The Facts of Life (TV series)

The Facts of Life
The Facts of Life season 1 title screen
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Dick Clair Jenna McMahon
Starring	Charlotte Rae John Lawlor Jenny O'Hara Lisa Whelchel Felice Schachter Julie Piekarski Kim Fields Molly Ringwald Julie Anne Haddock Mindy Cohn Nancy McKeon Pamela Segall Mackenzie Astin George Clooney Cloris Leachman Sherrie Krenn
Theme music composer	Al Burton Gloria Loring Alan Thicke
Opening theme	"The Facts of Life"
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	9
No. of episodes	209 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jack Elinson (seasons 2–7) Jerry Mayer (seasons 3–6) Linda Marsh Margie Peters (seasons 5–6) Deidre Fay Stuart Wolpert (seasons 6–7) Irma Kalish' Richard Gurman (seasons 8–9)
Producer(s)	Jerry Mayer (seasons 1–3) Linda Marsh Margie Peters (seasons 3–4) Rita Dillon (seasons 5–9) Kimberly Hill (season 6)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	T.A.T. Communications Co. (1979–1982) Embassy Television (1982–1986) Embassy Communications (1986–1988) ELP Communications (1988) Columbia Pictures Television (1988)
Distributor	Embassy Telecommunications (1984–1986) Embassy Communications (1986–1988) Columbia Pictures Television Distribution (1988–1996) Columbia TriStar Television (1996–2002) Sony Pictures Television (2002–present)
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	August 24, 1979 (1979-08-24) – May 7, 1988 (1988-05-07)
Chronology
Preceded by	Diff'rent Strokes
Followed by	The Facts of Life Reunion (2001)
Related shows	The Facts of Life Goes to Paris The Facts of Life Down Under

The Facts of Life is an American sitcom that originally ran on the NBC television network from August 24, 1979 to May 7, 1988. A spin-off of the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, the series' premise focused on Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) as she becomes a housemother (and after the second season, dietitian as well) at the fictional Eastland School, an all-female boarding school in Peekskill, New York.

Cast

Main article: List of characters from The Facts of Life

• Charlotte Rae ... Mrs. Edna Garrett (1979–1986)
• Lisa Whelchel ... Blair Warner
• Nancy McKeon ... Joanna Marie "Jo" Polniaczek (1980–1988)
• Mindy Cohn ... Natalie Green
• Kim Fields ... Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey
• Cloris Leachman ... Beverly Ann Stickle (1986–1988)
• MacKenzie Astin ... Andy Moffett (1985–1988)
• George Clooney ... George Burnett (cast member 1985–1986, recurring 1986–1987)
• Pamela Segall ... Kelly Affinado (1983–1984)
• Jenny O'Hara ... Miss Emily Mahoney (1979)
• Molly Ringwald ... Molly Parker (1979–1980)
• Todd Hallowell ... Jeff Williams (occasional, 1984–1988)
• Alex Rocco ... Charlie Polniaczek (occasional, 1981–1988)
• Woody Brown ... Cliff (occasional, 1983–1984)
• John Lawlor ... Steven Bradley (1979–1980)
• Julie Anne Haddock ... Cindy Webster (cast member 1979–1980, recurring 1980–1987)
• Geri Jewell ... Geri Tyler (occasional, 1981–1984)
• Felice Schacter ... Nancy Olsen (cast member 1979–1980, recurring 1980–1987)
• Sherrie Krenn ... Pippa McKenna (1987–1988)
• Julie Piekarski ... Sue Ann Weaver (cast member 1979–1980, recurring 1980–1987)
• Roger Perry ... Mr. Charles Parker (1981–1983)

Recurring characters

A key recurring character was Geri Tyler (Geri Jewell), Blair's cousin who has cerebral palsy. Other recurring characters included the judgment-impaired Miko Wakamatsu (Lauren Tom), the snobbish Boots St. Clair (Jami Gertz), and the royal princess Alexandra (Heather McAdam). Shoplifter Kelly (Pamela Segall) was billed as a regular during the fifth season. Other guest roles included the boyfriends of the girls; Jo's parents, played by Alex Rocco and Claire Malis; Blair's parents, played by Nicolas Coster and Marj Dusay (Blair's mother was played by Pam Huntington in one episode during the first season); Tootie's parents, played by Kim Fields' real-life mother, actress Chip Fields, and Robert Hooks; and Natalie's parents, played by Norman Burton and Mitzi Hoag. (Natalie's grandmother was played by Molly Picon, and appeared in two episodes.) A 1984 episode was built around Natalie coming to terms with the sudden death of her father. Characters from Diff'rent Strokes also appeared in some episodes of both season one and season two.

