Has it really been more than eight years since the sitcom "Growing Pains" went off the air?
It hardly seems possible, but look at the evidence. Former teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron turned 30 in October, and he and his wife of nine years, Chelsea Noble (who played his girlfriend on the show), are the parents of four children.
Not only that, but remember the 16-year-old who joined the show in its final two seasons? A kid by the name of Leonardo DiCaprio?
Well, DiCaprio wasn't around when "The Growing Pains Movie" was filmed for telecast on Sunday (6 p.m., Channel 4) as part of ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney." But the rest of the cast — Cameron, Alan Thicke, Joanna Kerns, Tracey Gold, Jeremy Miller and Ashley Johnson — are all there as the Seavers try to pick up all these years after they left off.
It's a chance to check in with one of the last TV families that real-life families could sit down and watch together, laugh with together and not have to worry about being embarrassed by the content of the show. In a way, "Growing Pains" (1985-92) has become like "The Brady Bunch" — a show that plays perpetually in reruns and makes new fans of younger generations.
"The fact that it has never gone off the air, I think, was just a sign (that) they don't make shows for the whole family to watch anymore," Thicke said. "All the Nielsen reports indicate that there's a television set for the adults and there's another one for the kids, and this was one of the last shows, probably, that was made for everybody to watch together.
"As you have some distance from it, it becomes maybe even a less corny and a little more meaningful and certainly more meaningful to me that I see it had an impact on a lot of lives of a lot of people who looked up to us and wished their families were like that, wished their dads were like this.
"Of course, I always pointed out that it's a lot easier to be a good father when you have eight writers following you around."
The reunion movie tries hard to recapture that feeling, with mixed success. As is so often the case with these type of shows, fans will love seeing their old TV friends again, but the teleflick wouldn't rank as one of the series' better episodes.
What brings the Seavers back together is Jason (Thicke) and Maggie's (Kerns) 30th anniversary, which coincides with Maggie's campaign for Congress. And her offspring are leading busy lives of their own, for the most part — Carol (Gold) is a high-powered attorney; Chrissy (Johnson) is a straight-A student; Ben (Miller) is trying to find himself; and Mike (Cameron), like the actor who plays him, has adopted a bunch of kids.
"It seemed to fit in talking to Kirk and hearing what he was up to," said executive producer David Kendall. "It seemed to fit where we wanted to take Mike's character."
And Cameron is in full agreement.
"It's wonderful to have that big of a family right now. I can't think of anything more wonderful," he said. "My kids are 3 1/2, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 and a half. I'm running around chasing lots of kids, changing lots of diapers. And it's great."
And all the cast members used words like "wonderful" and "great" when they recounted both their experience on the original series and the opportunity to reunite with old friends.
"Getting to work with these wonderful people who were such a wonderful part of my life and such an intimate part of every day, you hold onto something like that," said Miller. "It's like a second family. So the closeness and the love and everything else is probably the thing that I benefited most from."
"This was one of the greatest experiences ever," said Johnson, who joined the cast in 1990 at the age of 6 and has since co-starred in two other sitcoms and a number of movies. "There were no difficult times. It was great."
And, unlike some former sitcom kids, none of the "Growing Pains" bunch has gotten into trouble with the law. Gold had a well-publicized struggle with anorexia that she has overcome — she's now married and is the mother of two young sons — but she doesn't blame her TV career for her eating disorder.
"I think that growing up in general has its ups and downs and its turbulences and stuff like that," said Gold. "And I think that most times growing up on a set — at least from my experience — was very positive."
And the friendships have continued since the show went off the air. The cast members have remained in touch, often celebrating birthdays or holidays together.
"There's been a continuity," Thicke said. "There's been a sense of family that's carried on into our adult family. It's not as if, suddenly, I'm meeting this grown-up babe who used to be my daughter or this guy who has turned into a fathering machine now."
As Thicke himself acknowledged, "Growing Pains" could be "corny." But he and the rest of the cast aren't exactly defensive about that — they're proud of it.
And why shouldn't they be? "Growing Pains" wasn't cutting-edge TV, but it was an amusing half hour about a functional family that wasn't perfect but whose members genuinely loved and supported each other. And kids who watch the reruns on the Disney Channel are discovering that charm for the first time.
"It's easier for us all to be cynical and glib because we like edgy television now. . . . But I think there was a place for that kind of family comedy and, hopefully, there will continue to be as our reruns have proved," Thicke said.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com