Growing Pains

Series Similar to Growing Pains

If you enjoyed Growing Pains, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Boy Meets World

   1993 · Drama, Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, also on ABC.

   Cory is your average guy. He has a best friend from the other side of the tracks, a teacher that constantly keeps him on his toes, and a friend named Topanga whom he has trouble understanding. With the support of his parents and his brother Eric, Cory learns to cope with the roller coaster called growing up.

2. Family Ties

   1982 · Drama, Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Steve and Elyse Keaton, once 1960s radicals, now find themselves in Reagan-Era American trying to raise a traditional suburban family. Son Alex P. Keaton is an ambitious Young Republican and his sister Mallory is a shallow victim of the corporate culture, obsessed with music, clothes and boys. Their only normal kid is young Jennifer a bit of a tomboy.

3. Who's the Boss?

   1984 · Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, also on ABC.

   When a career-ending injury forces a baseball star into early retirement, he takes a job as a live-in housekeeper for a pushy advertising executive and her nosy mother-but "Who's the Boss?".

4. Everybody Loves Raymond

   1996 · Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Ray Barone is a successful sportswriter who deals with his brother and parents, who happen to live across the street.

5. Police Squad!

   1982 · Comedy, Crime · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem, also on ABC.

   Police Squad! was a parody of the Quinn Martin Productions' police dramas of the 1960s and 1970s, hence the use of "In Color" by the narrator. The show's main staple of entertainment came from sight gags (such as a tow truck being a truck in the shape of a big toe) and misunderstandings in dialogue, mostly from people taking things extremely literally. Several great routines came from these misunderstandings that left characters in the scene very confused, but left the audience with loads of humor.

6. Yes, Prime Minister

   1986 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1), hidden gem.

   Continuing the struggle of Minster Jim Hacker to actually get something done in Whitehall politics, Yes, Prime Minister saw Jim achieve every politician's dream and slide up the greasy pole, right to the door of Number 10.

7. Reba

   2001 · Drama, Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Single mother of three, Reba Hart, tackles parenthood and other obstacles along the way. After her dentist husband of 20 years, Brock, leaves her for his dental hygienist, Barbra Jean, Reba's seemingly perfect world is turned upside down.

8. 8 Simple Rules

   2002 · Comedy, Family · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, also on ABC.

   Legendary sitcom stars John Ritter and Katey Sagal team up in 8 Simple Rules, ABC's hit family comedy that is laugh-out-loud funny. "If you make my daughters cry, I'll make you cry." That's the rallying cry of Paul Hennessy. A little rusty in the parenting department, Paul is forced to meet fatherhood head-on when his wife Cate returns to work. Two teenage daughters and a wisecracking son make Paul's new situation daunting but never dull.

9. Better Off Ted

   2009 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.2), also on ABC.

   Better Off Ted is a satirical office comedy about successful good guy, Ted Crisp, who runs research and development at Veridian Dynamics, a company with a morally questionable approach to its employees. Whether it's standing by a memo with a typo that encourages employees to now (as opposed to not) use offensive language with each other, to championing interoffice dating based on DNA matching to save money on health care, Veridian is a company that puts its bottom line first and employees last. Ted's a single dad to a seven year old girl, and he loves his job, but he's starting to take a closer look at the company's extremely dubious practices.

10. The Young Ones

    1982 · Comedy · ended

    Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem.

    Anarchic sitcom about degenerate North London students in the 80s.