Premise

A spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, the series featured the Drummonds' housekeeper, Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) as the housemother of a dormitory at Eastland School, a private all-girls school. The girls in her care included spoiled rich girl Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel); the youngest, gossipy Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey (Kim Fields); and overweight, impressionable Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn). In the second season, Mrs. Garrett was promoted to school dietitian, and all the original cast members were dropped except for Blair, Natalie, and Tootie. Nancy McKeon joined the cast as tough, streetwise-but-vulnerable Jo Polniaczek.

The pilot for the show originally aired as the last episode of Diff'rent Strokes' first season and was called "The Girls' School (aka Garrett's Girls)." The plotline for the pilot had Kimberly Drummond requesting that Mrs. Garrett help her sew costumes for a student play at East Lake School for Girls, the school Kimberly attended in upstate New York, as her dorm's housemother had recently quit. Mrs. Garrett agrees to help, puts on a successful play, and also solves a problem for Nancy. Mrs. Garrett is asked to stay on as the new housemother but states she would rather remain working for the Drummonds at the end of the pilot.

Following the pilot, the name of the school was changed to Eastland and characters were replaced, with Natalie, Cindy, and Mr. Bradley becoming part of the main group featured. Although Kimberly Drummond is featured as a student at East Lake, her character did not cross over to the spinoff series with Mrs. Garrett.

In the show's first season, episodes focused on the troubles of seven girls, and the action was usually set in a large, wood-paneled common room of a girls' dormitory. Also appearing was the school's headmaster, Mr. Stephen Bradley (John Lawlor). Early episodes of the show typically revolved around a central morality-based or "lesson teaching" theme. The show's pilot episode attracted controversy^{[citation needed]} due to the character of Blair Warner insinuating that her schoolmate Cindy Webster is a lesbian because she is a tomboy and frequently shows affection for other girls. Other season one episodes dealt with issues including drug use, sex, eating disorders, parental relationships, and peer pressure. An oddity of the first season was that despite the fact that some of the girls were clearly older than others, the plotlines would have all the characters taking classes together.

After the first season, the show was retooled extensively. The producers felt that there were too many characters given the limitations of the half-hour sitcom format, and that the plotlines should be more focused to give the remaining girls more room for character development. Four of the original actresses—Julie Anne Haddock (Cindy), Julie Piekarski (Sue Ann), Felice Schachter (Nancy), and Molly Ringwald (Molly)—were written out of the show (although the four did make periodic appearances in the second and third seasons, and one "reunion" in the eighth season). Mr. Bradley's character was also dropped and replaced with a generally unseen headmaster named Mr. Harris. (Mr. Harris actually appeared in an early second season episode, "Gossip", played by Kenneth Mars) and Mr Parker for the rest of the series. In addition to being housemother to the remaining girls, Mrs. Garrett became the school dietitian as the second season began. Jo Polniaczek, a new student originally from the Bronx, arrived at Eastland on scholarship. A run-in with the law forced the four to be separated from the other girls, and work in the cafeteria, living together in a spare room next to Mrs. Garrett's bedroom.

In 1983, Jo and Blair graduated Eastland Academy in the season four finale "Graduation", which ranked fifth among prime time shows for the week^{[citation needed]}, with 20.2 rating and 32 share^{[citation needed]}. To keep the four girls under one roof, Mrs. Garrett went into business for herself and opens a gourmet food venture named Edna's Edibles. The four girls come to work for her and live in one of the rooms in the house attached to the store.

The show became part of NBC's much-watched Saturday night lineup in 1985, but by this time, the main actors were now in their late teens and early twenties, and public interest was beginning to wane. In an attempt to increase ratings, Mrs. Garrett's store Edna's Edibles was burned to the ground in the season seven premiere "Out of the Fire", placing #11 for the week—giving the series a strong start for the season. The follow-up episode "Into the Frying Pan" had the girls band together to rebuild the store with a pop culture-influenced gift shop that the girls ran together, called Over Our Heads. By the end of the season, TV Guide reported, "Facts' success has been so unexpected that scions of Hollywood are still taken aback by it. ... Facts has in fact been among NBC's top-ranked comedies for the past five years. It finished twenty-third overall for the 1985–1986 season, handily winning its time slot against its most frequent competitors, Airwolf and Benson. Lisa Whelchel stated, 'We're easily overlooked because we've never been a huge hit; we just sort of snuck in there.'"

