Growing Pains is an
American
television sitcom
that ran on the ABC
network from 1985 to 1992.
The show's
premise is based around the fictional Seaver family, who reside on
Long Island, New
York
. Dr. Jason Seaver (
Alan Thicke), a
psychiatrist, works from home because his wife,
Maggie Malone (
Joanna Kerns), has gone
back to work as a
reporter. Jason has to
take care of the kids: troublemaker Mike (
Kirk Cameron),
honors
student Carol (
Tracey Gold), and
rambunctious Ben (
Jeremy Miller). From
1988 on, Chrissy Seaver became a part of the
family. She was played in her infant stage by twins
Kristen and
Kelsey
Dohring (who alternated). Beginning in the fall of
1990, Chrissy's character's age
was advanced to six years
old, whereupon
Ashley Johnson
took over the role. The show was relevant in the mid-1980s, as
women going to work was becoming more and more common, as were
stay-at-home dads.
Main cast
- Alan Thicke as Dr. Jason Roland
Seaver
- Joanna Kerns as Margaret Katherine
"Maggie" Malone (she kept her maiden name, although at some points
she did refer to herself as Maggie Seaver)
- Kirk Cameron as Michael Aaron
"Mike" Seaver
- Tracey Gold as Carol Anne Seaver
(1985–1992) (Replaced Elizabeth Ward after the pilot was shown to
test audiences with poor results.)
- Jeremy Miller as Benjamin Hubert
Horatio Humphrey "Ben" Seaver
- Ashley Johnson as Christine Ellen
"Chrissy" Seaver (1990–1992)
- Leonardo DiCaprio as Luke
Brower Seaver (later became a Seaver after they adopt him).
(1991–1992)
Minor recurring characters
- Josh Andrew Koenig as Richard
Milhous "Boner" Stabone (1985-1989, character was mentioned during
flashbacks in the series finale in 1992); Mike's friend.
- K.C. Martel as Eddie; Mike's friend.
- Lisa Capps as Debbie (1987-1988)
- Rachael Jacobs as Shelley
(1987-1988)
- Jodi Peterson as Laura Lynn; Ben's
girlfriend / love intrest(1989-1991)
- Jane Powell as Irma Seaver
(1988-1990); Jason's mother.
- Gordon Jump as Ed Malone
(1989-1991); Maggie's father.
- Betty McGuire as Kate Malone
(1989-1991); Maggie's mother.
- Chelsea Noble as Kate MacDonald
(1989-1992)
- Jamie Abbott as Stinky Sullivan (frequent guest star 1987-1989,
regular cast member 1989-1991); Ben's friend.
- Julie McCullough as Julie
Costello (1989-1990); Mike's former girlfriend.
- Bill Kirchenbauer as Coach
Graham Lubbock (1987–1988 on Growing Pains, starred in
spin-off Just the Ten of
Us); gym teacher.
- Sam Anderson as Principal Willis
DeWitt (frequent guest star); who had started as Mike's history
teacher early in the series.
- Fred Applegate as Francis
X. Tedesco (1991), principal of the learning annex where Kirk
teaches
Notable guest stars
Opening sequences
The Season 1 main opening featured various works of art, closing
with a shot of the cast, which goes from black-and-white to
color.
The opening credits from Seasons 2 through 5 featured an opening
shot of the cast in front of the house where establishing shots of
the Seaver house are used, switching to photos of each cast member
from childhood and, in Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns' case, to
adulthood, mixed with various episode clips. In all episodes that
aired from 1986-1990, the opening sequence ends with a "house gag"
immediately after the final episode clip, and, starting with the
fifth season, ran while the executive producers names' were listed.
The house gag changes from episode-to-episode, and usually features
the cast standing in front of the Seavers' house. A typical gag
featured all but one member of the cast (this was usually the cast
member whom the main story was about in that particular episode)
leaving to go inside the Seaver house, with the other leaving
seconds later. This was a running visual joke mildly similar to
that of the "
couch gag" sequences on
The Simpsons. Most house gags
last only about 10 seconds, but the longest one lasted about 20
seconds. Certain house gags include:
- Jason starts leaving before the rest of the cast, only to stop
and turn back, and the rest of the cast leaves seconds later. (This
was the static open for the 1986 and 1987 seasons.)
