Jamie Abbott Movies

Under intense pressure from his parents, Ben (Jeremy Miller) is willing to do anything to pass an upcoming biology class. But does "anything" include cheating? Well, with Ben's crafty pal Vito (Kenny Morrison) demonstrating the ease with which the answers can be illicitly determined ahead of time, Ben is dangerously close to surrendering to temptation! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jason (Alan Thicke) and Maggie (Joanna Kerns) are in for quite a few surprises--and shocks--when they attend Parents Night at Dewey High. For starters, they learn that their son Ben (Jeremy Miller) has been dating a girl named Rhonda (Andrea Barber) for several weeks. But this news is a lot easier to take than the revelation that Ben, hoping to impress his pals, has been spreading mendacious rumors that Rhonda is "easy". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Still broke and homeless in Manhattan, Mike (Kirk Cameron) decides to move in with his sister Carol (Tracey Gold), who is attending Columbia University. With this move, the two Cameron kids' personalities undergo a radical reversal, with Mike becoming more serious and level-headed, and Carol more frivolous and flighty. Meanwhile, mom Maggie (Joanna Kerns) argues with her dad Ed (Gordon Jump) over the best strategy to convince Mike and Carol to move back home. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mike ($Kirk Cameron) talks Ben (Jeremy Miller) into taking over his paper route, with the proviso that Ben turn over 50 percent of the profits. Before long, Ben has palmed the job off on his pal Gary (Jason Horst), charging HIM 50 percent of the profits (that is, 50 per cent of Ben's 50 percent). And so it goes, with each successive paper boy accepting an even smaller financial cut, until the route is taken over by Stinky Sullivan (Jamie Abbott)...whereupon the wheel begins turning backward to Mike! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Aspiring actor Mike (Kirk Cameron) lands a part on the TV cop show "New York Heat." Granted, it's not much of a part, but at least he has a terrific death scene. Or at least he HAD a terrific death scene until his role was whittled down to virtually nothing just before airtime! Former Dallas costar Beth Toussaint (aka Tracy Lawton) appears as "New York Heat"'s sexy leading lady Morgan Chase. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first episode of a two-part story, Channel 19's new public-relations team fires news director Sid Sidlevich (Kenneth Tigar), and Maggie (Joanna Kerns) worries that she'll be next. Meanwhile, Jason (Alan Thicke) is offered a prestigious new job in a posh downtown psychiatric office. By episode's end, both Jason and Maggie face major changes in their lives--but only one is truly happy about it. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The opening episode of Growing Pains's fourth season focuses primarily on Ben (Jeremy Miller), youngest member of the Seaver family, and Ben's extremely pregnant mother Maggie (Joanna Kerns). Fretting over the prospect of inviting a girl to a Halloween party, Ben ( decides to ask out his lifelong friend Jenny--played by Candace Cameron, younger sister of series star Kirk Cameron (Mike Seaver)--with the understanding that it isn't a date...really it isn't...honest. Meanwhile, Maggie's mood swings have become so dramatic that her husband Jason (Alan Thicke) is thoroughly spooked, a fact that wreaks havoc at the couple's weekly Lamaze class. This episode marks the world premiere of pop star Tiffany's hit single "All This Time". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story, Maggie (Joanna Kerns) is pressed into service as a deejay for the school dance which she and Jason (Alan Thicke) have agreed to chaperone. Out on the dance floor, a disillusioned Mike discovers that his "dream girl" Lydia (Cathy Podwell) has a voice that would shatter glass, while Carol (Tracey Gold) suffers repercussions after tripping the light fantastic with Mike's pal Boner (Josh Andrew Koenig). And elsewhere, Ben (Jeremy Miller) and Stinky (Jamie Abbott) end up in a seedy diner during their quest for a legendary pinball machine known as The Flipper. With this episode, Growing Pains moved from Tuesday to Wednesday evening, where the series would remain for the rest of its third season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The first day of school yields a myriad of reactions from the children of the Seaver clan. Ten-year-old Ben Seaver (Jeremy Miller) runs up against the proverbial classroom bully, in this case a bruiser named Louie (played by Jamie Abbott, who ironically would later pop up in the recurring role of Ben's best friend Stinky Sullivan). Fifteen-year-older Carol (Tracey Gold) tries to come up with ways to enliven what promises to be an excruciatingly dull school year. And sixteen-year-old Mike (Kirk Cameron) finally links up with his summertime "dream girl" Debbie (Lisa Capps), only to have his head turned by another lovely young lass named Shelley (Rachel Jacobs). Bill Kirchenbauer makes his first appearance as Coach Graham Lubbock, a role he'd carry into the Growing Pains spinoff Just the Ten of Us. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Lynne Littman has created an effective, understated portrayal of the cost of a nuclear war in human terms, in a film as far removed from the fake hyperbole of action and disaster movies as the natural world is from cartoons. Set in the small California town of Hamlin, the Wetherly family and their everyday concerns open the story. The trivia that fills their secure, ordinary existence disappears when a TV show is interrupted with the announcement that nuclear bombs have exploded in the major cities on the East Coast, and then the entire scene is erased in an increasingly white, blank movie screen -- meant to show that nuclear blasts have been detonated in California as well. Over 1000 people die in the first month from radiation sickness, but the mother in the Wetherly family (Jane Alexander) displays great inner strength as she cares for orphaned children the family has taken under its wing and goes on sustaining those that remain in her own family. At one point, she quietly conveys to her daughter the happiness of intimacy between two adults, knowing her daughter will not live to experience adult love. As these individuals and the children cope with day-to-day existence, there is never any intrusion of overt horrors, the focus remains on the individuals and the way in which they adjust to the inevitable. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide