Growing Pains episode: "All The World is a Stage"

[grundoontv]

My favorite episode of all time of "Growing Pains" is the one titled "All the World is a Stage," for several reasons--first of all, it used a unique opening montage of the theme. In this one, seen only in this episode, Kirk Cameron, his then-fiance Nancy Mueller, and a group of paid extras playing singing waiters sang the theme for the show--in addition to Kirk & Nancy singing the Drifters' hit record "On Broadway" backed by the extras before the montage.

In the montage, as opposed to the regular opening montage, you can see extras under the headings "Starring Alan Thicke (but that's not him), Joanna Kerns (that's not her either), Kirk Cameron (not him either), Tracey Gold (nope), Jeremy Miller (what do you think?), and Ashley Johnson (not even close)."

The people in those headings include the following extras playing patrons: a 30-ish year-old man, a middle-aged lady, a black man with a mustache, a balding man, a 60-ish year-old man, and a piano-playing male, in that order.

Also, near the end of the episode, an older version of Kirk's character Mike auditioned for a fictional role of a cadaver; if you think it's actually Kirk in the middle-aged makeup, think again--the actor appearing in that cameo role goes to Kirk & Candace's real-life dad Rob, and he was at least 50 then.

While on the subject of Kirk Cameron, I have a few myths to debunk about him. For starters: Kirk's IMDB listing lists his date of birth as October 12, 1970. Guess what that information is--WRONG! The real truth is, Kirk was actually born on October 12, 1969.

Of course, don't take my word for it: as a young teenager, I myself discovered that Kirk graduated high school in 1988. Now, if you pay close attention to political history, you'll notice that one of the first things that LBJ, our nation's 36th President, in an often-forgotten fact, did after the Kennedy assassination was, effective the Fall 1965 American Public School Curriculum, if you were born after September 1 of a given year, you'd be cut off into the next school grade. Private schools have their own work-at-your-own pace kind of thing.

One example: my cousin Danny was born on December 9, 1984. Had he been born August 9, 1984, Danny would have graduated high school in 2002, but since he was born December 9, 1984, he graduated high school in 2003.

Likewise with Kirk Cameron: had he been born in 1970, he actually would have graduated high school in 1989, but since he was born in '69, he graduated high school in 1988 and, when he wasn't tutored on the "Growing Pains" set, he actually attended a public school, Chatsworth High School.

Ironically, Chatsworth High is the exact same high school his younger sister Candace attended until her own high school graduation in 1993, meaning that Candace was actually born on April 6, 1975, meaning she'll be 35.

My cousin Danny knows a man in his hometown of Statesboro, Georgia who, although he's exactly Kirk's real age, 40, he graduated high school in
1986, aged 16, and that's only because the guy attended a Christian school.

I wish I were makin' all of the above up, but sadly, I'm not.

Not to get off topic, but in June '08, I read a People Magazine article on Fred Savage and the article said that Savage was 32, meaning in real life, Fred will be 35 on July 9.

Sometimes, People Magazine may make occasional errors, but when they do, they apologize, and if the info about Fred was an error, People's words would be, "We regret the error," but it isn't an error.

I hope you all find this info informative, and thanks for reading.

Grundoon