J-Speaks: The Passing Of An Iconic Sitcom Dad

Today in Hollywood, being an all-around entertainer is something that most in the show business world learn to be. It is often essential for one’s career to thrive to be more than just an actor/actress, singer, or songwriter. It was thanks to people like iconic one from Kirkland Lake, Ontario who paved that path. He was a famed entertainer who was best known for playing a suburban father who played an at home psychiatrist for seven seasons. He also was a singer, songwriter, game show host. Most of all he was a devoted father, husband and all around solid person who earned the respect of those he worked with and those who interviewed him. Earlier this week we said goodbye to this iconic figure of entertainment.

This past Tuesday, Alan Thicke, who is well known for his role as the devoted dad, husband, and father on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) sitcom “Growing Pains,” passed away in Burbank, CA. He was 69-years-old and is survived by his third wife model and celebrity host Tanya Callau, who he’s been married since 2005 until his passing and his three children in sons Brennan and famed singer Robin from his first wife actress from National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC’S) “Days of Our Lives,” Gloria Loring and Carter William from his second wife, 1990 Miss World Gina Tolleson.

His second son Robin, a singer and songwriter who rose to international fame from his controversial and popular single “Blurred Lines,” in 2013 that reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 said on Instagram @robinthicke on Tuesday, “My father passed away today. He was the best man I ever knew. The best friend I ever had. Let’s all rejoice and celebrate the joy he brought to every room he was in. We love you Alan Thicke. Thank you for your love. Love, your grateful son.”

In an article in this past Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times, his publicist said that the famed actor collapsed while playing hockey with his 19-year-old son Carter at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank. Loring said that Thicke, “He died the way any Canadian should-playing hockey with his son.”

While no funeral services have been planned, it will likely be a small service near his home in Santa Barbara, CA.

His last television appearance was as a guest star on Netflix follow-up to the ABC sitcom “Full House,” “Fuller House,” where he played the date of Candace Cameron Bure’s character D.J. Fuller during family game night in the Season 2 premiere episode “Mom Interference.”

Hours before his passing, Mr. Thicke took to twitter to comment about “Fuller House” and said, “Season 2 Fuller House looking good. I even like the ones I’m not in!”

For all of us in the public, we came to know Mr. Thicke as the caring, loving, and devoted father Dr. Jason Seaver on “Growing Pains,” which aired from 1985-1992 on ABC.

Thicke’s character was a psychiatrist, who solved everyone’s problems from the patients he saw and a loving father to his television children, Mike, Carol and Ben Seaver, played by Kirk Cameron, Tracy Gold and Jeremy Miller, who solved their problems with a warmth that came through right to the audience. He also played the devoted and caring significant other to his television wife Maggie Seaver, played by Joanna Kerns.

In the first season of the show, Mr. Seaver was moving his practice into his home to become closer to his children while Kerns’ character Mrs. Seaver was going to resume her career as a reporter.

“Alan and I used to say this is a great thing every day,” Kerns said back in 2004 on a mini reunion with herself Thicke, Cameron and Gold on “The Insider.” “It was really a special experience because we loved each other first and we had fun. We laughed every day.”

Kerns showed that same grace to the television husband that became an off-screen friend for life in a poignant tribute earlier this week that had both humor and grace saying, “I used to joke, before I met my real husband…that Alan was my favorite daytime husband. At work, we laughed all day, every day at things Alan would come up with, usually at my expense. It was fun. Alan was fun and we all loved teasing each other.”

She ended her tribute by saying, “…rest in peace and may your angels be youthful, tall, buxom and witty.”

Thicke shared that same sentiment with a little sense of humor, saying back in 2004 that he and Kerns “liked each other I think. Right off the bat she couldn’t keep her hands off me and I had to finally just say, ‘enough.’”

That warmth, love, and care that the 2013 inductee onto Canada’s Walk of Fame portrayed, which seems to be a lost art on the small screens these days earned him the nickname America’s Dad and his character was No. 37 on TV Guide’s ‘50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time,’ which came out back on Jan. 3, 2014. The role also earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 1988 for best performance by an actor in a comedy for musical series.

When asked about the audition process that landed him the part, Thicke said that he believes that it was making out with Kerns. “One good kiss and the rest was history.”

The show was also made into two reunion movies on the small screen, The Growing Pains Movie, which aired back in 2000 and Growing Pains: Return of the Seavers four years later.

There was a time where someone else might have been in that role. Mr. Thicke said to Lara Spencer of ABC’s “Good Morning America” (GMA) during a mini-reunion with the main cast of “Growing Pains,” a couple of years back that when the network was looking for someone to play Mr. Seaver on the show that it came down to him and Bruce Willis. If that would have happened, we would have seen Mr. Thicke in another ABC show, playing opposite another great leading lady Cybill Shepard on “Moonlighting, which” aired on ABC from 1985-1989.

“I guess there would have been a chance that I would have been in ‘Moonlighting’ and Bruce Willis would have been their dad,” Thicke said.

Many other actors and actresses that were making strong names for themselves back in the late 1980s and early 1990s also took to social media to express their feelings about the passing of Mr. Thicke.

“So sad is the passing of Alan Thicke. Such a good husband, father, brother, and friend. He will be deeply missed. Rest in peace dear Alan,” Bob Saget, @bobsaget, who played Danny Tanner on “Full House,” tweeted on Tuesday.

“Alan Thicke was always the nicest and happiest person in the room. Gone way too soon. Rest In Peace,” Alyssa Milano @Alyssa_Milano, who played Samantha Micelli on “Who’s the Boss,” said on twitter on Tuesday.

Bure, whose brother is Kirk Cameron, and who also made an appearance on “Full House” early in the shows run back in the 1980s on her Instagram @candacebure said, “I’m sad beyond words that Alan Thicke passed away. I’ve known him since I was 8 years old and so glad I had the pleasure of working with you again so recently on Fuller House. You were a part of my family and hockey family. You will be greatly missed. My heart hurts.”

Thicke’s talent as mentioned earlier went far beyond being in front of the camera. He was a very talented songwriter, who wrote collaborations with Ms. Loring for other popular sitcoms like “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life,” with Al Burton and Ms. Loring

He also wrote theme songs for many television games shows like “The Wizard of Odds,” which he also sang the vocal introduction; “Celebrity Sweepstakes;” “Animal Crack-Ups, which he co-wrote with his brother Todd Thicke and Gary Pickus and the original them to long-running gameshow “Wheel of Fortune.”

Before “Growing Pains,” Mr. Thicke was on to host his own popular talk show in Canada in the early 1980s called “The Alan Thicke Show,” which then spawned off into a prime-time spinoff called “Prime Cuts,” where it was edited down into highlights from the talk show. Four years later, he signed on to do an American syndicated late-night talk show called “Thicke of the Night,” which ran in 1983-84. From August 2006-2009, Mr. Thicke played a fictional talk show host Rich Ginger on “The Bold and the Beautiful,” on CBS.

During his run on “Growing Pains,” Mr. Thicke co-hosted from 1983-90 the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade, which is now called the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade with then GMA host and current special correspondent for NBC’s “Today” show Joan Lunden.

Thicke also was the host of the 1988 Miss USA Pageant in El Paso, TX replacing the late great game show host of “The Price Is Right” Bob Barker and the 1988 Miss University Pageant alongside actress Tracy Scoggins in Taipei, Taiwan. He returned as host of the 1989 Miss USA Pageant in Mobile, AL and of the 1989 Miss Universe Pageant in Cancun, Mexico.

Throughout the last two decades, Mr. Thicke has steadily worked acting in movies like “Hollywood North (2003);” “Raising Helen (2004),” and “Childstar (2004);” “Alpha Dog (2006),” and “It’s Not My Fault and I Don’t Care Anyway (2015).”

He also made many appearances on the small screen as a guest on shows like “Murder She Wrote” in 1993; he had a three-episode arc on “Married…with Children” in 1996-97; “7^th Heaven,” in 2001; “My Wife and Kids,” in 2004; “Yes Dear,” “Half and Half” and “Joey,” in 2005; Nickelodeon’s “Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide,” in 2007; a five-episode arc on “How I Met Your Mother,” in 2008; Season 2, episode 3 of “Celebrity Wife Swap;” he had his own reality show, “Unusually Thicke,” which ran for 14 episodes in 2014; FOX’s “Scream Queens,” in 2015 and in “Grandfathered” and “This is Us” in 2016.

Mr. Thicke beyond being a great actor, singer, songwriter, and host, he was as many of his peers mentioned on social media, a devoted dad and husband.

The description of the so-called angels that Kerns mentioned in her tribute mirrors the wife that Thicke left behind in his third wife Callau, who is 28 years his senior that he married in 2005.

Two days before her husband’s passing, she posted a sweet moment of them driving on Instagram when the madly in love couple sat down with “The Insider” host Debbie Matenopoulos back in October on Hallmark Channel’s show “Home and Family,” with co-host Marc Stein, their love for each other was as strong as ever.”

Callau talked about how Thicke drew her a big huge bubble bath with candles lit all around bubble bath and bedroom and he had bubbles all to the top of his head, but he was on fire.

It ended with Callau dunking Thicke into the bath to tame the flames that he caught from likely the candles.

That devotion to family helped him author two books, “How to Raise Kids Who Won’t Hate You” and “How Men Have Babies: The Pregnant Father’s Survival Guide.”

In one of his last tweets before his passing, Mr. Thicke gave advice for expecting new fathers that said, “love…then love some more.”

He was also an individual that never let the shine and sparkle of show business go to his head. He respected everyone he came around, and made in that moment they were the only person in the room.

“I grew up watching him and loving him,” GMA anchor Amy Robach said of Mr. Thicke on the Wednesday edition of GMA. The former weekend anchor of NBC’s “Today” also said, “I got a chance to interview him about 10 years ago, and he was just as kind and warm and funny as you wanted him to be.” 

It is hard to imagine that a television star like Alan Thicke did not even see a television until he was seven years old, he said according to a report from the website of “Entertainment Tonight Canada” when he got his star on Canada’s Walk of Fame 13 years ago. He went from being unknown to the biggest star in Canada and then came here to the U.S. and became a star here both on the silver and small screen and in real life to his family. He is someone that will be missed greatly, but will never be forgotten.

“We started in northern Ontario in a small town where I didn’t see a television set until I was seven years old,” Mr. Thicke said back in 2013 at the unveiling of his star. “So, when you take that moment and fast-forward to what I’m experiencing today with my family here and feeling embraced by my country-that’s unique.”

Information and quotations are courtesy of 12/13/16 article from The New York Times, “Alan Thicke, Reassuring Father on ‘Growing Pains’ Dies at 69,” by Christopher Mele and Niraj Chokshi; 12/14/16 6 a.m. edition of WABC 7 “Eyewitness News This Morning,” with Lori Stokes, Ken Rosato, Heather O’Rourke and Bill Evans; 12/14/16 6 a.m. edition of ABC’s “Good Morning America” with Michael Strahan, Amy Robach, Stephanopoulos, report from Chris Conley; 12/15/16 7 p.m. edition of “The Insider,” on WCBS 2 with Louis Aguirre and Debbie Matenopoulos; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Thicke and http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlighting_(TV_series).