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Tap Tap…Is this thing on?

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Well…

What can you say after more than a 3 year hiatus?

I don’t remember exactly what happened to throw me off course, but I do know that it involved a new laptop, which inexplicably refused to connect to my external hard drive, stored on which were all my beloved episodes of Growing Pains.

I tried to figure out the issue. And by try, I mean I Googled and tried everything within the realm of my technological ability (which, to be fair, isn’t much at all). Nothing worked. I gave up.

During this time, I also learned that streaming Growing Pains is next to impossible. Sure, I could’ve bought the three remaining seasons of Growing Pains, but who buys seasons of tv shows in this day and age?

So how did we get here? Truthfully, I wanted to recover a decade’s worth of my photos (also slumbering peacefully in my hard drive). I made a last-ditch effort that probably should’ve been my first effort: I bought a new cord to connect the drive to my laptop.

Voila.

All my photos.

And, perhaps even more excitingly (for you, at least), ALL THE GROWING PAINS.

So now, as Fall sets in and days become colder, shorter and darker, all signs are pointing towards resurrecting this blog to finish what I started. I cannot promise it will be an episode a day, but I can promise that we will get through all 7 seasons of a show that has proven to be more than mildly problematic in this day and age. We won’t shy away from those problematic elements. No, we will call it as we see it.

Onward and upward. Here we go.

we interrupt this regular programming….again

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Whelp. I have failed to continue the tradition of Monday thru Friday episodes a day. Part of me feels terrible, and part of me accepts that sometimes more important things interfere with nostalgic 80s television episode recaps. You know, like a global pandemic, for instance.

My new goal is episode a week, which feels a little more manageable, and like maybe I can occasionally under promise and over deliver just to brighten your day.

Stay safe and healthy everyone and (if you can) please stay home.

It’s Happening

I know what the internet really needs is another blog that’s dedicated to rehashing sitcoms that are better left in the past. I can feel it in my heart. The world wants to know even more about 80s sitcom classics that are arguably better left in the past.

But why Growing Pains?

I spent my childhood watching Growing Pains, and then spent an embarrassing amount of my early adulthood re-watching the whole damn series (more than once). So that you may fully understand my undying love for this show, you should also know that during grad school, when I was living in a different country, I actually had a friend mail (!) me VHS tapes (!!!) of Growing Pains episodes he’d recorded off a channel I didn’t get where I was living. For like a year. Our system was like an old school version of the original Netflix (does anyone remember when they used to mail you DVDs?!?!?!—update: okay so apparently Netflix still mails DVDs to this day and makes a ton of money doing it!).

Really, all I’ve accomplished to this point is dating myself, and painting the picture of myself as a nostalgia hound or perhaps even a Kirk Cameron fanatic. I am none of these things. My fellow children of the 80s will understand me because we children of the 80s stick together.

The point I’ve been trying to get to here is that it’s been a long time since I’ve watched an episode, and I’m intensely curious as to whether the show will hold up through the eyes of an older and (questionably) wiser me. There is clearly only one way to find out: I need to watch every episode all over again, this time sharing the iconic wonder that is Growing Pains with the entire internet. Join me as I post daily (well, 5 days per week at least) episode recaps and throw in a few of my own thoughts for good measure.

Oh yes, it’s happening.

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