Original subtitles

I'm waiting to see who's going to show up. I know Carol's going to be here and

Ben, Maggie, and Jason, but I'm kind of waiting to see who the surprise guest is

going to be, if any.

I'm getting to do an evening like this where I get to see all my old, my second

family. It's nice with everybody's busy schedules and everybody working. It's

kind of hard for all of us to get together.

Well, for me, it's the food.

I come here for the food.

Well, I'm excited. It's always fun when all of us get to sit down and just talk.

And I think to have a structured format to get to talk about the first season

and how we all got our parts and stuff, I always think that's fun.

How about you, Joanna?

If that's your real name.

Being with you, Al.

That's what I'm excited about.

Well, you'll get over it.

I hear Tim O'Donnell is going to be here.

My anticipation tonight is to just get a look at these guys who kind of went out

of my life 15 years ago when growing pains ended for me.

I don't know. Whenever we get around, it's nice to reminisce and, you know,

listen to Al shoot jokes about different scenarios that happened and give Joanne

a hard time like he always did.

I love this hair.

Thank you. And it fits real nicely, too. You don't see any of the seams?

hide everything.

So it's just good to see them, and it's always interesting when all five of us

get together, so we should be good. We got along famously, and we've been the

best of friends ever since.

Maybe that's the secret, to have a daytime husband.

No, not a nighttime husband.

I know, I know, I know.

Come on, Dad.

Leave her alone.

I thought this would finally be the opportunity to put the move on Joanna

Kearns. And if you had played your cards right.

I could have been the fifth. She could have had me. I know.

But no.

And I'm looking forward to just getting the Growing Pains DVDs to show my kid so

that they can know what their dad did all these years.

Here we are. Now this is something we never did in seven years.

I do this at home. Hey, we're lucky to have... You get the marshmallows in here

and the hot marshmallow melts the chocolate for you as you... We had puck

stick.

There she goes.

Tracy, your marshmallow's on fire.

Mine will be well done. No, but it's good when it's crispy on the outside. I

don't remember complaining about lines or anything in the show because I always

knew that Joanna would be in your office.

And if there was anything even remotely complainable, we had our designated

complainer. No, no.

That's the way I remember it. I don't think I've even ever asked you guys

How everybody got the part on Growing Plains. Do you remember the first

audition, how you got the part?

Oh, absolutely.

Because I remember mine.

I remember mine. How did you get... I think you were cast first.

Was I? Were you cast first? Well, I think so. I think so. I think Mike told

that you... Wasn't Alan cast first? No. Alan was... I was cast last.

I was cast last.

Yeah. Yeah. Table reading was at 10. I believe the casting was at 9 .45. That

deal closed.

Alan and I got cast, like, back to back. And I think you were first. What was

your audition like?

Well, I auditioned. See, I thought I had this show kind of in the bag early on

because I went to the network to test, and I go in, and there's about 30 women

and Alan, and one other actor, Canadian actor, right? 30 women and Alan. I've

seen that lots of times.

One other Canadian actor, it was Wayne Gretzky. No, it wasn't Wayne Gretzky. It

was a guy that was on SCTV or something.

Could have been. Something like that. Anyway, we went in, and we were supposed

to kiss in it, and I went up kissing him on the end of his nose because it was

in the way.

I remember getting the call and walking into

the audition room, and I was simply told, go kiss that girl over there, the

blonde girl.

And so I walked over. You and I had about two lines together, and then we

intimate. Yeah.

You say you were into it? Well, that too, yes. Oh, I'm sorry.

And we had some chemistry, and it worked out. And the next thing I remembered is

the audition takes place in this sort of amphitheater with a bunch of guys in

darkness, a bunch of suits in darkness, and Rose up there somewhere, and we were

auditioning and kissing.

And then I heard a voice from the top saying, Alan, you sure you want to do

this? He gave me the job on the spot just for kissing her.

And then the next day we showed up.

What was your audition like? Well, I remember going to the audition. It was

like every other audition where my mom picked me up from school and she had a

nice pressed shirt hanging in the VW bug and a pair of pressed...

and I had to tuck in my shirt, and she would, you know, brush my hair. And we

were there about 45 minutes late. You know, I had kind of like that little

haircut, you know, when I was younger.

