Diff'rent Strokes


Diff'rent Strokes is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from November 3, 1978 to May 4, 1985 and on ABC from September 27, 1985 to March 7, 1986. The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, respectively, two African-American boys from Harlem taken in by a rich white Park Avenue businessman and widower named Phillip Drummond and his daughter Kimberly, for whom their deceased mother previously worked. During the first season and first half of the second season, Charlotte Rae also starred as Mrs. Edna Garrett, the Drummonds' first housekeeper who ultimately spun off into her own sitcom, The Facts of Life as a housemother at the fictional Eastland School. The second housekeeper, Adelaide Brubaker, was played by Nedra Volz. The third housekeeper, Pearl Gallagher, was played by Mary Jo Catlett, appearing first as a recurring character before eventually becoming a main cast member. The series made stars out of Coleman, Bridges and Plato and became known for the "very special episodes" in which serious issues such as racism, illegal drug use, alcoholism, hitchhiking, kidnapping and child sexual abuse were dramatically explored. The lives of these stars were later plagued by legal troubles and drug addiction, with Plato and Coleman suffering early deaths in 1999 and 2010, respectively.

History

The series was originally devised jointly to serve as a vehicle for Bain and Coleman, a child actor who had caught producers' attentions after appearing in a number of commercials. An early rough outline for the series, featuring the characters created for Bain and Coleman, had the proposed title 45 Minutes from Harlem. As the pitch was developed, Coleman's character gained an older brother and the daughter of Bain's character and a housekeeper was added to the line-up. The title eventually became Diff'rent Strokes, inspired by the quote "Different strokes for different folks" popularized by boxer Muhammad Ali in 1966. The sitcom starred Coleman as Arnold Jackson and Bridges as his older brother, Willis. They played two children from a poor section of Harlem whose deceased mother previously worked for rich widower Philip Drummond, who eventually adopted them. They lived in a penthouse with Drummond, his daughter Kimberly and their maid. There were three maids during the sitcom's run: Edna Garrett, Adelaide Brubaker and Pearl Gallagher. They lived in the Penthouse Suite at 697 Park Avenue in New York City. As Arnold, Coleman popularized the catchphrase "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" with the ending often varied, depending on whom he was addressing. Early episodes addressed typical issues in a family. As the series progressed, although sticking to more light-hearted sit-com themes in many episodes, at times it focused on more serious topics including drug abuse, alcoholism, hitchhiking, child abuse and crime, among other issues.

Seasons 1-4 (1978–1982)

The first season very much covered 'every day life' of this unusual family line-up. Although billed on the opening credits, Plato did not appear in every episode as her character was often said to be away at her private school. During the first season, the unseen character of "The Gooch" is first mentioned as a supposedly mean, hulking bully at Arnold's school. First 'featured' in the first-season episode The Fight, where he is said to be bullying Arnold at school, The Gooch went on to be the focus of several future episodes and is mentioned in countless others across the run of the series. Rae appeared in every first-season episode as Edna Garrett and is present for the first 13 episodes of the second season, but is absent in several episodes late on in the season, before leaving to star in her own spin-off, The Facts of Life, set at Kimberly's private school, the fictional Eastland. Following Rae's departure near the end of the second season following the episode "The Rivals," Volz took over as the housekeeper, the older and crankier Adelaide Brubaker. Although she was not added to the opening credits, Volz appeared as a frequent semi-regular character. Also first seen in the second season was Arnold's best friend Dudley . The character went on to be featured in many episodes, both school-based and otherwise, throughout the show's run. During the fourth season, Dody Goodman was also introduced as Philip's dotty sister Sophia. Also appearing on a semi-regular basis, she effectively filled the same function as Adelaide as the older female character in many stories.

