Trivia / Growing Pains

• Billing Displacement: After the success of Titanic (1997), commercials for the show on Disney Channel focused almost entirely on Luke (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), despite being on the show for only a season. In Japan, the first twenty episodes of that season were released on Laserdisc in 1999 with him getting top billing.
• California Doubling: The "Let's Go to Europe" three-parter was filmed in Catalina Island in California. They were supposed to actually film in Europe, but Kirk Cameron vetoed the idea as, after his religious conversion, he now saw the comparatively open and secular European cultures and people as Satanic.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Italy, the show is called Genitori in Blue Jeans (Parents in Blue Jeans).
  • In Spain, it became Los Problemas Crecen (Issues Grow Up).
  • In Latin America, it's ¡Ay! ¡Cómo duele crecer! (Ouch! Growing up hurts so much!)
  • In China, it's Chéngzhǎng de Fánnǎo (成长的烦恼; literally "Growing vexation").
  • Taiwan calls it Huānlè Jiātíng (歡樂家庭; Happy Family)
  • In Japan, it's Yukai na Shiba Ke (愉快なシーバー家) (Happy Seaver family).
  • In Germany, it's Unser Lausen Heim (Our Noisy Home).
  • In Poland, it's Dzieciaki, kłopoty i my (Kids, Trouble, and Us).
• Creative Differences: After Kirk Cameron started forcing his new-found Christian values on the show, the producers tried to fire him, but the network wouldn't let them, so they quit the show. This ultimately led to the show being cancelled.
• Creator Backlash: While he doesn't feel this way toward the show itself, Kirk Cameron did say in later years that he regretted how immature he was in trying to force his newfound religious beliefs on the rest of the cast.
• The Danza: Mike's girlfriend Julie Cotello was played by Julie McCullough.
• Directed by Cast Member: Joanna Kerns' first directing assignment came on one of the last episodes.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This was the only Western show that was aired in China during the '90s, and it became popular there because it was the only way people could see what American culture was like.
• The Pete Best: Carol was played by Elizabeth Ward in the pilot, but was replaced by Tracey Gold when the show went to air.
• Posthumous Credit: Judith Barsi was credited in the series finale, three years after she had died.
• Produced by Cast Member: After his conversion to Christianity, Kirk Cameron became a Moral Guardian of the show, objecting to anything he considered too sexual (which was a lot). He straight-up referred to executive producers Mike Sullivan, Steve Marshall and Dan Guntzelman as "pornographers", forcing the three to quit because he was that insufferable.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Inverted. Kate, Mike's girlfriend, was played by Chelsea Noble who would later marry Kirk Cameron.
  • Played straight with Kirk's sister Candace Cameron Bure, who was featured as one of Ben's classmates.
  • Robin Thicke, Alan Thicke's son, appeared in three episodes. He was named "Ralph" in "Ben and Mike's Excellent Adventure.
• Romance on the Set: Kirk Cameron ended up marrying Chelsea Noble, who he met when she made a guest appearance on the show.
  • Subverted with Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns who were both recent divorcees during casting and who admit they were attracted to one another. But they reasoned that a show might last longer than a relationship, and didn't want any relationship drama carrying over to the show.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Not only does Tracey Gold look like she could believably be Kirk Cameron's sister, but she also looks like Kirk's actual sister, Candace Cameron Bure.
• Troubled Production: The series suffered through this after Kirk Cameron became a born-again Christian in the middle of Season 3. Immediately thereafter, he began alienating most of the cast and crew.
  • Cameron got into frequent clashes with the writers for adding even the slightest bit of innuendo in the scripts, and many of the lines Cameron refused to say ended up being transferred to other cast members, primarily Jeremy Miller, who played Cameron's younger brother.
  • Finally, the producers had enough and demanded to ABC executives that they fire Cameron; the network refused and the producers quit.
  • Eventually, Cameron cut all ties with his TV family; he refused to invite them to his wedding, and Tracey Gold refused to invite Cameron to hers, suspecting that Cameron wouldn't attend. It wasn't until the Growing Pains reunion movie in 2000 that he ended up making contact with them again, and owned to his past behavior.
• Wag the Director: After converting to Christianity, Kirk Cameron became a Moral Guardian and started forcing his views onto the production. At one point he called up then ABC Entertainment president Bob Iger and accused executive producers Dan Guntzelman, Mike Sullivan, and Steve Marshall of being pornographers (really).^note Even more ironically, Marshall would actually be arrested for child pornography in 2010. The three men couldn't fire the guy, since it was his mug in all the teen magazines, so they simply quit the show. By the penultimate season, Cameron attempted to distance himself from the show; he did not invite his TV family to his wedding, and didn't make any further contact with them until the reunion special in 2000. Years later, Cameron admitted that his behavior was immature and inappropriate, and apologized to his former castmates.
• What Could Have Been: Bruce Willis was considered for Dr. Jason Roland Seaver. Alan Thicke was also considered for David Addison, Jr. in Moonlighting. ABC was high on both Willis and Thicke in 1985 and wanted to find vehicles for them both. One of them was going to land on Growing Pains and one of them was going to land on Moonlighting.
  • Leonardo DiCaprio was brought in as Luke in Season 7 to try and salvage the show's flagging ratings and replace Kirk Cameron in the role of teen heartthrob. By this point, Cameron's religious zealotry had made him insufferable, leading him to clash with the producers, the writers, and his fellow castmates. Mike was slowly shifted Out of Focus over the course of Season 7, and would have been Put on a Bus so that the show could be rebuilt around Luke had it continued. But it continued to slide in the ratings, and ABC decided at the mid-season break that they would cancel the show after the season. For what it is worth, both Sitcoms Online and Television Without Pity decided that an effective After Show that was sans Mike and Carol, and was being held up solely by Luke, Ben and Chrissy, would have sent ratings from merely weakening into a decisive talespin.
• You Look Familiar: Brooke Theiss and Jamie Luner, who had both appeared before as other characters, played Coach Lubbock's daughters in the Poorly Disguised Pilot for Just the Ten of Us.

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