And we were about 45 minutes late, and I was one of the last auditions for the

day. And I ran in there while my mom was out in the parking lot. She said, run,

run, run, maybe you can still get in.

And the door was closed.

and the casting director said, I'm sorry, we're closing up, we're finished.

And I said, oh, my mom's going to kill me.

I've been dragging my feet to get down here, and please let me in.

And I went in, and it was Mike Sullivan and John Pasquin were in there, and they

read with me, and they let me be the last guy to come in.

And I remember just reading the lines, and then after I was finished, I was a

little confused, and I asked Pasquin and Sullivan, I said, now, is this show a

comedy or what?

And I think they kind of, I heard later that they had kind of said, well, he's

not the therapist's knife in the drawer, but let's call him back for the next

audition.

So I got called back and then eventually got the part, and I thought, oh, great.

If you're waiting around for a smart actor in casting, it could be a while.

You've got to take someone who's cute and can do the jokes, which you sure

could. I remember when I first saw Kirk and I said, I had been, already

producing and writing some shows, so I knew how the business part worked.

And I remember seeing Kirk and saying, this guy is really cute.

So when we negotiate my contract, I want whatever he's getting.

I know. And I was smart enough to tie our contract together for a while

because I knew that you would become what they called the breakout star, that

every show looks for somebody with really

special qualities and a great look and somebody you think will be easy to work

with.

And you had it all, and you had it instantly, and everybody saw it.

But I was the guy who cashed in on it.

What was yours? All right, my story is way more complicated than your guys'

story. I went up for growing pains, and I didn't get it.

And I went, like, one time.

I went to a casting, then I went to producers.

Didn't get it.

Be careful. She doesn't spare you with that. You and I knew each other. Kirk

I knew each other before. So I knew Kirk was auditioning for Growing Pains also.

And he got it. That's right. We played brother and sister before we were ever

brothers. Like a couple times. Yeah.

And then. We even kind of boyfriend and girlfriend a little bit on the best of

times. Yeah.

And that was right before. Like that was right before.

And we went on. And I had my sweet 16.

And I saw Kirk there, and he had gotten Growing Pains, and I hadn't gotten it,

and you guys had shot it. And I was like, that would have been a fun one to

I was kind of a bummer. I didn't get it.

And my dad got a phone call saying that they were recasting Growing Pains, and

they wanted to see me. And they wanted to bring me back. And I'm sort of like,

well, they already saw me. They didn't like me. What, do I need to go back so

they can say, oh, yeah, that's right, we didn't like her?

I'm like, I'm not going back. And also, I'm vacationing. I don't want to do

this. So my dad said, look, we'll bring her back.

They said, we're going to see girls all week. And he says, look, if you haven't

found anyone by the end of the week, I'll bring her back with me.

And I'm thinking, all right, they'll find somebody. Not a big deal. That's a

good deal.

I'll come back at the end of the week thinking.

No way they won't find someone.

Get the phone call at the end of the week.

They hadn't found anyone.

I went back.

I auditioned for the show.

And they liked me.

And then I got it, and I was at the Growing Pains photo shoot, like, the

day. Right. And meeting all you guys, like, the new kid in school.

And basically, like, I think your mom gave me a tape of the pilot, which I had

never seen.

I had no idea what it was. So I'm like, got home that night and was like, oh, I

guess I should probably watch and see what I'm going to be doing for the next,

you know, little while. And I'd always been in shows that, like, failed.

So I never thought this would, like, go far at all.

Well, I think it's neat that most people don't even know that there was a

different Carol in the very beginning, and then it was all re -shot.

We didn't hear your audition story.

Mine, being as young as I was, was short.

The story around it is a lot more interesting.

Going in for the first audition was like any other, probably 300 kids there.

waited around 45 minutes to an hour to get in, got in and saw him. And I don't

even remember reading the lines. Being at that age, they were more interested

personality and everything else. So we sat and talked for 15 minutes before I

think I even read the three lines. And what Mike and them still say is that

gave it to me because of my dolphin calls, which was one of the first things

showed them when I got in there was these high -pitched squeals I could do.

don't know. Okay, let's hear it. No, you're hitting my voice change. What do

want from me? You just chewed yourself.

