Growing Pains

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A separate article is about children's growing pains.


Growing Pains

Format Sitcom
Run time 30 minutes per episode
Creator Neal Marlens
Starring Alan Thicke
Joanna Kerns
Kirk Cameron
Tracey Gold
Jeremy Miller
Ashley Johnson
Leonardo DiCaprio
Country United States
Network ABC
Original run September 24, 1985 – April 25, 1992
No. of episodes 166
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Growing Pains was a television sitcom that ran on the American ABC network from 1985 until 1992.

The show was about Dr. Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist who works from home because his wife, Maggie, has gone back to work as a reporter. Jason has to take care of his kids Mike, Carol, and Ben. The show was quite relevant in the mid-1980s as women going to work was becoming more and more common, as were stay-at-home dads. At the beginning of the last season, a new character was introduced, Luke Brower, played by a then unknown Leonardo DiCaprio, in an attempt to salvage ratings. The show, however, was cancelled at the end of the season.

The 1989–1990 season was retconned out of existence as a dream of Mike Seaver's after Kirk Cameron insisted Julie McCullough be fired for posing for Playboy magazine. Mr. Cameron later apologized for his actions (see below). The season had ended on a cliffhanger where Mike asked Julie to marry him. Initially the character of Julie abandoned Mike at the altar; there was a backlash by fans and she was brought back later to reconcile. McCullough did not find out she was being fired until showing up to film what she thought was a wedding episode.

After his conversion, Cameron's religious beliefs frequently interfered with production of the show. He insisted that no "adult themes" be incorporated into episodes, and often demanded that entire episodes be re-written when he objected to the content (one planned episode revolved around Julie giving Mike the key to her apartment; Kirk Cameron objected to the sexual connotations of this and forced a new script to be written). At one point Cameron publically referred to several of the producers "pornographers" due to the content of some of the episodes. Three producers quit due to Cameron's actions and statements.

In 2003, according to the article "The Rebirth 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 rejoined his former cast members for a Growing Pains reunion movie. With a decade of spiritual growth under his belt, he stood in front of his TV family and apologized. '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."

Gold was absent for almost the entire final season of the show due to her struggle with an eating disorder. Additionally the character of Chrissy was "jumped" five years of age over the course of only one actual year to bring more interest to the show and to give the writers more to play with in terms of storylines.

Reruns of the show aired on the Disney Channel at the end of the 1990s; the episodes featuring Leonardo DiCaprio were given special emphasis in an attempt to draw in tween crowds who had recently seen him in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

Reruns of the show can also be seen in Toronto and Ottawa on the channel CTS.

The theme song ("As Long As We Got Each Other") was performed by B. J. Thomas, Jennifer Warnes (1986–1988, 1989–91, 1992), and made a hit with Dusty Springfield (1988).

Main Cast

Minor Recurring Characters

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External link

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_Pains"
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