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 · ended96% match

   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 · ended96% match

   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 · ended96% match

   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 · ended95% match

   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. Soap

   1977 · Comedy · ended95% match

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

   Soap is an outrageous comedy saga serializing the hilarious exploits of the characters in two unusual families. Meet the Tates and the Campbells, two families who have relationships as complex as those in a Russian novel. But the fun is in the unraveling.The well-to-do Tate family is comprised of Chester Tate the father, and Jessica, the mother, the parents of three children. Their two daughters, Corinne and Eunice, have distinctly different personalities. Their son, Billy, compared to the rest of the family, is the only sane member of the group, according to Benson, their hired employee who knows everything about everyone. The witty Benson does his best to hold the family together. Living with the Tate family is Jessica's father, referred to as the Major -- who doesn't quite believe that World War II is over.On the other side of town lives Mary Dallas Campbell, Jessica Tate's younger sister. Mary is wed to Burt Campbell who is not as prosperous a breadwinner as Chester. Mary's former husband, Johnny Dallas, has passed on, leaving her with two sons, Danny and Jodie. The older son, Danny, does not quite see eye-to-eye with his stepfather, and while the rest of the family knows Jodie is gay, Danny just thinks Jodie has a wonderful sense of humor.

6. Fawlty Towers

   1975 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.4), hidden gem.

   Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. The plots centre on tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty, his bossy wife Sybil, comparatively normal chambermaid Polly, who is often the peacemaker and voice of reason, and hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, showing their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests.

7. Reba

   2001 · Drama, Comedy, Family · ended95% match

   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. Yes, Prime Minister

   1986 · Comedy · ended95% match

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

   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.

9. 8 Simple Rules

   2002 · Comedy, Family · ended95% match

   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.

10. Hangin' with Mr. Cooper

    1992 · Comedy · ended95% match

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

    Set in Oakland, California, this is a show about Mark Cooper, a former NBA basketball player who moved back to his hometown to become a coach at his old high school, Oakbridge High School. In the first season, he shared his house (and the rent) with his old friend Robin Dumars, a music teacher, and the sexy Vanessa Russell. Their relationship was strictly platonic, which meant that the stories mainly revolved around their dating misadventures as well as Mark starting his new career as a teacher. At the start of the second season, Robin had moved out of the house and Mark's cousin, Geneva Lee, and her daughter, Nicole, moved in. Also, P.J. Moore, the formidable principal, was added to the cast while the neighborhood kid, Tyler, frequently seen in the first season, now became more prominent as Nicole's best friend. Hangin' with Mr. Cooper began its run on Tuesday nights airing directly in...