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Growing Pains
*In 1990, the producers chose to "leap" the character of Chrissy five years, and she suddenly became seven years-old.
*Producers had to seriously re-tailor the show to better include other cast members after the network complained that the pilot too heavily focused on the Mike character.
*'Leonardo Dicaprio' was brought on in a last ditch effort to pump new life into the show and appeal to the teenage fan base, but alas, the show performed poorly, Dicaprio's character dropped, and the show cancelled.
*Alan Thicke was predominantly known as a Canadian talk show host before the role of Jason on the show. Most involved with the production did not want him, but when no one reading for the part fit the bill, Thicke was auditioned and hired.
*Kirk Cameron was so intent keeping the show devoid of adult themes that he phoned the president of ABC and accused producers Guntzelman, Marshall and Sullivan of being "pornographers". The three then resigned from the show, having had enough of Cameron's shenanigans.
*'Matthew Perry' appeared in the 88-89 season as Carol's boyfriend, Sandy. After a handful of episodes Perry is killed off by having his character die from injuries sustained from a drunk-driving accident.
*Tracey Gold (Carol) suffered from severe anorexia and missed most of the show's final season. Pay close attention to the final episode and you will notice Gold does not take one bite of the pizza she is holding.
*Cameron met his future wife Chelsea Noble, who played Kate, on the show.
*Julie McCullough, who played Kirk Cameron's love interest Julie Costello during the fourth season, was abruptly fired from the show at the start of filming for the episode "Mike and Julie's Wedding" (in which her character would have married Mike Seaver). When she arrived for filming, she was given a new script, in which Julie left Mike at the altar. While no official reason was given to McCullough, it was common knowledge that Kirk Cameron had demanded that she be fired from the series. Cameron, who had become a born again Christian several years earlier, disliked McCullough because the actress had posed in Playboy months before being hired, and demanded her firing as a condition of his signing a new contract. This caused a huge backlash among fans of the series, forcing the show's producers to bring a reluctant McCullough (who had wanted nothing more to do with the show and Kirk Cameron) back in a hastily written episode to give the Julie character proper send-off. (I remember all this stuff!)
*Julie McCollough was unaware of her firing as she was handed the script just moments after showing up on-set. She found it difficult to do a follow-up episode a year later, as her character makes good with Mike, when in real-life she resented Cameron for having her fired.
*Although Mike is the oldest of the Seaver kids, actor Kirk Cameron actually was more than a year younger than Tracey Gold who played Mike's younger sister Carol.
*Growing Pains ran for seven seasons, beginning on September 24th, 1985 and ending on April 24th, 1992. 165 episodes.
*Maura Tierney admitted to having been fired from the show.
*The show was originally supposed to air an episode arc in and around Europe, but the idea was later scrapped when 'Kirk Cameron' expressed a fear of flying.
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