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Growing Pains is an American television sitcom about an upper-middle class family with a working mother and a stay-at-home psychiatrist father raising three children together, which aired on ABC from 1985 to 1992.
The show's premise is based on the fictional Seaver family, who reside in Huntington, 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). A fourth child, Chrissy Seaver, was born in 1988. She was played in her infant stage by twins Kristen and Kelsey Dohring (who alternated in the role). Beginning in the fall of 1990, Chrissy's age was advanced to six years old, whereupon Ashley Johnson took over the role.
Growing Pains was notable for self-referential humor as early in its history as Season 3, Episode 10. While being administered general anesthesia for a tonsillectomy, Ben listed his favorite TV shows as "Who's The Boss, Moonlighting, and that one that comes between them. The little kid is really good." At the time, Growing Pains ran on ABC between Who's The Boss and Moonlighting.
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:
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.
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 4Take 6; Season 6, part of 7, series finale
There were nine 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.
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.
In 2000, the cast reunited for The Growing Pains Movie, followed by Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers in 2004.
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.
Season 1 was also released on DVD in Region 4 on June 5, 2007.[7]
On April 6, 2010, TVShowsonDVD.com announced that Warner Home Video plans on releasing season 2 sometime in 2011.[8]
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 1997. The show also aired on TBS for several years.
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 9:00PM ET-1:00AM ET. It was pulled from the line-up shortly after, and later moved to sister network The N/TeenNick, where it aired up until early 2010.
Two books published in French exclusively about Growing Pains: Cyrille Rollet, Ph.D (EHESS, Paris),
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