Growing Pains: The Complete First Season
by Joanna Kerns, Jonathan Weiss, Dan Guntzelman, Nancy Heydorn, Don Amendolia
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DVD details
Actor: Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Kirk CameronDirector: Dan Guntzelman, Don Amendolia, Joanna Kerns, Jonathan Weiss, Nancy Heydorn
Brand: wea
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 527 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 74043
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Meet the Seavers in this hilariously successful late eighties sit-com about a family of five living out on Long Island. Maggie has recently rejoined the workforce as a journalist, leaving Jason, a psychiatrist, to juggle his responsibilities to his patients and his three kids by working from home. Mike's the oldest and possibly the most difficult to handle! Whether it's for girls, dirt bikes or Th
DVD Reviews of Growing Pains: The Complete First Season
DVD Review: Don't waste another minute of your crying...Season One's on DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
Before televangelism, Kirk Cameron already got worshiped by millions of pre-teen and teenage girls. This series was produced by Miller-Boyett productions, the same company responsible for a string of family-friendly shows in the 1980's and early 1990's.
Personally in love with Michael J. Fox during the 1980's, I still watched Growing Pains---and found some interesting things throughout this first season.
Maggie Seaver (Joanna Kerns) works outside the home as a newscaster, and husband Jason (Alan Thicke) is a psychiatrist who re-established his practice inside a wing of their gargantuan family house. This new workplace arrangement gives Jason both the professional credentials and personal time to catch and talk with his own kids whenever they are not doing something which they should. In keeping with the times and the `wholesome' tone of this show, nothing `bad' really happens to the Seaver kids during many misadventures, but they still need lots of guidance enroute to adulthood.
Mike (Kirk Cameron) is the eldest child---and a perpetual `goof-off'---much to the dismay of his parents. He constantly gets in schemes with best friend Bonner (Andrew Koening) to the amusement of `genius' sister Carol (Tracey Gold). Both Mike and Carol deal with younger brother Ben (Jeremy Miller), constantly underfoot this 1985-1986 season. Twenty two episodes are included in this DVD release.
My favorite episode from this season is "Superdad". It continued exploring after effects of the Seaver's new work-living arrangements. As opposed to only talking about a `workplace switch' in the first episode and then dumping reference, `Growing Pains' writers had enough sense to carry the storyline over into subsequent episodes. Maggie becomes concerned Jason now monopolizes the children and she (who was formerly the stay-at-home parent) sees them less often. Olivia D'Abo (who went on to star in the Wonder Years as `hippie sister Karen Arnold') guest stars as Wendy.
I'm also partial to "Standardized Test" because it deftly illustrates how arbitrary these `scientific measurements' really are, and the many consequences of gauging academic progress through testing alone. After doodling on an IQ test, Mike ends up getting an IQ score of 28 and subsequently is tracked into programs to `help' him. Mike's hardly a genius, but the received score is absurdly low for his actual academic capabilities. Initially taking the test results verbatim, the school overlooked what Mike's class work really said about his academic capabilities. In today's test-driven education system, this episode remains especially poignant. Test results cannot and will not tell us everything about student capabilities.
Finally, "A Christmas Story" is another solid offering. A depressed department store Santa who Jason is counseling decides to commit suicide by jumping down the Seaver's chimney. This is one of the more serious episodes, and it was a radical scripting decision for a show which normally lacked anything `too wild'. This episode also provided an interesting alternative to all of the bland `holiday' episodes networks continue trotting out for sitcoms
Because the Growing Pains merchandising empire primarily had focused on Kirk Cameron, quality storylines and scripts involving other family members and guest characters were pivotal for show longevity. Plenty of the standard `teen tries to get a date' and `teen wants to party' plots are interspersed all throughout this season, but the writers wisely had a large variety of scripts. I feel their planning ultimately added critical depth to the show. It made Growing Pains much more than Kirk running around and looking (admittedly) `good' in some (admittedly) over the top 80's fashions.
Extras for this release include the obligatory gag reel and a feature "Seaver Family Reunion: S'mores and More"-the cast reminisces about having worked together on this series. The most interesting extra is obviously the formerly unaired pilot precisely because I grew up with Tracey Gold playing `Carol Seaver'
Description of Growing Pains: The Complete First Season
The comedic adventures of a psychologist with a home business and his journalist wife as they raise their children.Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: NR
Street Date: 06/06/06
Wide Screen: no
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
Language: ENGLISH
Foreign Film: noSubtitles: no
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: yes
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve
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