The Facts of Life (TV series)

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The Facts of Life
The Facts of Life title screen is shown which was used for season 1. A similar shot without students was used for seasons 2–4.
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Dick Clair Jenna McMahon
Developed by	Howard Leeds Ben Starr Jerry Mayer
Directed by	Asaad Kelada (seasons 2–4) Various (seasons 1–3 & 5–9)
Starring	Charlotte Rae Lisa Whelchel Kim Fields Mindy Cohn Nancy McKeon John Lawlor Jenny O'Hara Felice Schachter Julie Piekarski Julie Anne Haddock Molly Ringwald Pamela Segall Mackenzie Astin George Clooney Cloris Leachman Sherrie Krenn Geri Jewell Ryan Cassidy
Theme music composer	Al Burton Gloria Loring Alan Thicke
Opening theme	"The Facts of Life"
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	9
No. of episodes	201 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	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)
Producers	Jerry Mayer (seasons 1–3) Linda Marsh Margie Peters (seasons 3–4) Rita Dillon (seasons 5–9) Kimberly Hill (season 6)
Camera setup	Videotape; Multi-camera
Running time	22 minutes
Production companies	T.A.T. Communications Co. (seasons 1–3) Embassy Television (seasons 4–7) Embassy Communications (seasons 8–9) ELP Communications (season 9) Columbia Pictures Television (season 9)
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	August 24, 1979 (1979-8-24) – May 7, 1988 (1988-5-7)
Related
The Facts of Life Reunion Diff'rent Strokes

The Facts of Life is an American television

A spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, the series featured the Drummonds' former housekeeper Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) working in a new job as the housemother of a dormitory at Eastland School, a private all-girls school in Peekskill, New York. The girls in her care included spoiled rich girl Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel); the youngest, gossipy Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey (Kim Fields), and impressionable Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn).

The

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 guest appearances in the second and third seasons, and all but Molly Ringwald appeared in one "reunion" episode in the eighth season. Mr. Bradley's character was also dropped and replaced by Mr. Charles Parker (Roger Perry). Mr. Parker appeared in episodes through the beginning of season 5.^[2] In addition to being housemother to the remaining girls, Mrs. Garrett became the school dietitian as the second season began. Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon), 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. The season two premiere of the retooled series saw an immediate ratings increase. By its third season (1981–82), Facts of Life had become NBC's No. 1 comedy and No. 2 overall NBC program, beating its predecessor, Diff'rent Strokes, for the first time.^{[citation needed]}

In 1983, Jo and Blair graduated Eastland Academy in the highly anticipated season four finale "Graduation". To keep the four girls under one roof, in the season five premiere, "Brave New World", Mrs. Garrett went into business for herself and opened a gourmet food shop named Edna's Edibles. The four girls came to live and work with Mrs. Garrett in the new refreshed space. In September 1985, NBC moved the seventh season of the series to its burgeoning Saturday night lineup at 8:30, as a lead-in for the new series The Golden Girls at 9 pm. In an attempt to refresh the "ratings work horse" and increase ratings, George Clooney was added to the regular cast and Mrs. Garrett's store was gutted by fire in the season seven premiere "Out of the Fire". The follow-up episodes "Into the Frying Pan" and "Grand Opening" had the girls join together to rebuild the store with a pop culture-influenced gift shop, called Over Our Heads. The changes proved successful as all three episodes placed in the top ten ratings each week. 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-seven 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.'"^[3]

Charlotte Rae initially reduced her role in seasons six and seven and later decided to leave the series altogether, believing she had done all she could do with her character and desiring to move on to other projects.

