Show Me That Smile Again
While repeats from shows of the past season make me groan with discontent, there's something to be said about watching those very same repeats five, ten or fifteen years later.
This, my friends, is the beauty of syndication.
My latest resurrected obsession has been in the form of Growing Pains repeats.
In case you are too (gasp) young to remember, Growing Pains was a hit TV series from the eighties. Yes, if you want to get technical it was still on in the nineties, but that's where the "hit" part sorta fell out of the equation as by then Kirk Cameron had found religion and the show, as a result, had jumped the shark.
Currently, Growing Pains is being played in back to back repeats on the i Network. All I had to do was watching the opening to be transported back to a simpler time:
Growing Pains was a 30 minute, sitcom that revolved around a family called The Seavers. It starred Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns as parental units, Jason and Maggie Seaver. Their offspring were Tracey Gold (Carol Seaver), Jeremy Miller (Ben Seaver) and the reason the show was a success, Kirk Cameron (Mike Seaver). In later seasons The Seavers went on to have another child named Chrissy Seaver. But she couldn't hold a candle to Josh Andrew Koenig's portrayal of the lovable, Richard "Boner" Stabone.
Growing Pains also had a number of key episodes that featured one day stars before they hit the big time. People like Matthew Perry, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio for instance.
When I started watching Growing Pains again after all of these years, I thought for sure it would have managed to lose some of its appeal; just like when my world was brought to a crashing halt when I realized Punky Brewster's Soleil Moon Frye really couldn't act or how Silver Spoons as a whole really wasn't all that funny. As it turns out, some memories from the past are better off being preserved by staying put.
But amazingly I don't that feeling when I watch Growing Pains now. If anything, I think I appreciate it now more than I did then. I think this is because I couldn't know then that the world of sitcom comedy was going to be expected to be held up by aptly titled shows like Til' Death. The jokes still get me chuckling and I don't find it to be nearly as corny as I thought I would, with the possible exception of the episode where Mike moves out and dad charges him 50 WHOLE dollars to rent the apartment over the garage.
But Growing Pains, while still entertaining, manages to make me feel sad, too. For one thing, I get sad when I think of Kirk Cameron. Say what you want about the man now, but in his day, he MADE Mike Seaver seem like magic. In fact, I have a theory. Kirk portrayed Mike so well that I think the world started believing Kirk and Mike were one in the same. That's why when Kirk, best known as practical joker, skirt chasing Mike, traded in his boyish charm for bible thumping it was so disheartening. Kirk Cameron might have found religion, but that doesn't stop this girl from asking the occasional, What Would Mike Seaver Do?
Then we have the sad story of Tracey Gold who portrayed Carol Seaver. Not unlike the way the public had a hard time seperating Kirk from Mike, Tracey had a hard time seperating Carol from Tracey. On the show, Carol took lots of ribbing for being super smart and sorta nerdy. This was only partially true. In real life, Tracey suffered from dyslexia and was not nearly as smart as her on-screen persona. The jabs at her appearance, however, ran much deeper. Being only a teen at the time, jokes about her weight and appearance eventually took their toll, leading to a widely publicized bout with anorexia nervosa which she ultimately conquered.
Like most classic sitcoms of their time, Growing Pains probably went on one or two seasons past its prime, but when you're in the eye of the hurricane, the best thing you can do is hold on. The show even returned a few times in prime time movie format which, by the way, never work. This is because sitcoms are one genre and made for tv movies are another. Take the laugh track out of a show like Growing Pains and it's like eating a sandwich without the meat.
Unfortunately, kids of today do not know the wonderment of a show like a Growing Pains. If they do, it's merely second-hand knowledge, that of which people of age group might have discovered The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island. They don't have sitcom heroes, or soon to be washed up child stars to look up to. This might not seem like such a bad thing, but its impact is actually much more profound. Ten years from now there will be no Where Are They Now? or reality type programs for these people to be rehabilitated on for there will be no one to rehabilitate.
I don't know about you, but in the eighties, I learned many a life lesson in thirty minute intervals. Sure sitcom schematics is no substitute for the real thing, but that doesn't mean it didn't have just as important of an impact. If they want to know why emo rockers are so angst-ridden, I say they need not look much further than the fall of the great sitcom.
