The two things I hear wherever I go, literally walking down the street, through airports, or in restaurants - it is either 'You raised me,' or 'Fellow Canadian.' Not even a paraphrase - those are the exact remarks.

The way I was parented did affect my parenting - probably in the reverse. My dad was pretty strict, and the next generation probably wants to be less strict.

So there was a constant flow and a thin line there between reality and television and yes, much of what I was experiencing in my real life was also what was going on in the television show to the extent that I had to take writers' advice and from the counselors around.

When I started out, at the CBC in Toronto, there was so little work. It was a different world from what it is now. Now we're blessed with so much production in so many Canadian cities.

One week you may be an actor, and the next week you had to be nimble enough to be a TV host. And the week after that, you might have to do some stand-up or be in an improv company or write and sing a song somewhere.

I was discovered, or mentored, by Norman Lear, who plucked me from the grinder of relative obscurity.

My advice, it's get involved in any and every aspect of the business that affords itself to you.

I did write a lot of TV themes - I wrote about 45 of them, and a couple of which are still reference and popular today, like 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'Facts of Life.' But I was a limited musician.

In terms of social media, I try to have my voice heard loudly in the cacophony of other influences whether from television and the Internet or social media... I want my voice to be heard in terms of the standards and values that I try to pass on to my kids.

In 'The Goods,' I'm Ed Helms' dad, and I was known all those years as Kirk Cameron's father, and now I'm known as Robin Thicke's father, so I find myself playing myself a lot and, frankly, living up to expectations of what the public's image of me is.