SFK

When I was watching that earlier, I truly wondered how often slaps like that happen IRL. Like at big galas and such. I feel like if it happens today, it's a direct connect to the Dynasty influence. But it's true, people did used to hit people more often back in the day and get away with it before everyone got so sue happy.

So true, and I think I mentioned this a few months back, but Bogle talks about that in one of his books. How insulting it is for Dominique to say things like "finally feeling at home with her REAL family" and whatnot. I get the need for acceptance, but how can you just diss your mother's family who raised you like that? GL, ugh, soooo disappointing. I'd like to see more of the original s/l though with Alex and Alan in Barbados with Brandon, Sharina, and Victoria. I've seen clips of Victoria on YouTube, she was played by Kim Hamilton.

Not enough can be said about how absolutely stunningly beautiful Diahann Carroll looked on this show. Jackie was turrible. She actually sounded like a Jackson.

See, this is a little complicated, because we're also dealing with a certain type of upper middle class black family that is just as black to me as the kids of A Different World, but when you add more kids, more slang, more hip-hop culture what have you, then non-black people suddenly see a "black show" when they were both just as black. It's like when people say that she show "got ghetto" with Pam and her friends. Offense taken. What I also find tough is the idea that upper middle class blacks were more "palatable" to certain white audience members, yet from the same group (and from blacks too to be fair) the show was criticized for being unrealistic by having a black doctor father and black lawyer mother. Like, how dare you say that's unrealistic?? White and no one would have batted a lash.

A black show that white people lurrrve.

That's interesting. I mean, TCS was a family sitcom and ADW was a college sitcom, of course it was a black family and a black college which by TV standards is certainly unique. But I hope "black sitcom" isn't some sort of pejorative. I think, I KNOW white viewers can relate and they were obviously watching, but of course the show (like Good Times) dealt with issues that were specific to the show's setting. Of course, a lot of those "Very Special Episodes" could have happened on Degrassi too. What made the show black was its flavor moreso than its content, just like Friends was a "white" show though no one would ever call it that.

I read in a forum years ago that Falcon Crest was rerun on what is now Lifetime years before I had cable. Maude has never done well in syndication and Bea Arthur attributed that to the dated topical nature of the show. This is why she resisted similar storylines and references on The Golden Girls. Frankly, I love all of those "dated" references, many of which went over my head as a kid, but to me that's only made the show more enjoyable as I've gotten older... a bunch of new laughs. Chico and the Man was shown on the American Life Network a couple of years ago, and I think a little while on TVLand before that. But yeah, not a big syndication hit but I think that has a lot to do with the nature of Freddie Prinze's death.

Yeah, I think this, like DYNASTY, is a show that should have had its first two seasons released together on dvd.

Ah yes, Whitley called her "Lillian" (Rudy's midde name).

Leia, I loved that post, especially the first paragraph.

"Konichiwa!" Oh man, YES on those twins being so damn annoying, and speaking of Elvin's rat tail Carl, little Nelson had one too! Winnie, I don't know where her parents were from, but she had a slight accent and hit her lines so weirdly, not my favorite kids. Olivia was great in the beginning, it's funny to have watched her evolution from the final eps to "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper" to <<GASP>> "That's So Raven" where she has just THEE most OTT Jim Carey acting style, ugh, I can't take it. Like, you can't get a break, every line is mugged and beat to death with "funny" inflection. Oh well, *ca-ching* for you sweet Raven with your superfluous accent in Symoné. I'm the same age as Keisha and I remember what a huge deal her sleepover episode was, everyone was doing "Uno Dos Si-ay-so" (sp??) at school for years after that. What I DIDN'T know until a few yearrs ago is that that was Alicia Keyes playing the little girl who we all thought was another little boy, with the short afro. Maria.

It was a much quieter show that first season, seemed like everyone spoke softly, the lighting was dim, at times it felt like there wasn't even a studio audience, like it was laugh tracked.

Kim: Kinu? Whitley: Shay's blAck 'n jApuhnaise... Ooh, another character I loved was Debbie Allen as the therapist! "Relax! Relate! Release!" The best is when she was getting into Whitley's story and she straightened her wig!

I DO remember that! The Boys also guest starred in an ep I caught on TVOne just last week, they beat Ron's band in a competition. Do you remember when Ja'Net DuBois (Willona, "Good Times") guest starred and had the hots for Mr. Gaines? Excuse me, Vernon.