- In the Season 4 episode "Birth of a Seaver", in which Chrissy
is born, the sequence goes as normal, though the clips are
abbreviated in the form of the syndication airings, while the full
theme plays as normal. Near the end of the sequence, a pregnant
Maggie realizes and announces to the rest of the family that she is
in labor, to which everybody follows and guides Maggie back in the
house.
- Near the end of the opening credits in the next episode,
fittingly, Carol holds up a sign saying "It's a Girl", which blocks
Mike's face.
- Everybody leaves, except for Carol. Noticing this, Ben, Mike,
and Jason then turn back and pick Carol up and carry her into the
house.
- Everybody leaves to head into the house, except for Mike. Carol
angrily turns back and taps Mike on the shoulder, and makes a hand
gesture telling him to come in with them.
- The family stands outside in the rain wearing raincoats and
carrying umbrellas, and they all head toward the house.
- Everyone leaves, except for Ben. When Mike notices, he comes
back, whispers something in Ben's ear, and they both go in the
house.
The opening used in Seasons 6 and 7 featured an opening shot of the
mantle on the Seavers' fireplace panning over pictures of the cast.
The past photos of each cast member were kept, but the clips where
each cast member's name is overlaid was replaced with current
photos of each cast member. In this sequence, the males wore
tuxedos and the females wore formal dresses. The only exception was
Leonardo DiCaprio: when he was added to the cast, his photo
featured him wearing a hooded shirt and jeans, although for the
first few episodes he appeared in, the camera would zoom to a wide
shot, then his name was displayed. The end of this sequence
featured various still-shots of the entire cast trying to get
together for their picture, closing with a shot of the pictures on
the wall on and above the mantle.
Theme song
The show's theme song is "As Long As We've Got Each Other," which
was written and composed by both
John
Bettis and
Steve Dorff. It was
performed by:
B.J. Thomas
(singing solo); Season 1
B.J. Thomas &
Jennifer Warnes;
Seasons 2, 3, 5, part of 7
B.J. Thomas &
Dusty
Springfield; Season 4
Take 6 (Grammy-winning jazz acapella group);
Season 6, part of 7, series finale
There were 9 versions of the theme song; others included a
Halloween-themed version not sung by Thomas or Warnes used in a
2-part Halloween episode in 1990. The first 3 seasons featured an
instrumental part at the end of the theme, but in the fourth
season, the original last verse of the TV version of the theme
song, "Sharing the laughter and love," was added in its place.There
was also an
a cappella version of the
song which was used for all of Season 6, but this version was
abandoned for most of Season 7 in favor of the reinstatement of
Thomas's and Warnes's duet version, although the a capella theme
returned for three episodes , as well as the series finale. A
full-length version by Thomas and Springfield was released as a
single in
1988. By this time, however, the show
was already a well-established hit and the song failed to
chart.
Episodes
Decline
At the beginning of the seventh season, a new character, homeless
teen Luke Brower (then-unknown
Leonardo DiCaprio), was introduced in a
last-ditch attempt to salvage ratings, to no avail.
Growing
Pains had declined slightly on its established Wednesday time
slot in Season 6, and was moved to Saturday nights in the fall of
1991 to make room for newer comedies. The other long-running show
initially affected by this strategy was
Who's the Boss?, which also moved to
Saturdays. Ratings for both shows plunged to new lows, with
insiders stating that ABC was getting rid of both programs by
putting them on the "graveyard shift". To diffuse this fact, ABC
moved the long-running sitcom
Perfect Strangers, a show
with reasonably high ratings, to Saturdays in February 1992; its
presence helped to launch a new comedy block known as
I
Love Saturday Night. This final effort at scheduling
had an adverse effect for all 3 shows, and, most of all, for new
cartoon
Capitol Critters,
which was cancelled after only 2 months. By then,
Growing
Pains (along with
Who's the
Boss? and
MacGyver) was
canceled.
