ABC News reports that Alan Thicke has died. The songwriter, talk show host, and TV star—best known for his role as kind-hearted, sarcastic father Jason Seaver on ABC’s long-running Growing Pains—apparently had a heart attack while playing hockey with his son, Carter.
A TV polymath, Thicke got his start in the business as a writer, penning scripts for Paul Lynde, Richard Pryor, and Norman Lear, who tapped him as the head writer for his talk-show send-up Fernwood 2 Night. The series—which starred Martin Mull and Fred Willard as parodies of talk show host and sidekick, respectively—turned out to be prophetic; Thicke would later get his first taste of on-camera fame when he returned to his native Canada, hosting the daytime talk series The Alan Thicke Show. Introducing audiences to his dry wit and low, rolling voice, the series was a hit, paving the way for a similar (if more ill-fated) venture into American late night.
Cursed with an awkward, punny title, an instantly dated “casual” aesthetic, and the nervous laughter of a host clearly trying to make the best of things, 1984’s Thicke Of The Night has gone down in TV history—along with The Chevy Chase Show and Magic Johnson’s The Magic Hour—as one of the major missteps of late night talk. Thicke himself openly mocked the show after its nine-month run, saying, “Thicke of the Night was supposed to challenge Johnny Carson. They said it couldn’t be done and I was the guy they chose to prove it. The show was ahead of its time…It should’ve been on in 2084, when all of us are dead.”
Still, Night’s failure opened the door to Thicke’s most remembered role as an actor, stepping into the suit jackets and comfortable TV dad sweaters of psychiatrist Jason Seaver on Growing Pains. The show’s focus was often dominated by its young stars—including Kirk Cameron, Tracey Gold, and, later, Leonardo DiCaprio—but Thicke took frequent opportunities to break out of rote lesson-teaching and moralizing in order to unleash his slapstick, comic side. (He’d walk a similar balance as the inventor/father in Disney’s Not Quite Human series of TV films, from the same era.) Growing Pains would end up running for seven years—tying its frequently cited rival, NBC’s Family Ties—and enshrine Thicke in the hall of great ’80s TV dads.