While Kirk Cameron is known more for making socio-politically charged headlines these days, the actor and filmmaker did star on one of the greatest 1980s-era family sitcoms, playing one of the most memorable benign-bad-boy teens on TV.
During a sit-down with Hallmark Channel's Home & Family, the 44-year-old donned a wig (why Mike Seaver, we never realized how out there your hair was!) and gave a 60-second crash course on the ins and outs of Growing Pains, which ran on ABC from 1985 until 1992.
"It's been a while, but I'm amazed at how many people still remember Growing Pains," said Cameron when asked how he deals with "Seaver fever" when he's out and about.
"But there are the crazy fans and I actually joke around once in a while when I go places and I'm speaking at an event or something and I tell people, 'If you have a bad case of Seaver fever that's causing you to not hear anything that I'm saying right now, we need to deal with it,'" he explained. "And my grandma told me, 'you starve a cold and feed a fever,' so I try to feed the fever by giving them six years of Mike Seaver in 60 seconds."
Sure enough, they cranked up "As Long as We've Got Each Other," the classic theme song composed by John Bettis and Steve Dorff, and away Cameron went down memory lane!
Watch him reason with his dad, Jason Seaver; try to wheedle a loan from little brother Ben; make excuses; and propose to his on-screen love, Kate MacDonald. (Kate, of course, was played by Cameron's then-future wife of now 23 years, Chelsea Noble. They have six kids together.)
And P.S. No one tell Cameron that you're supposed to feed a cold, too.