You told jokes and all kinds of different...

How, like, they dyed your hair, like, dark, and then you went blonde?

Well, that was the first, when I first auditioned, it was dark still from the

movie I'd done, the Deception film I'd done in London, and they thought that

good because I matched Alan a little bit better.

That's when he had dark hair. And then the first year, quite literally, that

they put in me started wearing off, and they kept dyeing my hair to match Alan.

I'll lend you some of the stuff I use now.

It was still nice. But actually, the interesting thing was they had me slated

to...

screen test for another show that same week for Fathers and Sons with Merlin

Olsen and a bunch of other people and my agent as well as everybody else was

telling me that that's the one I should do that they had never heard of this

Growing Pains thing and you know who knew what was going to happen and that I

should take the big names and Merlin Olsen and this and that and the other

and I don't know my mom and my grandmother were dead set on me going

Growing Pains one and what a great choice they made.

I was in the ABC executive offices as a writer pitching

a new show.

And having just come off the canceled Thick of the Night, where every

time I read about it, it was the ill -fated.

I thought my middle name was ill -fated. And as I'm pitching the show to ABC,

and they're listening, and it wasn't a bad show idea. And they said, but, you

know, we got this other thing you might be interested in.

They're looking for an Alan Thicke type. I said, well, excuse me, I've just been

canceled.

My show was a national joke, and I could be driving Zamboni next year for all I

know. So if you're looking for an Alan Thicke type, maybe I could read. That's

how I got the reading.

There were two people, one other guy being considered. There were two shows

that year, and they kind of liked me for something, and they liked this other

actor for something.

And they weren't sure who to put on what show.

And it was like kind of a coin toss.

I don't know. It was a coin toss as to who might have ended up in which

Okay, here's the question. Was there bonding the first year?

No, I didn't have my teeth done until you were.

All right. I'll feed that from a kid's point of view. I mean, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, very first year I was already looking at.

You as my older sister, him as my obnoxious brother, and, you know, my

mean, I had already started, I mean, given very young and very immature at

time, but had already started to care about everybody on the show like a

And those feelings were constantly there. And it was, I mean, no one ever

treated me any different than you treated me like a little brother. I

was fun. We'd go out and throw the ball around. You'd beam me.

You know, as a little kid, that's fun. You look back on it now and you go, hey,

wait a second. But at the time.

Oh, dear.

What do I see here?

It's just like you ordered. Three parts peanut butter, one part marshmallow, a

dollop of cream cheese topped with one and a half raisins.

Yes, but I still see a speck of crust.

You know my feelings about crust.

Okay, I'll cut it off.

No, Michael, that just won't do.

In the state I'm in, I'll need an all -new another sandwich.

A new sandwich?

I see salami and cheese and a tiny French mustard.

I remember you being

so sad at the end of the season because you have to go back to school and we

have the stairway that we would make our entrances on that the audience didn't

see and you'd sit way up at the top behind the stage.

Putting your gum on the wall and being very upset. Or buried in a book, one of

the two. But we all knew when you got kind of melancholy about going back to

school. Absolutely. Having to leave you guys was hard.

And then you come back a few months later and you'd have grown like four

I remember always thinking that like...

Especially, like, you know, like, that first season. I mean, it was so

I mean, it really felt, like, exciting.

And, like, being with all you guys and everything.

And the weekend would come, and I couldn't wait for, like, Monday. I was

excited to go back because it was just so much fun.

I mean, it was just such a fun experience, and it was exciting, and I

of you. And it was just a neat, like, I just felt really lucky to, like, be

there. The reason you're not chaperoning is because...

Your unacceptable parents.

Unacceptable parents?

Carol, you heard this?

Not just me.

Scotty Siegler heard every word of it.

All right!

I don't get it.

She said, I have a mother who abandoned me, a brother who's a delinquent, a

father who runs a mental ward at home.

She made my life sound like a movie of the week.

Alan and I were both going through divorces at the time.

And on one side of it, it was kind of a, you know, that part of it was not a

great thing. It was a big transitional time for both of us.

And we became really great friends right away.

We were bonding. We had a lot in common.

We did.

But I remember thinking it just took off when the show took off.

I think we all knew what a gift it was. It was like an energy.

