March 12, 2003

Meredith, I'll Bone-- er, Phone a Friend

The writers got evil on yesterday's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The following question appeared at the $4000 level:

On the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, what was the nickname of Mike Seaver's best friend?

A) Cockroach
B) Skippy
C) Six
D) Boner

The contestant didn't hesitate before answering B, Skippy, and crashing back to $1,000. The correct answer was D, Boner. For a $4,000 question, the choices here were evil-- they're all best friends of 80's sitcom characters. Cockroach is Theo's pal from The Cosby Show, Skippy is from Family Ties, and Six is from Blossom. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

Of course, the real crime here is the lost opportunity to have Meredith read Woody, Dick, and Willy as the wrong answers. Now that's television.

Posted by Peter at March 12, 2003 1:49 PM
Comments

Biff?

Posted by: Teleolurian on March 12, 2003 2:16 PM

Perhaps too regional... changed to something more universal.

Posted by: Peter on March 12, 2003 3:29 PM

A bit of a sidestep but... what's up with the name "Six"? I seem to recall that there have been several sitcoms in which a character has been named this. The only one that I can think of off hand (other than Blossom) is Roseanne but I'm sure there was at least one more. (Perhaps many more as I'm hardly an encyclopedia of TV trivia.) I suspected that it was some sort of in-joke for writers but have never been able to discover any information about this. Anyone know?

Posted by: Greg on March 12, 2003 6:26 PM

Funny you should ask. I wasn't sure who Cockroach was, so I had to look him up. Google led me to TV Acres, an enormous treasure trove of facts about television stored in a searchable database conveniently indexed by category-- such as NICKNAMES. Here's what they have to say about Blossom's Six:

Unusual first name of Six LeMeure (Jenna Von Oy) the fast-talking best friend of teenager Blossom Russo (Mayim Bialik) on the sitcom BLOSSOM/NBC/1991-95. Reportedly her name reflects her birth order in her family, but in the series pilot, there was a joke that it took "six beers" for Six's parents to conceive her.

No mention of any other character named Six.

Posted by: Peter on March 12, 2003 7:47 PM

Was there any mention as to how Boner earned his nickname?

Posted by: Miss Lis on March 16, 2003 11:09 AM

Here's the TV Acres entry for Boner:

Boner - The nickname of Richard Stabone (Josh Andrew Koenig), the best friend of psychiatrist's son Mike Seaver (Kirk Cameron) on the sitcom GROWING PAINS/ABC/1985-92. Boner's character was fun-loving but awkward. He was very fond of the Seaver family especially Mike's sister Carol (Tracey Gold) on whom he had a crush. When Mike Seaver first met Richard at the school bus stop as a child he dubbed him "Boner" (distilled from Stabone). Upon hearing his new name Richard objected saying "But all the name tags in my underwear say "Dicky." When Richard graduated his diploma read "Boner Stabone." His friend Mike quipped "You got Boner on your Diploma?" "Yeah," said Richard, "It cost extra." Soon after leaving high school, Boner joined the Marines and effectively left the series.
Posted by: Peter on March 16, 2003 7:50 PM

"Dick Stabone"??

Are you kidding me? That's even funnier than "boner" (say it fast)

Posted by: studebacherhoch on March 18, 2003 1:42 PM

omfg!!!
sweetness!
btw it was Six's dad alone that require the 6-pack... i think her mom was already high on "wet"
that freakin' trash-bag!

Posted by: enoch on May 16, 2003 1:11 PM

the actor who played 'boner'... why did he leave the show?

Posted by: steve on June 24, 2003 10:14 PM

The guy who played BONER on Growing Pains is Andrew Koenig -- his father is the guy who plays Chekov on the original star trek series. It's hard to believe that an ugly guy like chekov could have such a hottie for a son --- he was the cutest little hunk i ever saw in my life. I always prayed that they would show him in a bathing suit or a towel -- he was GORGEOUS!!!!

Posted by: Kay on July 9, 2003 10:52 AM

Looks like Boner is acting again. He plays the joker in a short indy batman film. he's the joker, and man oh man not so cute...

http://download.theforce.net/theater/batman-deadend/Batman_Dead_End.mov

Watch the ending credits if you don't belive me

Posted by: Ryan on July 22, 2003 1:41 PM

Looks like Boner is acting again. He plays the joker in a short indy batman film. he's the joker, and man oh man not so cute...

http://download.theforce.net/theater/batman-deadend/Batman_Dead_End.mov

Watch the ending credits if you don't belive me

Posted by: Ryan on July 22, 2003 1:42 PM