For just about every guy growing up in the late eighties and early nineties, Winnie Cooper was your dream girl. She was gorgeous, intelligent, funny and always kind of had that "damsel in distress" aura about her. She was one of the best parts about tuning into The Wonder Years, and so was the actress who portrayed her, Danica McKellar.

Danica started acting early, with a couple of guest appearences on The Twilight Zone, before landing the role of Winnie on The Wonder Years. The show had a great, award winning five year run, but once it ended, Danica did what many child stars fail to do: bow out gracefully. Besides doing a few voiceovers for cartoons, Ms. McKellar spent the next couple of years at UCLA. In 1998, she graduated from there Summa cum Laude, with a degree in Mathematics. Remember the next time you use the Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem, because she actually discovered that! Yea, I've never used it either and I have no idea what it means.

Since graduating, Danica has started returning to the small screen with a couple of notable guest appearences. Her biggest was a year-long stint on The West Wing as Elsie Snuffin. She continues to pop up here and there, but Danica has found a new love behind the camera. Her first short film, Speechless... (which she wrote, directed, produced and starred in), won much critical praise and an award at the California Independent Film Festival. She just recently finished her second movie (Broken) and has one in post-production right now. In July, Danica was featured in the guys magazine Stuff (giggidy), showing an entirely new side(s) to a guy's childhood dream girl (this reporter included). Most recently, in November, she played the mystery woman that Ted woke up in bed with after the crazy "Pineapple Incident" in How I Met Your Mother. I started writing this article on Tuesday, which happened to be Danica's 31st birthday, so "Happy belated Birthday Dainca." Here's hoping you remain around Hollywood and our TV sets for many years to come.