After which Super Bowl did The Wonder Years pilot first air?

The Wonder Years pilot first aired immediately after Super Bowl XXII. ABC used the game’s enormous audience for the series debut on January 31, 1988, giving the coming-of-age comedy-drama an unusually prominent launch.

Super Bowl XXII was played at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, where the Washington Redskins defeated the Denver Broncos 42–10. The game became famous for Washington’s explosive second quarter, when the team scored 35 points. After the broadcast, ABC aired the new pilot featuring 12-year-old Kevin Arnold looking back on the summer of 1968.

The post-Super Bowl slot was one of television’s most valuable promotional opportunities because millions of viewers were already watching. The strategy worked: The Wonder Years developed into a six-season series and became one of the defining family programs of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

A common mix-up is confusing the game number with the year of the premiere. The pilot aired in 1988, but the Super Bowl itself was designated XXII, or 22, not XXIII or XXIV. The show’s regular run ended in 1993 after the original pilot’s high-profile debut.