In essence, I suppose you could say life itself is one big growing pain. If only I still had Alan Thicke's lyrical expertise to guide me through it.
This, my friends, is the beauty of syndication.
My latest resurrected obsession has been in the form of Growing Pains repeats.
In case you are too (gasp) young to remember, Growing Pains was a hit TV series from the eighties. Yes, if you want to get technical it was still on in the nineties, but that's where the "hit" part sorta fell out of the equation as by then Kirk Cameron had found religion and the show, as a result, had jumped the shark.
Currently, Growing Pains is being played in back to back repeats on the i Network. All I had to do was watching the opening to be transported back to a simpler time:
Growing Pains was a 30 minute, sitcom that revolved around a family called The Seavers. It starred Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns as parental units, Jason and Maggie Seaver. Their offspring were Tracey Gold (Carol Seaver), Jeremy Miller (Ben Seaver) and the reason the show was a success, Kirk Cameron (Mike Seaver). In later seasons The Seavers went on to have another child named Chrissy Seaver. But she couldn't hold a candle to Josh Andrew Koenig's portrayal of the lovable, Richard "Boner" Stabone.
Growing Pains also had a number of key episodes that featured one day stars before they hit the big time. People like Matthew Perry, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio for instance.
When I started watching Growing Pains again after all of these years, I thought for sure it would have managed to lose some of its appeal; just like when my world was brought to a crashing halt when I realized Punky Brewster's Soleil Moon Frye really couldn't act or how Silver Spoons as a whole really wasn't all that funny. As it turns out, some memories from the past are better off being preserved by staying put.
But amazingly I don't that feeling when I watch Growing Pains now. If anything, I think I appreciate it now more than I did then. I think this is because I couldn't know then that the world of sitcom comedy was going to be expected to be held up by aptly titled shows like Til' Death. The jokes still get me chuckling and I don't find it to be nearly as corny as I thought I would, with the possible exception of the episode where Mike moves out and dad charges him 50 WHOLE dollars to rent the apartment over the garage.
But Growing Pains, while still entertaining, manages to make me feel sad, too. For one thing, I get sad when I think of Kirk Cameron. Say what you want about the man now, but in his day, he MADE Mike Seaver seem like magic. In fact, I have a theory. Kirk portrayed Mike so well that I think the world started believing Kirk and Mike were one in the same. That's why when Kirk, best known as practical joker, skirt chasing Mike, traded in his boyish charm for bible thumping it was so disheartening. Kirk Cameron might have found religion, but that doesn't stop this girl from asking the occasional, What Would Mike Seaver Do?
Then we have the sad story of Tracey Gold who portrayed Carol Seaver. Not unlike the way the public had a hard time seperating Kirk from Mike, Tracey had a hard time seperating Carol from Tracey. On the show, Carol took lots of ribbing for being super smart and sorta nerdy. This was only partially true. In real life, Tracey suffered from dyslexia and was not nearly as smart as her on-screen persona. The jabs at her appearance, however, ran much deeper. Being only a teen at the time, jokes about her weight and appearance eventually took their toll, leading to a widely publicized bout with anorexia nervosa which she ultimately conquered.
Like most classic sitcoms of their time, Growing Pains probably went on one or two seasons past its prime, but when you're in the eye of the hurricane, the best thing you can do is hold on. The show even returned a few times in prime time movie format which, by the way, never work. This is because sitcoms are one genre and made for tv movies are another. Take the laugh track out of a show like Growing Pains and it's like eating a sandwich without the meat.
Unfortunately, kids of today do not know the wonderment of a show like a Growing Pains. If they do, it's merely second-hand knowledge, that of which people of age group might have discovered The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island. They don't have sitcom heroes, or soon to be washed up child stars to look up to. This might not seem like such a bad thing, but its impact is actually much more profound. Ten years from now there will be no Where Are They Now? or reality type programs for these people to be rehabilitated on for there will be no one to rehabilitate.
I don't know about you, but in the eighties, I learned many a life lesson in thirty minute intervals. Sure sitcom schematics is no substitute for the real thing, but that doesn't mean it didn't have just as important of an impact. If they want to know why emo rockers are so angst-ridden, I say they need not look much further than the fall of the great sitcom.
In essence, I suppose you could say life itself is one big growing pain. If only I still had Alan Thicke's lyrical expertise to guide me through it.
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