A key recurring character was Geri Tyler (Geri Jewell), Blair's cousin who has cerebral palsy. Jewell's character primarily was created in order to show Blair's more sympathetic side but Cousin Geri eventually inspired many other people with disabilities interested in the entertainment industry. Other recurring characters included the judgment-impaired Miko Wakamatsu (Lauren Tom), the delivery boy Roy (Loren Lester) who was enamored with Jo, the royal princess Alexandra (Heather McAdam) and the snobbish Boots St. Clair (Jami Gertz). 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; Tootie's parents, played by Chip Fields (Kim Fields's real-life mother) and Robert Hooks and Natalie's parents, played by Norman Burton and Mitzi Hoag. Characters from Diff'rent Strokes also appeared in some episodes of both season one and season two. Other recurring characters included Tootie's boyfriend Jeff Williams (Todd Hollowell), Blair's boyfriend Cliff (Woody Brown), and Charles Parker (Roger Perry), who served as headmaster of Eastland following Lawlor's exit from the show. Also, Robert Romanus appeared in 4 episodes as 'Snake Robinson'.

The Facts of Life was produced first by

The show's theme song was composed by Al Burton, Gloria Loring, and her then-husband, Alan Thicke. The first season lyrics began "There's a place you gotta go / For learnin' all you ought to know / About the facts of life," sung partly by the cast.

Later seasons opened with "You take the good, you take the bad / You take them both, and there you have / The facts of life," sung by Loring. The original lyrics 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.

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. It ranked 22nd for the week, with an 18.1 rating and a 31 share. The movie was later added to the American syndication package, separated into four half-hour episodes; however, the original cut of the film appears on the Season 4 DVD set in 2010. The TV movie was directed by Asaad Kelada.^[9]

The Facts of Life Down Under, another two-hour TV movie, aired Sunday, February 15, 1987 placing a strong No. 13 for the week garnering 21.4/32.^[10] This was strategic counterprogramming by NBC, which placed the movie against the conclusion of ABC's highly publicized miniseries Amerika. The Telemovie was also syndicated as four half-hour episodes in later U.S. airings.^[11]

The Facts of Life Reunion, a two-hour TV movie reunion aired on ABC November 18, 2001, in which Mrs. Garrett and the girls are reunited in Peekskill, New York, for the Thanksgiving holiday. It occasionally aired in the United States on ABC Family. Nancy McKeon (Jo) did not appear in the movie due to scheduling conflicts with her then-TV series, The Division; her character's absence is explained as being on assignment as a police officer.

NBC aired daytime reruns of The Facts of Life from December 13, 1982 until June 28, 1985 at 10 a.m. (and later noon) on the daytime schedule. Episodes aired on television stations nationwide from September 15, 1986 to September 10, 1993, then aired on the USA Network on and off from September 13, 1993^[12] to September 11, 1998.^[13] In August 1994, the network celebrated the show's 15th anniversary with a day-long marathon of 14 episodes featuring new interviews with Rae, Weichel and Cohn. Episodes aired on Nick at Nite from September 4, 2000 to June 28, 2001, although the network did not air certain episodes that contained highly mature content during primetime (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. 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.^[14] On March 12, 2012, TeenNick added the series to their morning lineup; however, the series' addition to the channel was short-lived, as it left the schedule on April 3, 2012.^[15] The series premiered on The Hub on April 2, 2012, where it rerun until March 22, 2013 and later moved to Logo TV, airing it in random timeslots. In 2017, TFOL aired on MeTV, alongside its parent show Diff'rent Strokes. Antenna TV started airing The Facts of Life on January 2, 2020, before it moved to sister station Rewind TV when it launched on September 1, 2021. It later returned to Antenna in January 2024. As of March 2022, the series has also been airing in daily blocks and on Saturdays in day long marathons on the GAC Family (later Great American Family cable network. Also as of March 30, 2023, seasons one through nine are available on Tubi.

