Retro Recommendations: Growing Pains

Today on Retro Recommendations, we focus in on Growing Pains. 

Growing Pains ran for seven seasons, from September 24, 1985 to April 25, 1992 and starred Alan Thicke as Dr. Jason Seaver and Joanna Kerns as Maggie Seaver, with the four Seaver children: Mike (played by Kirk Cameron), Carol (played by Tracey Gold), Ben (played by Jeremy Miller), and Chrissy (played by Kelsey and Kristen Dohring in season 5, and Ashley Johnson in seasons 6 and 7). Then in season 7, Leonardo DiCaprio starred as homeless teen Luke Brower. 

Now Kirk Cameron was an atheist in his early teens, but converted to Christianity during the height of his career on the show. After his change of faith, Cameron began insisting that storylines be changed to remove anything that was adult or inappropriate. After the show's cancelation, he did not maintain contact with any of his co-stars until the reunion film in 2000. He admits, "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. 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."

According to the Ratings History, the ratings decline accelerated by a move to Saturday nights in the final season.

And that's all for Growing Pains, and for today's Retro Recommendations. Hit us up in the comments below! 



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