Growing Pains


Growing Pains is an American television sitcom created by Neal Marlens that ran on ABC for seven seasons from September 24, 1985, to April 25, 1992. The series follows the misadventures of the Seaver family, including psychiatrist and father Jason, journalist and mother Maggie, and their children Mike, Carol, Ben, and Chrissy. 166 episodes were produced.

Premise

The show centers on the Seaver family of Huntington, a town on Long Island, New York. Dr. Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist, works from home because his wife, Maggie, has gone back to work as a reporter.
Jason has to take care of the children: ladies' man and rebellious troublemaker Mike ; bookish honors student Carol ; and rambunctious Ben, who follows Mike as his role model and becomes a troublemaker too. A fourth child, Chrissy Seaver, was added in Season 4. In Season 7, Luke Brower, a homeless teen, was adopted into the Seaver family.

Cast and characters

Main

  • Alan Thicke as Dr. Jason Roland Seaver. Dr. Seaver is a graduate of Boston College and holds a Doctorate in Psychology. He initially practiced at Long Island General Hospital before working from home and volunteering at his local community's free clinic.
  • Joanna Kerns as Margaret Katherine "Maggie" Seaver. Maggie is also a graduate of Boston College where she met her future husband and majored in Child Psychology before switching to Journalism. Prior to her marriage, she worked as a researcher for Newsweek magazine. She is a reporter for the Long Island Daily Herald and for the television news program Action News on Channel 19. She is also a columnist for the Long Island Sentinel.
  • Kirk Cameron as Michael Aaron "Mike" Seaver. Mike, the oldest child, attended Wendell Wilkie Elementary School before moving to Dewey High School. He accumulates multiple menial jobs. Waiter at The World of Burgers, Salesman at The Stereo Village, Car wash attendant, night man at the Stop and Shop convenience store, singing waiter at Sullivan's Tavern. Of average ability, he aspires nonetheless to become an actor. He enrolls at Alf Landon Junior College and, later, at Boyton State College. At Alf Landon, Mike was a member of the Drama Club where he meets his girlfriend Kate McDonald in the play "The Passion". He eventually becomes a teacher of remedial studies at a Community Health Centre.
  • Tracey Gold as Caroline Anne "Carol" Seaver. Carol is the second born child. She attended Dewey High School where she was a candidate for the 1988 Homecoming Queen and President of the Future Nuclear Physicists Club. She later attends Columbia University but drops out to work as a computer page breaker at GSM Publishing. She returns to Columbia to study law and works with her father at the free clinic.
  • Jeremy Miller as Benjamin Hubert Horatio Humphrey "Ben" Seaver. Ben attends the same elementary and high school as his siblings. Heavily influenced by his older brother, Ben holds a number of menial jobs including newspaper delivery boy and attempts to make money by managing a rap group.

    Later additions

  • A fourth child, Christine Ellen "Chrissy" Seaver, is born at the beginning of season 4, a day after Ben's 12th birthday. She was played in her newborn/infant stage by 2 uncredited sets of twin sisters, who remained in the role until season 4 ended. By season 5, she was played in her toddler stage by alternating twins Kirsten and Kelsey Dohring. In seasons 6 and 7, Chrissy's age was advanced to 5 years old and she was played by Ashley Johnson.
  • A new cast member was added for the seventh and final season when homeless teen Luke Brower is brought into the Seaver family to live with them until the end of season 7.