• In Brazil, the show aired on Nick at Nite as Vivendo e Aprendendo (Living and Learning in English).
• In Latin America and Mexico, the show aired as Los Hechos de la Vida aired on The Warner Channel and Nick at Nite.
• In Italy, seasons one through five were aired in 1983–1986 (dubbed as usual in Italian), on the terrestrial television network Canale 5, the first Italian commercial network, and later on other local commercial television networks. The Italian version was named L'albero delle mele, which means The apple tree (the word "apple" is popularly used euphemistically in Italian as a reference to teenage girls).
• In France, seasons one to nine (dubbed in French and titled Drôle de vie) which means Funny Life, aired in 1987 until 1988 on the terrestrial television network La Cinq, and seasons one to nine aired on TF1 from 1991 until 1996 as part of a block called Club Dorothée.
• In the United Kingdom, unlike Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life has never aired on terrestrial television. A few seasons aired on the UK BSB satellite channels, and after BSB merged with Sky Television, the entire series was shown on Sky One.
• In Canada, The Facts of Life was a mainstay on CBC Television–the Canadian public broadcaster, airing concurrently with the NBC airings as well as weekdays in stripped reruns at 4:00 p.m. (4:30 p.m. in Newfoundland) until April 1992. Crossroads Television System (CTS), a Christian-based network, aired it from September 2006 to 2009. Beginning on September 15, 2007, The Facts of Life aired weekends at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Canwest's digital specialty channel, DejaView, which later moved it to weekdays at 4:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. in March 2010. As of 2019, Hamilton, Ontario-based CHCH currently airs the series on weekdays at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time). The entire series is also currently available for online streaming on CTV.ca, as part of an ad-supported video on demand service called CTV Throwback.

The Facts of Life was originally not a ratings winner on Friday nights in its summer debut in 1979 or in its second tryout in the spring of 1980. It ranked 74th of 79 shows on the air in the year-end Nielsen ratings and was NBC's lowest-rated series. The show was put on hiatus and extensively retooled in preparation for season two. In November 1980, season two of The Facts of Life premiered in a Wednesday 9:30 p.m. time slot, where it immediately flourished, peaking in January 1981 with a 27.4 rating and 41 share; it ranked No. 4 for the week. The program became NBC's fourth highest-rated scripted series, after Little House on the Prairie, Diff'rent Strokes and CHiPs.^[16] By the third season, the series moved time slots to 9:00 pm. Wednesdays and soon became NBC's highest-rated comedy series and NBC's No. 2 overall series, after Real People.^[17] For its seventh season, it moved to Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., to bolster the premiering series The Golden Girls at 9 p.m. in the newly formed Saturday night comedy block. At the start of the eighth season, the series was moved forward a half-hour to the toughest time slot on television–Saturday at 8 pm, which brought the ratings down from its season seven high. Still, the series easily won its time slot and garnered high numbers in the coveted teen and 18–49 demographics. One of the highest rated season eight episodes saw the original season one cast return for a mini-reunion. Titled "The Little Chill", it placed No. 19 for the week with an 18.2 rating and 31 share. In the article "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.^[18]

• 1979–1980 – #74
• 1980–1981 – #26
• 1981–1982 – #24
• 1982–1983 – #32
• 1983–1984 – #25
• 1984–1985 – #34
• 1985–1986 – #27
• 1986–1987 – #31
• 1987–1988 – #37

• Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress (1982) – Charlotte Rae
• Emmy Award 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 Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series (1987) – for episode "'62 Pickup".
• TV Land Award for Pop Culture Icon in 2011.

On April 21 and 22, 2001,

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.^[28] 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 recently 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
  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", with the addition of '80s 'nerd' icon Eddie Deezen.
• "Graduation" – This spin-off was to revolve around Blair and Jo's life at Langley College.
• "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, Meredith Scott Lynn, and future Oscar-nominee Juliette Lewis.

After the re-creation of an episode of the series in a 2021 Live in Front of a Studio Audience special, Mindy Cohn said Norman Lear suggested a revival because the special was so popular. Cohn claimed in a July 2024 interview on Jeff Lewis Live on Sirius XM that the new series was well into the planning stages when one cast member she would not name went behind the other actress's and tried to secure a separate deal for a spinoff for that actress character. It created an enormous rift between the group and the deal was pulled. Although Cohn suggested she and the unnamed co-star talk again, she said the revival is "very dead."^[29]