Charlotte Rae initially reduced her role in seasons six and seven, and later decided to leave the series altogether. In season eight's heavily promoted one-hour premiere "Out of Peekskill", Mrs. Garrett married the man of her dreams and joined him in Africa while he works for the Peace Corps. Mrs. Garrett's convinces her sister, Beverly Ann Stickle (Cloris Leachman), to take over the shop and look after the girls. Beverly Ann later legally adopted Over Our Heads worker Andy Moffett (Mackenzie Astin) in the episode "A Boy about the House."

In the final season, even though the series still usually won its time slot^{[citation needed]}, it placed last among the programs in NBC's Saturday Night lineup (which, at the time, had Top 20 hits in The Golden Girls and 227).^{[citation needed]} At 8 p.m. it was now in TV's most unforgiving time slot. NBC still had confidence in the series, however, and placed it as the 8 p.m. anchor, kicking off one of the network's highest-rated nights (second to Cosby Thursdays). The show's writers created a storyline in this season for the episode titled "The First Time" in which Natalie became the first of the girls to lose her virginity.

In an article titled "Ratings Top with Teens" appearing in the January 19, 1988 edition of USA Today, The Facts of Life was ranked as one of the top 10 shows in a survey of 2,200 American teenagers.

Broadcast history

See also: List of The Facts of Life episodes

Date	Network	Timeslot
Aug 1979-Sep 1979	NBC	Fri 8:30-9:00PM
Mar 1980-May 1980	NBC	Fri 8:30-9:00PM
Jun 1980-Jul 1980	NBC	Wed 9:30-10:00PM
Aug 1980-Oct 1980	NBC	Fri 8:30-9:00PM
Nov 1980-Oct 1981	NBC	Wed 9:30-10:00PM
Oct 1981-Aug 1985	NBC	Wed 9:00-9:30PM
Sep 1985-Jun 1986	NBC	Sat 8:30-9:00PM
Jun 1986-May 1987	NBC	Sat 8:00-8:30PM
Jun 1987-Jul 1987	NBC	Wed 9:00-9:30PM
Jul 1987-Sep 1988	NBC	Sat 8:00-8:30PM

Ratings

• 1979–80 (First season): #74
• 1980–81 (Second season): #26
• 1981–82 (Third season): #24
• 1982–83 (Fourth season): #32
• 1983–84 (Fifth season): #27
• 1984–85 (Sixth season): #36
• 1985–86 (Seventh season): #27
• 1986–87 (Eighth season): #28
• 1987–88 (Ninth season): #37

Made-for-television movies related to the series

The Facts of Life Goes to Paris, a two-hour TV movie in which Mrs. Garrett and the girls travel to France, aired September 25, 1982. The movie was later added to the U.S. syndication package, broken up into four half-hour episodes; however, the original cut of the film appears on the 2010 Season 4 DVDs (the syndicated versions do not). The Facts of Life Down Under, another two-hour TV movie, aired February 15, 1987, and was also syndicated as four half-hour episodes in later U.S. airings.

On November 18, 2001, The Facts of Life Reunion aired, in which Mrs. Garrett and the girls are reunited in Peekskill, New York, for the Thanksgiving holiday. It airs sporadically in the U.S. on the ABC Family Channel.

Attempted spin-offs

The various attempts at spin-offs were backdoor pilots, which were shown as episodes of The Facts of Life.