Seasons 5-6 (1982–1984)

In Season 5, Catlett portrayed Pearl Gallagher, the last of the three maids and joined the cast as a series regular. Pearl appeared in almost every episode until the final season. Midway through the sixth season, Plato became pregnant and approached the producers of the show to include her pregnancy. Initially they agreed to add it, but they later decided not to add the pregnancy, with Plato's publicized brushes with substance abuse contributing to this decision, resulting in her dismissal from the series, with her character, Kimberly, written out of the storylines with the explanation that she moved to Paris to study for a couple of years. Plato did not appear as a regular cast member in the final two seasons of the series, but she made several guest appearances. At the same time, ratings were beginning to fall, so new characters were added to open up future storylines. Dixie Carter and Danny Cooksey portrayed recently divorced television aerobics instructor Margaret "Maggie" McKinney and her son Sam, respectively. Carter was introduced midway into the sixth season; after she left for California, Drummond and the family took off after her, during a two-part trip in February 1984, a storyline which also introduced Sam. Phillip proposed to Maggie and they married. Several past characters attended the wedding ceremony including Dudley, Aunt Sophia, Adelaide and Mrs. Garrett.

Season 7 (1984–1985)

In the seventh season, Carter and Cooksey were added to the opening credits and many new areas and ideas were explored in the storylines, as viewers now got to see Philip as a happily married man. Plato was no longer appearing as a main cast member, because of her pregnancy in real life. The producers felt that the pregnancy wouldn't be acceptable, so she was dropped from the show and returned for the season finale A Special Friend as a guest star. Also, since there was a new fresh-faced kid in the house with Sam, Arnold now had his own little sidekick and was happy to be a "big brother" for a change and with Willis being dropped into the background slightly, this new brotherly duo took center stage for many storylines. In the season, Todd Bridges was continuing the show as a main cast member, but developed absences in several episodes. Additionally, stories focusing on Arnold's school life were delved into much more. The ratings did not improve to NBC's hopes. Carter departed at the end of the seventh season and was replaced in the final season with Mobley.

Season 8 (1985–1986)

In the spring of 1985, NBC canceled the series because of poor ratings. ABC picked up the series for an eighth season and aired it Friday nights. In this season, Mobley replaced Carter as Maggie McKinney Drummond. Mobley, who had previously played an unrelated, one-off love interest of Drummond's in the second-season episode "Teacher's Pet," was considered for Maggie when the role was created, but she was not initially chosen in part due to age disparity between her and Bain. ABC canceled the series after 19 episodes and aired its final episode on March 7, 1986. The show returned to ABC's schedule in June for three months of summer reruns, which ended on August 30, 1986. The final season ranked 69th out of 106 shows and averaged an 11.5 household rating

Cast

Phillip Drummond is the only character to appear in every episode of the series. Arnold Jackson missed five episodes, two from the fourth season in 1981-82 and three from the seventh season in 1984–85.

Supporting characters

Outside of the Drummond household, there were a large number of supporting characters seen over the years. Phillip's slightly dotty sister Sophia was regularly seen in the fourth season, playing matchmaker for her brother in hopes of getting Philip to marry again. Dudley Johnson was Arnold's new best friend, who, like Arnold, was also adopted, with whom he shared many memorable childhood scrapes. Some of these were important or serious storylines under the "very special episode" heading, which Diff'rent Strokes popularized. Ted Ramsey was Dudley's adoptive father, who turned up occasionally. In the third season, Janet Jackson played Willis' girlfriend, Charlene DuPrey. She was a frequent recurring character until the sixth season, when Charlene and Willis decided to break up, but remain friends. Other classmates and friends of Arnold seen over time included Robbie Jason and snobby Lisa Hayes, who initially was sweet on Arnold, but later came to despise him, leading to hatred between the pair and many squabbles. Miss Chung was Arnold's teacher. In the fall of 1985, when the series moved to ABC for the seventh season, Arnold, Dudley and Lisa entered high school, where they gained a new friend in Charlie. An oft-mentioned character, spanning the entire show's run, was "The Gooch," a notorious bully at Arnold's school. First mentioned in the first-season episode "The Fight," which revolves around his bullying of Arnold, his name is mentioned in numerous episodes, with Arnold's frequent descriptions of him as a burly, troublesome brute, forever looking for trouble but not very intelligent, but the character never actually appeared on screen. In the seventh season, after years of harassing Arnold, the Gooch was finally defeated by Arnold's neighbor and nemesis Carmella, a Foreign exchange student.

