Alan Thicke

Alan Thicke became the much-lampooned comic template of bland while playing the father on the 1980s family sitcom "Growing Pains" (1985-1992), even as, with much less fanfare, he achieved unqualified Renaissance Man status in American and Canadian television. A household name in his native Canada, Thicke gained a foothold in the U.S. as a comedy writer, cutting his teeth in Hollywood writing for and producing such influential, if short-lived, …