• "Brian & Sylvia" — A season two episode in which Tootie and Natalie go to Buffalo, New York to visit Tootie's Aunt Sylvia, a black woman (played by Rosanne Katon) who has recently married a white man, played by Richard Dean Anderson (the future star of MacGyver and Stargate SG-1). Ja'net Dubois of Good Times played Ethel, who was both Tootie's grandmother and Sylvia's mother. The episode never developed into a series, and in the season five episode "Crossing the Line", Tootie mentions Brian's and Sylvia's interracial marriage, and says that the two have since gotten divorced.
• "The Academy" — A season three episode set at Stone Academy, an all-boys military school that was near Eastland. In this episode, the girls at Eastland attended a dance with the boys from the military school. The boys included actors Jimmy Baio, Ben Marley, David Ackroyd, Peter Frechette, and John P. Navin, Jr.
• "Jo's Cousin" — Another season three episode, in which Jo visits her family in the Bronx, including her cousin Terry, a fourteen-year-old girl (played by Megan Follows) going through adolescence in a family full of men. The family included actors Grant Cramer, John Mengatti, Donnelly Rhodes, and D.W. Brown.
• "The Big Fight" — A season four episode set at Stone Academy, a boys' military school. Natalie comes to visit a boy who tries to impress her with his boxing. This episode includes the same cast from the season three episode "The Academy."
• "Rumor Has It..."/"Peekskill Law" — Two season nine episodes which center around Blair's law major at Langley College. In the first, Blair's law professor Richard Katt (Franc Luz) is introduced, a teacher whose ethic in the classroom stood in contrast to his reputation for sleeping around with many of his students. Blair and Katt were sharp debaters in and out of class, but nothing could prevent Blair from becoming nervous about the time she spent with him in his office after hours. Katt's wife subsequently walked in on one of his sessions with Blair, assumed they had fooled around with each other, and threatened to leave her husband. In the second episode, after Katt had resigned from the college in the wake of his rumored affair with Blair, he was now working as an attorney at a law firm where Blair was coincidentally working as an intern. The two found themselves working together on a high-stakes financial fraud case, with their sharp, aggressive banter a centerpiece yet again.
• "Big Apple Blues" — A season nine episode in which Natalie spends the night with a group of eccentric young people living in a Soho loft, and decides to remain in New York to begin her life. Two of the tenants in the loft were played by David Spade and Richard Grieco.
• "The Beginning of the End/Beginning of the Beginning" — The two-part series finale sees Blair buying Eastland to prevent its closing. Blair finds that the school is in such dire financial straits that she is forced to make the school co-ed. Blair then essentially adopts the Mrs. Garrett role as she presides over the school, and is forced to deal with the trouble-making students in a plot line that is highly reminiscent of the season two premiere. The new Eastland students included Seth Green, Mayim Bialik, and future Oscar-nominee Juliette Lewis.

Syndication

NBC aired daytime reruns of The Facts of Life from December 13, 1982 until June 7, 1985 at 10:00 AM (and later 12:00 noon) on the daytime schedule. Episodes aired on the USA Network on and off from September 13, 1993 to September 11, 1998. In August 1995, the network celebrated the show's 16-year anniversary with a weekend-long marathon of 14 episodes featuring new interviews with Rae, Whelchel, and Cohn.

Episodes aired on Nick at Nite from September 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001, although the network did not air certain episodes that contained highly controversial content during prime time (including the first season episode "Dope"), instead opting to air episodes with more serious topics at late night/early morning times. TV Land aired 48 hours of The Facts of Life episodes on its "Fandemonium Marathon Weekend" on November 17–19, 2001.

The Hallmark Channel aired The Facts of Life from July 1 to November 1, 2002. To date, this was the last time The Facts of Life has aired nationwide in the United States. Episodes were available on Comcast's Video-On-Demand service from August 8, 2005 to July 31, 2006 and again from the August 6, 2007 until Tube Time's shutdown date on December 31, 2009.

On July 16, 2008 full episodes and short "minisodes" of The Facts of Life became available online via Hulu. Several minisodes are also available for free online via Crackle.

International

In Brazil, the show aired on Nick at Nite as Vivendo e Aprendendo (Living and Learning, in English).

In Italy, seasons one through five were aired in 1983–1986 (dubbed as usual in Italian), on the terrestrial TV Canale 5, the first Italian commercial network, and later on other local commercial TV networks. The Italian version was named L'albero delle mele, which means apple tree (the word 'apple' is popularly used euphemistically in Italian as a reference to teenage girls).

In France, seasons one through three (dubbed in French and titled Drole de Vie) aired in 1987 on the terrestrial TV La Cinq, and seasons eight and nine aired on TF1. Unlike Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life has never aired on terrestrial TV in the United Kingdom. A few seasons aired on the UK BSB satellite channels and after BSB merged with Sky Television plc, the entire series was shown on Sky One.

In Canada, The Facts of Life aired on CTS, a Christian-based network, from September 2006 to 2009. Beginning on September 15, 2007, The Facts of Life aired weekends at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm on CanWest's digital specialty channel, DejaView. In March 2010 episodes moved to weekdays at 4:00 pm and 4:30 pm on DejaView.