Episodes

Very special episodes

Diff'rent Strokes was also known for its many "very special episodes," most notably an anti-drug episode that featured First Lady Nancy Reagan, who promoted her "Just Say No" campaign and "The Bicycle Man," a two-part episode that guest starred Gordon Jump as a pedophile who lures Arnold and Dudley into his bicycle shop and attempts to molest them. Another episode involved a con artist posing as a relative of Arnold and Willis in an attempt to get access to the inheritance they were left by a former neighbor. Another episode involved Kimberly's new boyfriend, Roger Morehouse, not allowing his sister, Emily, to go to their school's costume ball with Willis because he is black. A less serious episode had Kimberly's hair turning green from acid rain. In a two-part episode on the dangers of hitchhiking, Kimberly and Arnold were abducted by a serial kidnapper-rapist, who initially acted as a good Samaritan by giving the two of them a ride and inviting them to his apartment. After the man's true nature became known, Arnold escaped to look for help and the man nearly raped Kimberly before the police arrived to arrest him. At the end of the episode, Bain spoke about what to do if real life situations as the one portrayed on the show were to occur. Two notable episodes dealt with the consequences of alcoholism. In the first, season 5's "A Drinking Problem," Willis moves out of the penthouse to live with Jerry who abuses alcohol. In the second, season 7's "Cheers to Arnold," Arnold must deal with Ricky, a classmate whom he catches drinking a thermos of alcohol in the school bathroom. In the final season, the one-hour season opener revolved around Sam being kidnapped by Donald Brown, a bereaved father hoping to replace his own dead son, Tommy. In other notable episodes, such as season 8's "Bulimia," the family discovered that Kimberly was suffering from bulimia. In another episode, season 7's "A Special Friend," Arnold and Sam met Karen, a street performer. After a performance, she has an epileptic seizure and Sam thinks she's dying. The boys then feel uncomfortable around her and when they begin making jokes about her seizures, they find out that housekeeper Pearl herself has epilepsy but, unlike Karen, controls her seizures by taking medication.

Spin-off and crossovers

The Facts of Life is a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes featuring Drummond's former maid Mrs. Garrett, who had accepted a job as the housemother for a dormitory at Eastland, an all-girls private school that Kimberly was attending. In a late first-season episode of Strokes, Mrs. Garrett took Kimberly to the school with the intent of helping her sew costumes for a school play. While there, Mrs. Garrett met Kimberly's classmates and was offered the job as "dorm mother." She declines in this episode, but come fall, clearly had a change of heart. The Diff'rent Strokes cast appeared in the first episode of The Facts of Life. The success of the spin-off led to several Strokes/Facts crossovers in the ensuing years. While not a spin-off, Hello, Larry had a connection to Strokes as it was established in a crossover episode that Philip Drummond and Larry Alder were old Army buddies and Mr. Drummond had bought the company that owned the radio station where Larry worked as a talk show host. The episode "Almost American", was the pilot for a potential spin-off series. Additionally, Arnold appeared on the Silver Spoons episode "The Great Computer Caper" and the Amazing Stories episode "Remote Control Man."

Later appearances as the characters

In 1994, Coleman appeared in an episode of Married... with Children, playing a building code inspector whom Al Bundy called to report an illegal driveway. When Kelly recognizes him, he denies any connection to Arnold Jackson, but utters his catchphrase to Al, "What'chu talkin' about, Bundy?" In 1996, Coleman and Bain reprised their roles for the series finale of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air entitled "I, Done Part II," where they consider buying the Banks mansion, they reference Willis by name before meeting Will Smith's character, leading to Coleman uttering a variation of his catchphrase, "What'chu talkin' about, Will?"