Controversies
Despite the show's success, there were a few behind-the-scenes
controversies.
Kirk Cameron's clashes
In 1987, Kirk Cameron became a
born
again Christian. Afterward he began to increasingly raise
objections behind the scenes to what he viewed as the depiction and
promotion of immoral behavior on the show.
After Cameron's conversion, his beliefs frequently interfered with
production of the show. He insisted that no "adult themes" be
incorporated into episodes, and he often demanded that entire
episodes be re-written when he objected to the content (when one
planned episode revolved around Julie giving Mike the key to her
apartment, Cameron objected to the sexual connotations, and he
asked a new script to be written) . According to the
Growing
Pains episode of
E! True Hollywood Story, Cameron
at one point once called the President of ABC on the phone, and
refer to executive producers
Dan
Guntzelman,
Mike Sullivan and
Steve Marshall as
pornographers, due to the content of some of the
episodes.
In 1991, after the show's sixth season, the three men quit the show
as a result of Cameron's actions and statements. Cameron's
conflicts with the writers were frequent in part due to his low
level of tolerance for percieved immoral behaviour. For example,
according to the aforementioned
E! True Hollywood
Story episode, one scene which he objected to would have shown
Mike in bed with a girl. The camera would then pull back to reveal
that the two were on stage, rehearsing a scene for a play. The most
significant instance of Cameron's editorial interference occurred
in the 1989-1990 season which was supposed to involve Mike marrying
his girlfriend Julie. However, Cameron objected to the fact that
actress
Julie McCullough, who
played the popular character Julie Costello, had once posed nude
for
Playboy. Cameron demanded that
the producers fire her or he would quit. McCullough was fired, and
Julie was written out of the series as having left Mike at the
altar.
In 2003, according to the article
"The Re-birth of Kirk Cameron" in
Christianity Today, Cameron "admits
he made some mistakes common to new believers — such as distancing
themselves so far from the world that they do no good for anyone
... In time, however, he realized his missteps. In 2000, he
re-joined his former cast members for a
Growing Pains
reunion movie. He stood in front of his TV family, and apologized
for his behavior. 'I was a 17-year-old guy trying to walk with
integrity, knowing that I was walking in the opposite direction
from many other people. I didn't have the kind of maturity and
graceful way of putting things perhaps that I would now,' he says.
Cameron's fellow actors immediately embraced him.
Other problems
In addition to the problems with Cameron, the show's constant
references to Carol Seaver as "fat" (notwithstanding her normal
weight and size for her age) took their toll on Tracey Gold. The
producers were unaware that Gold had a long history of eating
disorders, and the constant insults of her character eventually
triggered a serious case of
anorexia
nervosa in Gold. She was forced to resign from the cast in
January 1992 and did not return until the 2-part final episode, for
which she had to leave the hospital where she was still undergoing
treatment.
In addition, in 1990, Jeremy Miller, who played younger son Ben
Seaver, began to be stalked by an older man who wrote letters to
Miller expressing his plans to rape the actor. The threat to Miller
resulted in heightened security until the stalker revealed his home
address in a threatening letter and was subsequently arrested and
imprisoned.
Reruns/Syndication
International names
| Country |
Name |
Literal translation |
| Mainland China |
成长的烦恼 (Chéngzhǎng de Fánnǎo) |
Growing up's worry |
Taiwan |
歡樂家庭 (Huānlè Jiātíng) |
Happy Family |
France |
Quoi de neuf docteur? |
What is new doctor? or What's up doc? |
Germany |
Unser lautes Heim |
Our loud home |
Italy |
Genitori in blue jeans |
Parents in blue jeans |
Japan |
愉快なシーバー家 (Yukai na Seava (Seaver) Ke) |
Happy Seaver's family |
| Latin America |
Ay! Cómo duele crecer |
Ouch! How painful is growing up |
Poland |
Dzieciaki, kłopoty i my |
Our kids, trouble and us |
Spain |
Los Problemas Crecen |
The Problems grow |
Sweden |
Pappa vet bäst |
Dad knows best |
United States
ABC aired reruns of the show on its daytime schedule from July 1988
to August 1989. The show originally aired at 11:00am (EST) until
January 1989, when with the cancellation of
Ryan's Hope and the expansion of
Home to an hour (from
11:00am-noon), the reruns moved to 12:00pm.
