Did You Know That ‘The Facts of Life’ Was a ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Spin-off?
The Facts of Life fans, do you remember Cindy and Sue Ann? How about Molly, Nancy, headmaster Mr. Bradley and science teacher Miss Mahoney? They were all introduced on the season one finale of the NBC hit series Diff’rent Strokes, all present on the beloved boarding school sitcom when it premiered on August 24, 1979 — and they were all gone by Facts’ second season.
Major cast and storyline changes were, well, a fact of life for The Facts of Life, which followed Edna Garrett (then 53-year-old Charlotte Rae), who served as the Drummond family’s housekeeper on Diff’rent Strokes, as she left to take a new job as housemother of the exclusive Eastland School.
And though it stumbled early on, once The Facts of Life trimmed its cast and focused on Mrs. Garrett, bossy rich girl Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel), roller-skating smart mouth Dorothy “Tootie” Ramsey (Kim Fields), affable Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn) and tough cookie Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon), it became one of the top-rated series of the 1980s.
Embassy Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
How did The Facts of Life spin off from Diff’rent Strokes?
It all started on the first season of Diff’rent Strokes, where Drummond daughter Kimberly (the late Dana Plato) attended the East Lake School for Girls. Kimberly attending boarding school allowed for the character’s long absences while producers figured out whether or not she fit the show’s central storyline of an uptight white businessman taking in his Black housekeeper’s two young sons when she dies.
Plato soon charmed audiences enough to become a regular Strokes character, but Rae’s character was pegged for a show of her own, tentatively called Garrett’s Girls.
To set up that show, in the Different Strokes Season 1 finale, “The Girls School,” Mrs. Garrett helps Kimberly with costumes she needs for a school play, and finds herself captivated by Kimberly’s classmates. While the episode did introduce viewers to longtime regulars Blair, Natalie and Tootie, Kimberly’s other classmates included the aforementioned boy-mad smarty Nancy (Felice Schachter), perky Sue Ann (Julie Piekarski) and budding feminist Molly (12-year-old Molly Ringwald in a Dorothy Hamill haircut). Turns out the girls’ previous housemother quit and Mrs. Garrett volunteers to pitch in, setting up the premise for her permanent job change.
THE FACTS OF LIFE, top l-r: Felice Schachter, Lisa Whelchel, 2nd row l-r: Julie Anne Haddock, John Lawlor, Julie Piekarski, Molly Ringwald, bottom l-r: Mindy Cohn, Charlotte Rae, Kim Fields
Though Rae sporadically appeared in the first half of Diff’rent Strokes‘ second season, “The Girls School” served as a backdoor pilot for Garrett’s Girls, which would change its title to The Facts of Life before the show premiered. Rae’s final regular appearance on Diff’rent Strokes came in Season 2’s episode 13, “The Rivals,” which aired in December 1979, months after The Facts of Life debuted.
What Happened on the The Facts of Life series premiere?
On its series premiere, The Facts of Life wasted no time in tackling adolescent girls’ concerns, from sexuality to popularity.
Episode 1, “Rough Housing,” sees Blair convinced she’ll once again be crowned queen of the Harvest Ball at the now-renamed Eastland School. When Molly and Sue Ann nominate their classmate, the sports-mad, piglet-snuggling Cindy Webster (Julie Anne Haddock), Blair insinuates that her rival is a lesbian.
A rattled Cindy tries to back out of the ball, but Mrs. Garrett assures the 14-year-old that not every girl matures at the same rate and that her hugging her friends just means she’s a kind and loving person. Blair picks on her for it because Blair has trouble showing that kind of affection herself.
Then the housemother plants Cindy in the front of a mirror and has her take of her ball cap and hold up the dress Mrs. Garrett has been whipping up on her sewing machine (and is also the spitting image of the Gunne Sax dress I wore to my middle school dinner dance in 1980). See? Girlie as all get-out. As Cindy studies her reflection, Mrs. Garrett heads downstairs to teach Blair a (pretty cringy) lesson in how appearances are deceiving. Blair and Cindy comfortably hug out their differences.
At the (off-camera) dance, Blair retains her crown, while first runner-up Cindy is named Corn Maiden, which suits them both just fine. And a wink from Blair’s crush makes Cindy realize she really is becoming a woman after all.
Embassy Pictures / Courtesy: Everett Collection
The core Diff’rent Strokes cast — Phillip Drummond (Conrad Bain), Kimberly Drummond, Willis Jackson (Todd Bridges) and Arnold Jackson (Gary Coleman) — show up to try to talk Mrs. Garrett into returning to their household. Mrs. Garrett assures them she will, once a suitable replacement at Eastland is found, setting up the possibility for Rae to return to Diff’rent Strokes if Facts didn’t take off.
By its second season, a pared down The Facts of Life had leaped more than 40 spots in the ratings, from 70 to 26, and would run for nine seasons total, earning Rae a 1982 Emmy nomination of Best Actress in a Comedy Series. She left the series after its seventh season and was replaced by her college pal Cloris Leachman.
Everett Collection
And there you have The Facts of Life theme song
While most folks remember the opening lines of The Facts of Life‘s wildly catchy theme song as the classic “you take the good, you take the bad,/you take them both and there you have/ the facts of life,” that wasn’t the case in Season 1.
The classic TV earworm was penned by singer/actress Gloria Loring, her then-husband Alan Thicke, and TV producer and composer Al Burton. And as the uniform-clad school girls skipped down the step of their ivy-covered academy when the show debuted, the famous tune featured completely different words in its first two stanzas.
Season 1:
There’s a place you’ve got to go for learning
all you want to know about the facts of life
The facts of life.
When books are what you’re there about
and looks are what you care about
the time is right to learn the facts of life.
Season 2:
You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
the facts of life, the facts of life.
There’s a time you got to go and show
you’re growin’ now you know about
the facts of life, the facts of life.
Members of the cast traded the theme’s verses in the first season. Loring took over singing duties in Season 2, and the trio revamped the song’s lyrics one last time in Season 7 to reflect the core cast members moving on from their school years.
The series also featured a closing theme that assured each kid in the audience that they “got the future in the palm of your hand” if they understand that The Facts of Life, and the facts of life, were all about them.
Stream The Facts of Life on Tubi and Amazon Prime Video.
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Puzzler '80s Comedy Classics
Vol 1, Issue 6
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