Growing Pains


Growing Pains is an American television sitcom created by Neal Marlens that aired on ABC from September 24, 1985, to April 25, 1992. The show ran for seven seasons, consisting of 166 episodes.

Premise

The Seaver family resides at 15 Robin Hood Lane in Huntington, 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 kids: ladies' man Mike, bookish honors student Carol, and rambunctious Ben. A fourth child, Chrissy Seaver, is born on October 27, 1988, a day after Ben's 12th birthday. She was played in her newborn/infant stage by two uncredited sets of twin sisters, that remained in the role until the end of season four. By season five, she was played in her toddler stage by alternating twins Kirsten and Kelsey Dohring. In seasons six and seven, Chrissy's age was advanced to five years old. 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 nearly the end of season seven.
Often mentioned but rarely seen are the Seavers' next door neighbors the Koosmans - a reference to the 1969 Miracle Mets.

Cast and characters

Main

The season one main opening features various works of art and vintage photography depicting family life, closing with a shot of the cast.
The opening credits from seasons two through five features an opening shot of the cast in front of the Seaver house exterior. This is followed by a series of photos of each cast member from their childhood onward ending with a clip from the show. The credits closed with another shot of the cast in front of the Seaver house before they all run inside. Starting in the second season, several different versions of the opening sequence were filmed. Whoever was the last to go into the house would usually be the focus of that week's episode.
The opening used in seasons six and seven featured opening and shot of the mantle on the Seavers' fireplace panning over photos of the cast. The photos of the cast from childhood remained but instead of clips from the show, current still photos were used. Some versions of these credits end with another shot of the mantle while others close with a montage of group shots from the same family photo shoot which the current photos used in the rest of the credits come from.

Theme song

The show's theme song, "As Long as We Got Each Other", was written and composed by John Bettis and Steve Dorff. It was performed by:
There were nine versions of the theme song used; others included a Halloween-themed version not sung by Thomas or Warnes used in a two-part Halloween episode in 1990. A shorter version of the Thomas/Warnes version was used starting in season two.
There was also an a cappella version of the song which was used for all of season six, but this version was abandoned for most of season seven in favor of the reinstatement of Thomas' and Warnes' duet version, although the a cappella 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.
A soundtrack was released in 1988 titled Steve Dorff and Friends: Growing Pains and Other Hit TV Themes. The soundtrack contains songs penned by Dorff from his television series theme songs and three tracks from Growing Pains:
  1. Theme Song "As Long As We Got Each Other"
  2. Aloha Episode – "Swept Away" by Christopher Cross
  3. Graduation Day Episode – "This Is The Day" performed by B.J. Thomas
The Theme for Growing Pains got airplay on the Adult Contemporary format in early 1989 and peaked at #5 on the Radio & Records AC chart and #7 on the Billboard AC chart.
Another version of "As Long As We Got Each Other" was performed by Louise Mandrell and Eric Carmen in 1988. Their version peaked at #51 on the U.S. Billboard Country chart.

Episodes

Awards and nominations

Spin-off

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.

Reunion movies

In 2000, the cast reunited for The Growing Pains Movie, followed by in 2004.

Home media

has released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1 while the Warner Archive Collection released the remaining seasons as a manufacture-on-demand title that can only be available exclusively through Warner's online store, and Amazon.com.

Syndication

United States

ABC aired reruns of the show on its daytime schedule from July 1988 to August 1989. The show originally aired at 11:00 am until January 1989, when with the cancellation of Ryan's Hope and the expansion of Home to an hour, the reruns moved to 12:00 pm.
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 9:00 pm ET-1:00 am 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. TeenNick re-aired the series on Monday, September 13, 2010, in a 5:00 am hour block, and aired its final showings on December 27, 2010.
Growing Pains aired on Up TV from January 2015-July 2017. Antenna TV began airing the series in December 2017.
It is currently available on the Roku channel as of Nov 2019.

Asia

;Mainland China
;Taiwan
;Japan
;Indonesia
;France
Two books published in French exclusively about Growing Pains: Cyrille Rollet, PhD,
;Germany
The show aired with the title of Unser lautes Heim on ProSieben from 1993.
;Italy
In Italy the series aired in 1987 with the title Genitori in blue jeans.
;Netherlands
The show aired from 1986 with Dutch broadcast organisation AVRO as Growing Pains in English with subtitles in Dutch.

Australasia

;Australia
;New Zealand
The show aired in the beginning of the 1990s in Turkey's first private TV channel, Star TV.

Latin America

The show was previously aired on Nickelodeon's block, Nick at Nite from 2006 until 2009.