In the fall of
1989, the show was sold to local
syndication, which continued until
1996. The
show also aired on
TBS for several
years.
Reruns aired on the
Disney Channel
from 1998-2001 with the episodes featuring
Leonardo DiCaprio given special emphasis
in an attempt to draw in
pre-teen crowds
who had recently seen him in the 1997 blockbuster
Titanic. 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 in
2007.
Nick at Nite began airing
Growing
Pains on February 12, 2007, launching with a marathon from
9:00PM ET-1:00AM ET. It was pulled from the line-up shortly after,
and later moved to sister network
The N, where
it aired up until early 2009. It is no longer considered to be on
at a regularly scheduled time, but
GP has seen rare
showtimes on The N's rebranded
TeenNick,
having aired episodes since October 12, 2009.
Latin America
Nick at Nite formerly showed it in Latin America Saturdays and
Sundays at 10:30 pm ET/PT, beginning January 2009, the series was
removed from Nick at Nite.
Asia
- Mainland China
- This show was dubbed in Chinese by the Shanghai Television in the late 1980s
with the title of "Chéngzhǎng de Fánnǎo" (成长的烦恼; Chéngzhǎng means
Growing, Fánnǎo means Pains). It was one of the first American
sitcom introduced to mainland China and instantly became a smash
hit. The show also had a great impact on the Chinese family values
and broadened many people's ideas of parenting. Some parents regard
Dr. and Mrs. Seaver as models and try to befriend their kids after
watching the show. The show has been rerun numerous times across
mainland China up to date. It is becoming popular once again due to
the new DVD release in 2006. Growing Pains remains one of the most
favorite American TV shows in China, where the major cast members
still enjoy huge popularity. Many Chinese use this show as
materials for English learning.
- The recent Disney Channel TV show
Lizzie McGuire was titled in
Chinese as the "New Growing Pains."
- The Chinese sitcom Home with Kids
is considered to be a Chinese adaptation of Growing
Pains.
- Taiwan
- Japan
- Growing Pains was dubbed in
Japanese, and broadcasted by the NHK
of Japan in the title
of "Yukai na Seaver Ke(愉快なシーバー家)" (Happy Seaver's family) from 1997
to 2000.
Europe
Two books published in French exclusively about Growing Pains:
Cyrille Rollet, Ph.D (EHESS, Paris),
- Physiologie d'un sitcom américain (voyage au cœur de Growing
Pains), (volume 1) - Physiology of an American Sitcom (Journey to
the Heart of Growing Pains)
- Circulation culturelle d'un sitcom américain (volume 2) - The
Cultural Circulation of an American Sitcom
DVD Release
On February 7, 2006,
Warner Home
Video released the complete first season of
Growing
Pains on DVD in Region 1. In conjunction with the release,
Thicke, Kerns, Cameron, Gold, and Miller reunited for a
CNN Larry King
Live interview, which aired on that same date. Currently,
it is unknown whether the remaining six seasons will be
released.
| DVD Name |
Ep # |
Release Date |
| Season 1 |
22 |
February 7, 2006 |
Nielsen Ratings
1985-1986 Season: #18
1986-1987 Season: #8
1987-1988 Season: #5
1988-1989 Season: #13
1989-1990 Season: #21
1990-1991 Season: #27
Spinoff
Just the Ten of Us was
an ABC show that had 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. It was a consistent hit on the Friday lineup, but was
abruptly cancelled after three seasons.
References
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