    Recurring

  • Andrew Koenig as Richard Milhous "Boner" Stabone, Mike's friend; left to join the United States Marine Corps.
  • Chelsea Noble as Kate MacDonald, Mike's girlfriend. They both meet at Alf Landon Junior College. She later becomes a model and appears in the 1992 swimsuit edition of The Sporting Man magazine.
  • Jamie Abbott as Stinky Sullivan, Ben's friend.
  • K. C. Martel as Eddie Ziff, Mike's friend.
  • Sam Anderson as Principal Willis DeWitt, Mike's history teacher in season one and principal from season 2 onward.
  • Lisa Capps as Debbie, Carol's friend.
  • Rachel Jacobs as Shelley, Carol's friend.
  • Betty McGuire as Kate Malone ; Maggie's mother.
  • Gordon Jump as Ed Malone, Maggie's father.
  • Julie McCullough as Julie Costello, Mike's former girlfriend who was originally hired by Jason to be Chrissy's nanny. Julie is a sophomore at Columbia University majoring in Child Psychology. When she and Mike break up, she quits school and becomes a waitress at Le Village Restaurant.
  • Bill Kirchenbauer as Coach Graham Lubbock, a gym teacher.
  • Jane Powell as Irma Seaver, Jason's mother.
  • Jodi Peterson as Laura Lynn, Ben's girlfriend/love interest.
  • Kevin Wixted as Bobby Wynette, Carol's boyfriend.
  • Christopher Burgard as Dwight Halliburton, Carol's love interest.
  • Evan Arnold as Richie Flanscopper, Carol's school classmate who has a crush on her.
  • Fred Applegate as Mr. Fred Tedesco, the principal of the learning annex where Mike teaches.
  • Matthew Perry as Sandy, Carol's love interest of 3 episodes. He died several hours after a DUI accident following 'a few beers'.

    Episodes

Production

Casting

Soon after the cancelation of The Four Seasons, Joanna Kerns auditioned for a new series in late 1984, called Growing Pains, which was being developed by screenwriter Neal Marlens, alongside executive producer Mike Sullivan. She auditioned with Alan Thicke, who was coming off the failure of his syndicated late-night talk show Thicke of the Night. 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.
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. 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.
Marlens and most of the original writing and producing staff—including Marlens' wife, Carol Black, who had quickly ascended from story editor to co-executive producer during the first half of the season—were let go from the series midway through its first season. Replacing Marlens and joining Sullivan as showrunners were Steve Marshall and Dan Guntzelman, who met and formed their writing partnership while working on WKRP in Cincinnati.
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. Co-star Joanna Kerns recalled DiCaprio being "especially intelligent and disarming for his age," but also mischievous on set.
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 earned 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.

Opening and closing credits

The opening theme song, "As Long As We've Got Each Other", was written by John Bettis, composed by Steve Dorff, and produced by Dorff and Gary Klein. The song was performed solo by B. J. Thomas for the first season, accompanied by Jennifer Warnes for much of the remainder of the series' run. For Season 4, a rock orchestration of the duet was used, with Dusty Springfield accompanying Thomas. An a cappella version of the tune was used in Season 6 and for four episodes during Season 7, including the series finale. The end theme was an instrumental version of the song, accompanied by a saxophone lead.
The show's original opening credits sequence featured vintage photos and paintings showcasing families throughout history, followed by a photo of the main cast in the Seaver family kitchen that transitioned from sepia-toned to color at the end. Season 2 introduced the familiar sequence that bookended footage of the cast standing in front of the Victorian-style house at the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank backlot that was used for establishing exterior shots of the Seaver residence, with photos of each cast member during their formative years and a selection of clips from various episodes.
The opening credits, especially from Seasons 2 through 5, differed from traditional sitcoms by incorporating sight gags, involving specifically shot scenes with the cast on-location, albeit with far more variation. The close of the sequence during those seasons saw most of the Seavers leaving their standing position to go into the house; Seasons 2 and 3 used a single clip in which Jason stayed a few seconds behind the other Seavers, before following the rest of the family, while Seasons 4 and 5 featured several variations showing a different family member lagging behind the others.
The two-part third season premiere "Aloha" featured the Seavers standing in front of the Maui Prince Hotel, with clips from the episode interspersed with the vintage cast photos., while "Birth of a Seaver" has the theme music abruptly stop as Maggie discovers that she is in labor, with the family ushering her back to the house as the song finishes. The youngest member, infant Chrissy, is featured thereafter, with Carol holding an "It's a Girl" sign in the gag for "Family Ties ".
The title sequence for the final two seasons featured the Seavers doing a family photoshoot, opening and closing with shots of current and past family photos above the Seavers' fireplace mantle. Although the "formative years" photo montages were kept, clips from previous episodes were replaced with still photos of each cast member. However, Season 6 would feature two episodes incorporating special title sequences: the two-part anthology episode "Happy Halloween" and "All the World's a Stage".