Additional catchphrase references and appearances in popular culture

In 2004, Coleman appeared on the second season of The Surreal Life and was pressured to quote his famous catchphrase by Vanilla Ice. He also guest-starred as himself on The Wayans Bros., The Ben Stiller Show, Drake & Josh, The Jamie Foxx Show, The Parkers, Robot Chicken and The Simpsons.

After ''Diff'rent Strokes'' ended

Following the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes in 1986, Coleman, Bridges and Plato encountered difficulty in obtaining acting jobs. All three experienced various legal problems while Bridges and Plato also struggled with drug addictions, all of which were documented in the press. The press and fans of the series blamed the cast's personal problems and faltering careers on what was eventually dubbed the "curse of Diff'rent Strokes" by various tabloids.

Gary Coleman

In 1989, three years after the series ended, Coleman sued his parents and his former manager over misappropriation of his trust fund. Although he was awarded over $1,000,000 in the decision, he filed for bankruptcy in 1999. In 1998, Coleman was charged with assault after he punched a woman while working as a security guard at a shopping mall. In 2001, Coleman was videotaped trying to stop a vehicle from entering the mall. The driver ridiculed him and released the tape to be broadcast on numerous television shows. In 2007, Coleman was cited for disorderly conduct in Provo, Utah, for having a "heated discussion" with a woman. On May 26, 2010, Coleman, who had battled health problems since childhood caused by congenital kidney disease, was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo after falling and hitting his head after suffering a seizure. Coleman was then placed on life support after suffering an intracranial hemorrhage and died on May 28 from complications of his injury at age 42.

Dana Plato

During the series' sixth season, Plato became pregnant and her character was written out of the series. In 1984, she married the father of her child, musician Lanny Lambert, but the couple divorced in 1990. Due to financial difficulties and her growing addiction to drugs and alcohol, Plato relinquished custody of her son, Tyler, to Lambert. In an attempt to boost her faltering career, Plato posed for Playboy in June 1989, but her appearance in the magazine did not help her land acting jobs. By 1990, Plato was living in Las Vegas. Despite having made $25,000 an episode while on the series, she was often broke and was working as a cashier at a dry cleaning store. In February 1991, she was arrested after robbing a Las Vegas video store armed with a pellet gun. She was arrested the following year for forging prescriptions for Valium. In 1998, she appeared in a softcore pornographic film entitled Different Strokes: The Story of Jack and Jill...and Jill, which was intended to capitalize on her Diff'rent Strokes fame. After her arrests, Plato publicly admitted that she struggled with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999 at age 34. Her death was ruled a suicide. Her son, Tyler, would later die by suicide in 2010.

Todd Bridges

After the series ended, Bridges developed an addiction to cocaine. In February 1988, he was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of a drug dealer at a crack house in South Central Los Angeles. He was acquitted in November 1989. Bridges was also arrested on a concealed weapon charge and possession of cocaine. In 1994, he was arrested after allegedly ramming someone's car after an argument. After years of battling his drug addiction, Bridges became sober in the early 1990s. He now travels across the United States, touring schools and discussing the dangers of drug use. Bridges has continued acting in films and television. His more high-profile role was as Monk, a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran, conspiracy theorist, and nephew of Chris' boss Doc on the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. With Rae's death in 2018 at the age of 92, Bridges is now the only living member of the original cast.

Docudramas

Two unofficial docudramas were produced about the show:
has released Seasons 1 and 2 of Diff'rent Strokes on DVD in Region 1 & 4. Season 1 was also released in Regions 2 & 5 on October 6, 2008. On September 29, 2009, a "Fan Favorites" DVD was released. This is a one disc compilation consisting of eight episodes from Season 2.
On April 6, 2012, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series; they subsequently released the third season on DVD on July 17, 2012. Season 4 was released on November 20, 2012. Season 5 was released on April 4, 2017. Season 6 was released on July 25, 2017. Season 7 was released on February 27, 2018. Season 8 was released on May 29, 2018.
On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library, including Diff'rent Strokes. They subsequently re-released the first and second seasons on DVD on July 15, 2014. au
The series had been graded it's audio tracks to AAC 2 Channels