1. ALAN THICKE WAS KNOWN AS A FAILED LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST WHEN HE WAS ASKED TO AUDITION.
Did you know it's been over 20 years since Growing Pains wrapped? We officially feel old.
It seems like only yesterday we were keeping up with the Seaver family and all of their crazy antics.
Let's take a look at what really happened on set behind closed doors!
Thicke had concluded his run hosting Thicke of the Night and was pitching a new show at ABC. The network suggested trying out for the male lead of Growing Pains.
2. THE SEAVER PARENTS WERE RECENTLY DIVORCED WHEN THE SHOW STARTED.
Thicke beat out 150 other actors for the role.
Thicke and Joanna Kerns were both either recently divorced or about to divorce from their significant others when they began playing Jason and Maggie Seaver.
3. DAN LAURIA WAS CAST IN THE WONDER YEARS BECAUSE OF GROWING PAINS.
Thicke said the two flirted and considered dating, before realizing how potentially bad their working relationship could become if their romance fizzled.
Dan Lauria was dating Joanna Kerns when Neal Marlens, the creator of Growing Pains and the co-creator of The Wonder Years, was casting for the latter series.
4. TRACEY GOLD WASN’T THE ORIGINAL CAROL.
Kerns made a call to Marlens on her boyfriend’s behalf and got him the audition his agent couldn’t secure.
Elizabeth Ward played Carol in Growing Pains's unaired original pilot. Gold’s family ended their vacation early in order to get Tracey back to audition once the show decided to go in a different direction with casting the Seavers' eldest daughter.
5. KIRK CAMERON GOT THE ROLE OF MIKE BECAUSE HE DIDN’T SEEM VERY SMART.
Gold wasn't optimistic about her chances, since the producers had rejected her the first time around.
Once his audition was over, the 14-year-old actor asked the producers in the room if the show was a comedy. They laughed.
6. CAMERON AND GOLD HAD PLAYED SIBLINGS BEFORE.
Once Cameron was out of earshot one producer turned to the other and said, “He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he sounds like Mike.”
The two played brother and sister in a McDonald’s commercial.
7. BEN SEAVER REALLY LOVED HIS TV FAMILY.
They also both appeared in the 1982 made-for-TV movie, Beyond Witch Mountain.
Jeremy Miller was only eight years old when Growing Pains began filming, and hated leaving his TV family when the first few seasons wrapped.
8. MAURA TIERNEY WAS FIRED.
"When the season was over, he'd cry," Kerns recalled to People.
The future NewsRadio and ER star was fired on the second day of rehearsal for a season three episode. And she's not really sure why. "I think maybe I had a bad attitude," she told The A.V. Club. "I really don’t know. The director kept saying, 'Watch Kirk !
9. JULIE MCCULLOUGH CAUSED A LOT OF TROUBLE.
Watch Kirk! Kirk knows what he’s doing! Watch Kirk!' And then I got fired. So that’s what I get for watching Kirk, I guess. Or maybe I didn’t watch him closely enough."
McCullough played Mike’s girlfriend, Julie Costello, during Growing Pains' fourth season, which ended with Mike proposing to her. Once season five got started, however, Julie was abruptly written off the show. It was reported that her pictures in Playboy bothered Cameron, and he demanded she be fired and told the network the three executive producers on the series were pornographers.
10. CAMERON’S FUTURE WIFE PLAYED HIS GIRLFRIEND.
At the time, an executive producer claimed there was never a plan for Mike's character to ever get married. Cameron himself denied getting McCullough fired.
Cameron met Chelsea Noble on the set of Full House, where he was visiting his sister Candace (who, of course, played D.J. Tanner).
11. MATTHEW PERRY’S DEATH WAS LONG PLANNED.
Noble then landed a recurring role on Growing Pains, playing Kate MacDonald, Mike’s love interest after Julie. Mike proposed to Kate in the 1992 series finale, a year after Cameron and Noble married in real life.
Future Friends star Matthew Perry played Carol’s boyfriend Sandy for three episodes during the show's fourth season. Sandy died from injuries sustained after drinking while driving in the episode “Second Chance.” The executive producers got the idea for the episode after one of their teenage daughters was caught drinking.
12. TOBEY MAGUIRE WAS A REGULAR VISITOR ON THE SET.
They decided to sacrifice a character that had appeared in multiple episodes to have the death resonate with the show's young audience.
During the series' seventh and final season, Leonardo DiCaprio—then 16 years old—was brought in to play Luke Brower, a homeless teen who is taken in by the Seaver family.
13. TRACEY GOLD BATTLED WITH ANOREXIA.
Maguire and DiCaprio were close friends who always looked to Kerns like they were in trouble, or had been in trouble.
While Gold's character was the frequent subject of fat jokes on the show, the actress dropped from 133 to 79 pounds over the course of the series. Her illness forced the producers to write her out of a chunk of the last season. "The last season of Growing Pains is like a blur to me," Gold told the Los Angeles Times.
14. "BONER" WAS THE SON OF STAR TREK'S CHEKOV.
"I can't even remember the episodes. They said, 'We've been canceled. You can come back for the last episode,' but I was still very, very sick and an insurance risk."
Andrew Koenig played Mike’s best friend, Richard Milhous "Boner" Stabone, for four seasons. He was the son of Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on Star Trek.
Sadly, Andrew Koenig took his own life in 2010.