DVD and VHS releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1 on May 9, 2006 with new interviews with most of the cast, including season one originals Felice Schachter and Julie Anne Haddock. To promote the DVD's release, McKeon, Whelchel, and Cohn appeared together on various TV shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Today Show and CNN Showbiz to reminisce about their time on the show and talk about their lives presently; unfortunately, Fields was unable to take part due to other commitments. The third season was released on October 24, 2006. This release failed to match the success of the first and second seasons, sales-wise.

The first and second seasons were also released in Region 4 on March 7, 2007.

On January 26, 2010, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the show (under license from Sony Pictures) and subsequently released the fourth season on Region 1 DVD, May 4, 2010. Special features include The Facts of Life Goes To Paris, a made-for-TV-movie, which originally aired a few days prior to the fourth season debut, and a "Know The Facts: Trivia Game." The fifth season was officially released on November 2, 2010. It is as yet unknown if the remaining four seasons will be released.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release date
The Complete First and Second Seasons	29	May 9, 2006
The Complete Third Season	24	October 24, 2006
The Complete Fourth Season	23	May 4, 2010
The Complete Fifth Season	26	November 2, 2010

On April 21 and 22, 2001, Columbia House released The Facts of Life: The Collector's Edition, a 10-volume "Best of" the series on VHS (40 episodes in all). With the advent shortly thereafter of TV on DVD and Columbia House's eventual move from the direct marketing model of exclusive series, the tapes were discontinued and are only available at auction or secondhand sales sites at a high markup above the original price.

Controversy

Geri Jewell

The Facts of Life was one of the first television shows to feature a person with cerebral palsy as a recurring character. Indeed, actress Geri Jewell was the first person with a disability to have a regular role on a prime time series. In an interview as part of an episode of E! True Hollywood Story, Jewell stated that she believed her character "cousin Geri" was going to continue as a recurring character on the show during the sixth season, but the producers offered her only one episode for the season because viewers would immediately assume that any episode with cousin Geri would be a "very special episode". Jewell stated that she stopped appearing on the show for that reason.

Weight

Another issue during the show's early seasons concerned the stars' appearances. Lisa Whelchel has stated in various interviews, including on E! True Hollywood Story, that the cast spent a lot of time on set doing nothing, so the natural inclination for many of them was to eat, as food was readily available all over the set. This noticeably affected the girls' appearances, leading Joan Rivers to dub them "The Fats of Life" during the cast's appearance at the Emmy Awards; the producers eventually restricted what the actors could eat while on set, and in an April 2011 interview, Lisa Whelchel stated that the producers sent her to various weight loss programs in an effort to help her lose weight.

Mindy Cohn, in the E! True Hollywood Story, stated that the situation was the exact opposite for her. She had been losing weight during this period, and the producers asked her to stop because much of her character's identity hinged on the fact that she was overweight. Cohn said the producers compromised with her regarding her weight by dressing her in baggy clothing to make her appear heavier than she was.

Awards and nominations

• Emmy Nomination for Best Actress (1982)—Charlotte Rae
• Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Technical Direction/Electronic Camerawork/Video Control for a Series (1986)—For episode "Come Back to the Truck Stop, Natalie Green, Natalie Green".
• Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series (1987)—For episode "'62 Pickup".
• TV Land Award Won for Pop Culture Icon in 2011.

Theme music

The show's theme was composed by Al Burton, Gloria Loring, and her then-husband, Alan Thicke. The well-known opening lyric "You take the good, you take the bad..." came later as the first season lyrics, some of them performed by Rae, differed from those that followed. The original lyrics eventually shifted to the closing credits before being dropped entirely. Burton, Loring, and Thicke had previously composed the theme to Diff'rent Strokes, which was sung by Thicke.

Production

The Facts of Life was produced first by T.A.T. Communications Company, followed by Embassy Television (Norman Lear's production companies), and then by Embassy Communications, and Columbia Pictures Television (through ELP Communications) on the final two episodes of the series. Sony Pictures Television currently owns the distribution rights to the sitcom.

From 1979 to 1982, the show was produced at Metromedia Square in Los Angeles, California. In 1982, production moved to Universal City Studios and then to Sunset Gower Studios in 1985.

External links

• The Facts of Life (TV series) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Facts of Life at TV.com
• The Facts of Life Site At Televisionhits.com