There was an energy about it, and the audiences would come in.

I remember Dan Gunselman saying that the test of a really good writing,

when you've created a character well, is that a character can walk across the

stage and never say the line you think they're going to say, and you get the

laugh because they didn't say the line.

And that started to happen that year. Just walk in. You'd walk in. All you had

to do was look.

And the laugh would come. And it was just fun. It was great fun.

I remember the set being so much fun that you guys will remember that my real

-life kids, who were Jeremy's age, came over every day after school. So it

became almost daycare.

My guys would come over, and when there was an appropriate scene going on in the

classroom or the school cafeteria where you could use extras, my guys would get

thrown into the thing. And then our younger brother, our younger sisters.

And we never, ever, any of us had a birthday party or a Halloween or

special occasion where everybody didn't come and get invited so my boys felt

like part of the extended family and I remember when I heard that I got the

I was in a parking garage somewhere, and I had gotten that phone call, and I was

in tears because I had just been canceled months ago off this

debacle that I hosted against Johnny Carson. And I was so beaten

up and so defeated that as soon as I heard that I got it, I just kind of

down. And the first calls, in fact, the only calls I made were to my sons. I

said, you got it. to hear what has happened our lives will be good yeah

and because it was it was a frightening desperate time just before that I

was I was worried yeah I didn't I thought I would be too young for

the part

When I was testing for it, of course, Alan's got a joke coming. I know what

going to get me on this one.

You guys made me older than him on the show.

Yeah. Remember?

I was like, I wasn't 40 yet. That was one of my favorite episodes.

And you guys had me celebrate my 40th birthday. I must have complained about

something. That's all I can say. It's in the writer's book. We'll get her. We'll

get her back.

Will you like your character, Alan?

The Jason Seaver and Seaver family values, I think, are very close to my

My own style of parenting was probably very similar. I think as Jason, I was

kind of a cheerleader, and you always wanted to see the good in the family and

rely on the better instincts of your children, of course, none of which

to be true in real life.

And that's what made our show funny, because dads, moms, we always want to

that. Moms are probably a little more suspicious.

our cheerleaders, especially with boys.

But I was proud of the role because I did feel that it reflected things that I

would be happy to stand for.

Hi, Ben.

Hi. Where's your brother?

Up the down.

Where's your sister?

In her room. Where's the couch?

I don't know. Was there a minute ago?

Okay, I'll clean it up.

Nah, nah, don't clean it up. Don't worry.

Come here, put those feet up here. Leave those shoes on. Be a kid.

And I always felt responsible out in public for our roles and who we were.

I'd be in a restaurant and be...

conscious of the table next next door that would recognize me and i want to

sure my manners were good and i wasn't slopping food and i wasn't minding my

language i mean i was i was very aware of what we were putting out there and in

public you know i i learned a lot from you alan because i remember when we were

going through when they launched the show and i don't remember if they did

with you guys because you were younger but alan and i went out and we did all

the press

And he kind of coached me on what I should say and what I shouldn't say. And

first of all, say it faster.

One thing, say it faster.

But I remember you saying to me that we were going to get a lot of attention

initially because of this going back to the thick of the night thing, that you'd

had such negative press.

And you put your arm around me and you said, don't worry about it. They're

tuning in.

And in an interesting way, they did.

And it was, I watched you handle that whole situation with such

class and humor.

I mean, it was, I really learned a lot from you.

You bet.

I did.

We'd always just get our clothes from the wardrobe room.

Yeah, we'd wear them home. Alan, you lived in the wardrobe room. Judith was

best. Oh, yeah.

To this day, I have stuff that says GP or WB for Warner Brothers. Are you

serious? On a belt or a shoe or a pair of pants. Oh, yeah. As writers, we used

to do something occasionally. I could admit to it after all these years.

Because Alan had a habit, he was a guy on the go, he was comfortable, he had

stuff to do right after the show.

he would often leave wearing his wardrobe.

So for a few weeks in a row, we made sure that whatever scene we shot last,

tag, would usually happen at night, and he'd come downstairs in his robe or the

bedroom. Because we knew, although you were pretty clever, you probably weren't

going to go home in your pajamas and robe.

And that's kind of how we broke it down.

Dad,

I'm confident when you hear my story.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

to tell Ben to be quiet, but did he listen? No. He persisted.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was wrong.

How's the paper coming, honey?

They kept wondering why that wardrobe budget was so big.

I never went shopping for seven years.

The word, though, was you started showing up in clubs around town in

a robe.

You did come to work one day in a robe.

Because you've gotten locked out of your closet was the story.

Well, you lived close enough to fight. I recall you riding a bike to work. I

did. I used to ride a bike. I knew exactly how long it would take. It was a

seven -minute bike ride or a three -and -a -half -minute car ride.

Sometimes I'd be on the tennis court and I'd get the call saying, we're doing

your scene in 12 minutes.

Fine, put the racket down on the bike and I'm there on time.

I was freeway close.

One of the things that I remember from Growing Pains was all of the kids that

met through organizations like Make -A -Wish Foundation and Starlight who would

come down to meet the cast.

You started your camp then, didn't you?

Was that first year or was that later?

Well, we started Growing Pains, what, 1985?

Right. Tracy?

September, wait, no, June 1985.

June 1985, there you go.

June 1985.

Yeah, and then after meeting a lot of families who had come down to the set,

started Camp Firefly in 1989.

And it was just wanting to do something more for the families than, hi, how are

you, signing an autograph, taking a picture. And we thought, boy, isn't

something else we can do? And so we started Camp Firefly.

which is a week -long retreat for seriously ill children and their

Watching civilians come to that stage every week and meet you guys, they

certainly weren't there to see the writers or the producers. They were

see the stars that played the characters that they loved so much.

I've done a lot of shows since I've done Growing Pains. I've never seen a cast

that was as gracious and as patient as you guys were with those fans.

I've never seen it.

You guys have all been on other series and other showbiz situations since then.

You've probably never seen it either. It's gotten faster and people are a

colder.

You guys absolutely enjoyed that feeling of those people were just crazy about

you, and it seemed like you'd stay there talking to them until they were all

done. Maybe I'm wrong, but you guys can give your own memories. It was a

phenomenon how popular you were, and it was phenomenal to me how...

good you were with your time and your charity work. It was truly amazing.

Alan used to go out into the audience and do warm -up.

One of my favorite things was when I wasn't, which happened often being as

as I was, wasn't in a lot of the different scenes or whatever.

I'd just go out and sit with the people who were in line waiting for the show

before filming day.

talk and i mean they were they were awesome they loved everything about the

and just were so thoroughly interested in everything it was it was great

to meet everybody i think what was also fun like being a kid is that like in

doing the show is like people would say oh i'm such a fan of the show and i

would i would feel like me too you know it's like when people say now like oh my

god i grew up with you i'm like i did too like i feel the same way because i

love tv and i loved growing pains i liked watching it and so it was like a

of like something that we hadn't common and it was fun to share that it was just

really like it was just such a neat experience and it was like a gift you

that we had able to run around and be there i i hear from people now in person

in public in places and uh i often hear somebody say oh i grew up with you you

raised me

To which, you know, you're stuck after a while. I didn't do a very good job, did

I? Or, well, I'm very proud of the way it turned out. But a lot of people

identify with our stories and the characters and how we parented. And I

that they genuinely do feel that they were in our family and in our home.

I'll tell you.

I've been on the number one or two show on television, and I've been on the

number 102 show on television.

And what makes hit television show is television stars.

And nobody talks about the writing more than I do. I love to talk about it as a

writer, and the directing's great too.

But the hits that are on television today are because people want to watch

folks who are on camera.

It's always been that way, and it's never been any more that way than it was

with this show.

And you look around here, you look at five television stars, and that's what

guys were in that series from the get -go.

You each had followings. You each had fans out there who wanted to stop you,

talk to you, touch you.

That's what made Growing Pains a big hit.

One, two, three, four, five.

And that's the absolute truth, you guys.

Shouldn't we get more money?

Anybody know the Growing Pink theme song?

Show me that smile again.

Don't waste another minute on your crying.

We're nowhere near.

The best is ready to begin.

As long as we got each other.

We can take anything that comes our way, baby, rain or shine,

all the time.

We got each other sharing the laughter and love.

We'll see you next time.