The running joke for so many people my age is taht we can’t remember why we entered a room ten seconds ago, but have vivid memories of the most random, trivial things from a very long time ago. I’ve obviously been using this superpower for good here on this very website, and it explains why every time I tell myself that I’m doing the best that I can, the theme to Just the Ten of Us gest stuck in my head.

If you’re not familiar with Just the Ten of Us, it was a spin-off of the ABC sitcom Growing Pains that ran from the spring of 1988 to the spring of 1990 (two full seasons and a four-episode “trial run” in ’88). The spin-off character was Coach Graham Lubbock, who’d had a recurring role as Mike and Carol Seaver’s teacher. There was a two-part episode of Growing Pains called “How the West Was Won” that served as a sort of back-door pilot in which Mike (Kirk Cameron) finds out that Lubbock’s been fired and organizes a protest to get the school to renew his contract. We also find out that Lubbock has seven kids–all girls except for one boy–two of whom are played by Jamie Luner and Brooke Theiss and whom Mike hits on once he sees them because that’s what Mike does.

The protest doesn’t work and Lubbock packs up the family for Eureka, California to teach at an all-boys prep school. And the house the school is providing is run down. The school eventually makes an exception for the Lubbock daughters, which will allow for so many “horny teenager” plots, as does the “New York fish out of water” premise.

Bill Kirchenbauer plays Coach Lubbock and Deborah Harmon is his wife Elizabeth. Both have had long careers as character actors. Harmon, especially, has turned up in a number of shows and movies I’ve seen: she’s the news anchor at the beginning of Back to the Future, Kurt Russell’s co-star in Used Cars, and has a number of sitcom appearances on shows such as The Facts of Life, Night Court, Married … With Children, and Malcolm in the Middle. Some of their teenage daughters are recognizable from television and movies of the 1980s and 1990s. I’d say that the most recognizable are Heather Langenkamp and Jamie Luner. Langenkamp, at this point, had already played Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. Luner got her start here, but would go on to a number of daytime and nighttime soaps, such as All My Children, Melrose Place, and the short-lived WB show Savannah.

Funny enough, there are two more Freddy Kreuger connections and a Marvel Cinematic Universe connection among the Lubbock kids. JoAnn Willette had her Nightmare turn in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge a couple of years before the show premiered. Brook Theiss would be in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master as well as the NBC teen movie Class Cruise. And the Marvel connection? The one Lubbock boy, JR, was played by Matt Shakman, director of WandaVision and Fantastic Four: First Steps.

The entire series is on YouTube, so I decided to pick a random one to watch. I went with episode 4 of season 1, “Close Encounters”.

The plot of the show is that Graham and Elizabeth are going on a camping trip with people he works with because it’s some sort of faculty retreat/bonding thing, and they’ve left the kids alone for the first time since moving to California. Since Marie (Langenkamp) is the oldest, smartest, and most mature, they put her in charge. This is much to the chagrin of the other kids who constantly refer to her as Hitler. And it complicates things for Cindy and Wendy (Luner and Theiss) because they’ve invited boys over. What ensues at the house is that Marie orders the others around like she’s Miss Hannigan while Graham and Elizabeth deal with a group of annoying and judgmental people in the woods.

Much of the camping trip is full of wilderness gags and camping mishaps. The main character beat is that one of the wives on the trip says mean things to Elizabeth about her being a housewife, even using the term “baby factory.” Ultimately, Elizabeth stands her ground and says that’s what she wants to be and she should be allowed to be happy with that. Graham’s a bit disappointed because he’d hope she would make friends, but Elizabeth says that all she really needs is him.

As for the girls, the guys who come over are a preppy guy named Mark and his friend Howie, who’s short. The cute guy that Cindy and Wendy fight over is played by Brandon Douglas, one of those late 1980s/early 1990s teen actors you would recognized if you’d watched enough 21 Jump Street. The twist is that he’s actually got it for Marie. You know, the “ugly brain with glasses.”

Yes, it’s okay to laugh at the idea that Heather Langenkamp in any universe was ever considered unattractive.

Anyway, Marie gets sick of being in charge, the girls get a party going at the house, and she goes up to her bedroom with Mark to look at the stars. The parents come home early, kick everyone out, the kids get in trouble. But Marie shares her frustrations over being “the good one” and “the smart one” to Elizabeth who realizes that she’s been unfair to her oldest daughter.

That’s it. That’s the episode.

So while the show has an interesting legacy, but is still just another of a long list of family sitcoms from that decade, taking the large family formula that had been popular since shows like The Brady Bunch (and maybe even earlier than that) and pairing it with the “fish out of water” premise. And being a new family show in the pre-Seinfeld era, it played it as safe as any other show. It’s not Roseanne by any stretch, and it wound up fitting in with the then-new TGIF lineup on ABC. I hadn’t watched a single episode of the show since it went off the air in 1990 and I can’t say I missed anything.

But the theme song …

The lyrics are exactly what you’d expect from a family sitcom about a guy who is called Coach. No, not that Coach.

Life is a race and I know I can win it,
‘Cause I’m learnin’ the rules of the game.
If I can stay on the ball, take it minute by minute,
I just might make the hall of fame.
What can I say?
I’m doin’ it the best I can,
Leanin’ on nobody but me.
Oh, seein’ it from where I stand,
Nothin’ comes easy.
(Nothin’ comes easy.)
Oh, I’m always bringin’ home second places,
At the end of every one of my days is,
A house with love on all of their faces,
That keeps me doin’ it the best I can.
Yeah, I’m doin’ it the best I can.
I’ll keep on doin’ it the best I can.
(Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo.)
Oooo

In the first four lines, we have four sports references, and then in the “bridge” of the song (if there is a such thing), there’s this horribly forced rhyme of “places” and “days is.” Also? Not in iambic pentameter.

Dumb English teacher jokes aside, why is this theme so memorable, especially for a sitcom that’s in the B- or C-list of 1980s sitcoms? Part of it has to do with the vocals, which are by Bill Medley, who had recently had a gargantuan hit with “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and was also one of The Righteous Brothers. And the song’s chorus is, as the kids say, a banger.

That sentence was, as the kids say, cringe.

Anyway, I never get the full song stuck in my head. It’s always from the chorus onward. And it is an example of how some shows you barely remember have theme songs you can’t get out of your head. Now, if I could only replace it with “Eye of the Tiger” or something, that would be great.