Did You Know?
In 1990, the producers chose to "leap" the character of Chrissy five years, and she suddenly became seven years-old.
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Jeremy Miller's character, Ben Seaver, has the middle names, "Hubert Horatio Humphrey" in honor of the famous senator from Minnesota.
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The Family's last name was Seaver and they had neighbors named Koosman. Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman were teammates on the New York Mets during the '60s and '70s. The show takes place on Long Island so it's likely that the creators were Mets fans.
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Between the 88-89 season cliffhanger and 89-90 season premiere, Kirk Cameron had a religious awakening and demanded that Julie McCullough's character of Mike's fiancée be written out of the show because of McCollough's real-life Playboy Magazine past.
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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.
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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.
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Kirk Cameron was so intent on keeping the show devoid of adult themes that he phoned the president of ABC and accused producers Dan Guntzelman, Steve Marshall and Michael Sullivan of being "pornographers". The three then resigned from the show, having had enough of Cameron's shenanigans.
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Matthew Perry appeared in the 88-89 season as Carol's boyfriend, Sandy. After a handful of episodes, Sandy dies from injuries sustained from a drunk-driving accident.
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Actor Jamie Abbott, who portrayed Ben's best friend "Stinky Sullivan", was first featured on the show as another character which was a bully of Ben's.
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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.
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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.
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There were four renditions of the theme song. Initially, B.J. Thomas sang it solo. Later, a track recorded by Dusty Springfield was overlaid to create a duet. Springfield's track was replaced by Jennifer Warnes version following her successful duet with Bill Medley on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. The final season featured an a cappella version.
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The video portion of the theme featured five different variations; season 1 had artwork from various eras (Egyptian, Renaissance, Victorian, etc.) with the cast names superimposed; season 2 had clips of season 1; season three showed real-life photos of the cast when they were younger, and always had Thicke standing alone at the end of the song, then running to catch up with other cast members; season four and five had a different cast member linger in front of the camera before running for other cast members; seasons six and seven featured a professional family photo before and after the credits.
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Julie McCullough 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.
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The character Jason Seaver was ranked #37 in TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" (20 June 2004 issue).
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'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 the show ratings did not improve. Dicaprio's character was dropped and the show canceled.
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Heather Graham appeared in one episode of the series. Mike goes with 3 girls to the winter's ball and one of them is her. She doesn't say anything but "Hello".
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When Tracey Gold took her leave of absence during the final season, Carol was temporarily written out by going to London to pursue college studies abroad there.
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In one episode Mike talks about confusion over the Russian Playwright Chekhov, saying he thought Chekov was "The Russian guy on Star Trek." Andrew Koenig, who played Mike's best friend Boner on the series, was the son of Walter Koenig, who played Chekov on Star Trek.
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Kirk Cameron's sister Candace Cameron Bure appeared on a couple of episodes playing a classmate of Ben's.
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Many TV Viewers and Critics felt the show's depiction of a father who was a doctor whose office was in the home and a mother who was a working professional was ripped off from The Cosby Show. Creator 'Neil Marlens (I)' has said that Jason and Maggie's occupations and related dynamics were based on those of his own parents while growing up and that the similarities were coincidental.
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