Growing Pains
Growing Pains is an American television sitcom created by Neal Marlens that aired on ABC from September 24, 1985, to April 25, 1992.[1] The show ran for seven seasons, consisting of 166 episodes. The series followed the misadventures of the Seaver family, which included psychiatrist and father Jason, journalist and mother Maggie, and their children Mike, Carol, Ben, and Chrissy.[2][3]
This article is about the American television series. For other uses, see Growing Pains (disambiguation).Growing Pains
- John Tracy (seasons 1–6)
- Various (seasons 1–2 and 7)
"As Long as We Got Each Other"
performed by B. J. Thomas (season 1 solo) and with Jennifer Warnes (seasons 2, 3, 5, and most of 7) and Dusty Springfield (season 4);
Joe Chemay, Jim Haas, Jon Joyce, and George Merrill (seasons 6, part of 7, and the series finale)
"As Long as We Got Each Other" (instrumental)
United States
English
7[1]
166 (list of episodes)
- Neal Marlens (1985–1986)
- Dan Guntzelman (1985–1991)
- Mike Sullivan (1985–1991)
- Steve Marshall (1986–1991)
- Dan Wilcox (1991–1992)
- David Lerner (season 1)
- Arnold Margolin
- Bruce Ferber
22–30 minutes
Guntzelman-Sullivan-Marshall Productions (seasons 5–6)
Warner Bros. Television
Production[edit]
Soon after the cancelation of The Four Seasons, Joanna Kerns auditioned for a new series in late 1984, called Growing Pains. She auditioned with Alan Thicke, who was coming off the failure of his syndicated late-night talk show Thicke of the Night.[6] Kerns joked in many interviews that she and Alan had immediate chemistry, especially when she kissed him on his nose by accident during their audition together. Kerns and Thicke's chemistry won them both the parts of lead characters Maggie and Jason Seaver, and the two became great friends off the show; both of them had many things in common, including being newly divorced single parents.[7] Tracey Gold auditioned for the role of Carol Seaver, but was passed over in favor of Elizabeth Ward, who had starred alongside Gold in the 1983 ABC Afterschool Special The Hand-Me-Down Kid.[8] However, test audiences did not find Ward to be suited for the role of Carol, and Gold promptly replaced her; scenes featuring Ward in the original pilot were subsequently reshot with Gold for the broadcast version.
Kirk Cameron, who was an atheist in his early teens,[9] became a born again Protestant Christian when he was 17, during the height of his career on the show.[8] After converting to Christianity, he began to insist that the show’s plotlines be altered to remove anything he thought was too inappropriate, objecting to even mild innuendo in show scripts (one such example involved a segment from the teaser scene of the Season 6 episode "Midnight Cowboy", which cut to his character, Mike, and a girl talking in bed, only to reveal they were rehearsing a scene for a stage play).[10][8] Julie McCullough was cast as Julie Costello, a recurring character hired by Jason to work as a nanny for newborn Chrissy Seaver, during the fourth season in 1989, appearing in eight episodes until she was fired at the start of the fifth season. Though the show's producers have claimed that her character was never intended to be permanent—citing the idea of Mike being in a committed relationship went against his characterization as an “immature imp […] ill-equipped to deal with a grownup world on all levels”—and Cameron stated in his 2008 memoir Still Growing that he did not call for her firing, it is alleged McCullough's termination from the show was a result of Cameron's objections to her having posed nude in Playboy, prompting Cameron to claim to the producers (and, allegedly, in a phone call with then-ABC Entertainment President Bob Iger) they were promoting pornography by hiring McCullough.[10] Cameron reportedly did not reconcile with McCullough, who claims that Cameron refused to speak to her during a later encounter. She remains critical of him, stating that the public criticism she endured during the controversy damaged her career.
