viewers find the Williams family when season two kicks off? Check out what Dulé and EJ had to say in our exclusive video interview below.
Season Two of “The Wonder Years” premieres Wednesday, June 14th at 9pm on ABC.
All season one episodes are available to stream on Hulu.
READ MORE: Lee Daniels Teams with ABC for ‘Wonder Years’ Reboot with Black Cast