Cameron's conversion (specifically his subsequent behavior after becoming a Protestant) is said to have alienated him from his fellow cast members, as he did not invite any of them to his 1991 wedding. The creative clashes between Cameron and executive producers Steve Marshall, Dan Guntzelman and Mike Sullivan also are said to have prompted the three showrunners (along with co-executive producer/writer David Kendall and director John Tracy) to quit the series following the sixth season. (Dan Wilcox replaced Marshall, Sullivan and Guntzelman for what would be the show’s final season.)[11] Cameron did not maintain contact with his former co-stars and did not speak to Gold for eight years after the series ended.[11] Cameron has stated that this was not due to any animosity on his part toward any of his former cast members, but an outgrowth of his desire to start a new life away from the entertainment industry.[12] In 2000, Cameron revealed he apologized to his TV family for some of his prior behavior, saying, "If I could go back, I think I could make decisions that were less inadvertently hurtful to the cast--like talking and explaining to them why I just wanted to have my family at my wedding."[11]
In 1988 at age 19, Gold gained some weight over the production hiatus between the show’s third and fourth seasons. For Season 4, scripts called for Carol to be the brunt of fat jokes from her brothers, Mike and Ben, for many episodes in a row. By October of that year, Gold lost a total of 23 lbs. (dropping from a weight of 133 lbs to about 110 lbs) after going on a medically supervised 500-calorie-a-day (2,100 kJ) diet, though scripts continued to include occasionally fat jokes made at Carol’s expense. In her 2003 memoir Room to Grow: an Appetite for Life, Gold revealed that she became increasingly obsessed with food and her physical appearance between 1989 and 1991, and continued to slowly and steadily lose weight.[13]
In 1990, Gold began group therapy in an eating disorder program but only learned more ways to lose weight. Gold’s body image issues were touched upon slightly in the Season 6 episode "Carol's Carnival", which features a scene in which Carol looks at herself in a carnival mirror and describes to another character the distorted image in her head. By 1991, her disorder had devolved into bulimia nervosa, having lost a massive amount of weight through both self-starvation and vomiting, causing her to be admitted to a hospital for treatment in early 1992.[13] Gold—who was estimated to have been near 80 lbs. at her lowest weight—was suspended from the show following production of the Season 7 episode "Menage a Luke”, due to her skeletal appearance that was fairly obvious in some scenes.[note 1] Gold’s absence is addressed several episodes later in “Don’t Go Changin’”, which features a subplot in which Ben films a video letter for Carol, who in-canon is studying abroad in London.[note 2] Photos of Gold's emaciated body were plastered all over tabloid magazines, and she was one of the first celebrities ever to be formally outed for anorexia. She returned for the show’s final episodes (“The Wrath of Con-Ed”, and the two-part finale “The Last Picture Show”) in the late spring of 1992. Gold eventually recovered from her years-long struggle and starred in the 1994 made-for-TV movie For the Love of Nancy, drawing on her own experiences with anorexia nervosa to portray the title character.[13]
At about age 14, starting during the show’s sixth season, Jeremy Miller received numerous letters from an older male stalker, who was later arrested and convicted on stalking charges.[14] In 1991, Leonardo DiCaprio joined the main cast in the role of Luke Brower, a homeless teenager who is taken in by the Seaver family at the behest of Mike (who, by then, was a substitute teacher at the high school where Luke had masqueraded as a student).[15] Co-star Joanna Kerns recalled DiCaprio being "especially intelligent and disarming for his age," but also mischievous on set.[16] Then-15-year-old DiCaprio was cast in a bid to appeal to teenage female viewers (similar to how Cameron gained heartthrob status with that demographic during the show’s earlier seasons), but was written out towards the end of Season 7, in order to allow DiCaprio to begin work on the 1993 biographical drama film This Boy's Life. Still, the addition of DiCaprio—who would earn a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Young Actor Co-starring in a Television Series for his work as Luke—did not improve the show's ratings.[15] [17]
ABC had moved Growing Pains from its longtime Wednesday slot to Saturday nights at the start of the 1991–92 season (joined by fellow ABC comedy veterans Who's the Boss? and, by midseason, Perfect Strangers, all of which became the centerpieces of the short-lived TGIF spinoff block I Love Saturday Night), which saw the show—which had seen a steady erosion in viewers over the past few seasons, while still remaining in the Nielsen Top 30 through Season 6—experience a dramatic decline in viewership from #27 to #75, resulting in ABC and the show’s producers agreeing to end the series at the conclusion of its seventh season.[15] Alan Thicke later made a cameo appearance as himself in the pilot episode of fellow ABC sitcom Hangin' with Mr. Cooper in September 1992. The pre-credits teaser scene in which Thicke appeared alongside series star Mark Curry humorously referenced the pilot episode being filmed on the same set that had previously been used as the Seavers' home on Growing Pains.[18]
Spin-off[edit]
Growing Pains spawned the spin-off series, Just the Ten of Us, which featured Coach Graham Lubbock, Mike and Carol's gym teacher, moving to California with his large family to teach at an all-boys Catholic school after he was fired from Thomas Dewey High School.
Reunion movies[edit]
In 2000, the cast reunited for The Growing Pains Movie, followed by Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers in 2004. Before the premiere of The Growing Pains Movie, Kirk Cameron described his regrets over how his relationship with his cast mates changed after his religious conversion during the production of the series, admitting, "I definitely kind of made an about-face, going toward another aspect of my life," and "I shifted my focus from 100% on the show, to 100% on [my new life], and left 0% on the show—and even the friendships that were a part of that show."[11]
Syndication[edit]
United States[edit]
ABC aired reruns of the show on its daytime schedule from July 1988 to August 1989. The show originally aired at 11:00 AM (ET) until January 1989, when Ryan's Hope was canceled and Home was expanded to an hour from 11:00 AM–noon. The reruns moved to noon.
In the fall of 1989, the show was sold to local syndication, which continued until 1997. The show also aired on TBS for several years premiering in October 1993 at 6:35 PM. The show continued to air on TBS until September 1996.
Reruns aired on the Disney Channel from September 1997 to September 2001. The cable rights for the show moved to sister network ABC Family, where it ran from 2001 to 2004. It has also aired on ION Television during the fall of 2006 into the spring of 2007.
Nick at Nite began airing Growing Pains on February 12, 2007, launching with a marathon from 9:00 PM–1:00 AM. It was pulled from the line-up shortly after, and reruns later moved to sister network Noggin (as part of its teen block, The N). TeenNick re-aired the series on Monday, September 13, 2010, in a 5:00 AM hour block, and aired its final showings on December 27, 2010.
Growing Pains aired on Up TV from January 2015 to July 2017. Antenna TV began airing the series in December 2017.
It is currently available on the Roku channel (streaming app) as of November 2019.