AMS, I loved that first season of HWMC. That En Vogue theme was the BEST. Holly Robinson-Pete is bff with Terry from En Vogue. En Vogue! Here come the nostalgia monster to swallow me up. Aww, and I just remembered that the late Roxie Roker played Vanessa's mom. Gone too soon. LOL @the carwash/porn ADW opening. Actually, I used to think that the lady singing the theme was Mary Alice (Nettie). Aretha was my favorite, and the final version felt fresh and "about time" when it first aired, but now it's like the final "Diff'rent Strokes" theme to me, that need to freshen things up on your way out, just reminds me that the show is winding down. I don't like that moment when the show comes on in syndication and my first thought is, "Oh, this is the last season. " I probably sound like such a weirdo. Carl, TOTALLY on that trying to sound sexy voice and audience "WOOOOHHHH!" stuff. Shazza used to get that too. Both Shazza and Millie are examples of actors who I didn't connect the dots to until years later, Gary Dourdain and MAR. Allen Payne who now stars in Tyler Perry's "House of Paynefully Unfunny". He and Jada did Jason's Lyric.

Yeah, that was a cute little "We're moving into the '90s" moment. I thought Alexis and Sable's catfight was a little disappointing, too much arm wrestling. Loved Dominique and Alexis though. Joan is such a wimp.

The studio's when Krystle confronts her about causing her miscarriage (the gunshot when the horse dragged her) so I guess yes. But the "empty-armed Madonna" line is definitely at the lily pond.

I'm guessing she and TPTB were uninterested in that, of course we got Charmaine instead. But I also think that coming off of TCS, there wasn't really room for her on ADW, she would have been expected to have a pretty large role on the show and we already had Whitley, Jaleesa, Kim, Freddie, I don't know if Pam would have been bunched with all of those other new generation girls like Lena and Gina who got the supporting stuff. Okay, another favorite episode is when Jasmine Guy played the dual role of her buck-toothed cousin. I always crack the bleep up when Ron says affectionately to her, "Oh Bucky... "

Gosh, Bumper Robinson was in so much stuff during the '80s. I didn't really like Dorian. Wasn't he very religious or something? That's not why I didn't like him, I'm a church boy myself, but I found his character a little annoying, something about his line delivery. Felt the same way when he was on Amen. Going OT for a split second, but when he was still a kid, he was in this TV movie we watched one Sunday night, it was about freed slaves. I don't remember much about it, but I remember that when he and his family were at some white family's house he was offered some food on a tray and when he went to reach for it the bratty little bitch daughter shrieked, "Gitchore dirty black hands off! " That has stuck with me all these years. And at the end of the movie, he and his family were trying to board an all white train or something so they could make it up north (? details foggy) and their white charge made them all up in white foundation so they could "pass". This was before Phil Morris on Y&R and Ingrid Rogers on AMC.

You beat me to it, I was just going to say it was totally the water element, not unlike the mud wrestling catfight that came later. Of course both women were far too clothed for it to be that erotic. But also at the lily pond, Alexis was wearing one of her iconic black and white w/picture hat ensembles, so visually it's the video time capsule example. Perhaps she had a Madonna line in the studio too, but Alexis calls Krystle "the empty-armed Madonna" at the lily pond. But the studio fight is the one that'll make women cheer and shout "Go 'head Krystle!" because she just wore Alexis' tail out. "If you want a rematch, just whistle. If you can."

I went to college and shared dorms/on-campus apartments with people in their thirties, I get it and think it all depends on where you are mentally/emotioanlly in life, but yeah, Jaleesa always seemed like the type who was "over it." So did Whitley for that matter, from like day one. Whitley reminds me more of my friends who lived off-campus but of course she had a family connection to the school and her dorm in particular.

Yes indeed, she was the professor when Tisha Arnold's character revealed in a class assignment that she was HIV+ (and Gina quickly added that she was gonna request a room change as Tisha's character lived on her floor... the audience responded accordingly).

Yeah, I love that Jenifer Lewis, please tell me someone here has seen Jackie's Back! I read Susan Fales-Hill's (ADW's EP, and daughter of Josephine Premice) autobio and she and Whoopi pitched a sitcom pilot about a fading black diva. They pegged Jenifer Lewis for the lead. Of course Susan had worked with Jenifer on ADW and Whoopi had worked with her in the Sister Act films. Well, whatever IIC shot down the idea and in her book Susan recalls a conference call where execs were like, "See, when we think of 'divas' we think of someone like Bette Midler..." They totally shot down the idea, they just would not go for the idea of a sitcom about a black diva, the kind who Whoopi and Susan knew all their lives, the kind who BIRTHED and RAISED Susan. Anyway... Jenifer got to play it out in Jackie's Back! Did you guys know that Cree Summer was the voice of Penny in Inspector Gadget and Elmira in Tiny Toons? I still hear her all the time doing commercial voiceovers.

I liked Freddie but didn't care for her when she tamed the hair to go all professional lawyer (Message! [/Keenen Ivory Wayans]) and got with Ron. Didn't like her with Ron at all. Actually, she lost her V to Ron during the storm in the radio station, as a matter of fact I think people "heard" because he'd left the mic on.

Gina: Oh win da sainnnnts, Go marchin' eeeenn, Go marchin' eeeenn, Not OUT but eeeenn, oh right on eeeenn!! And of course there was the episode where her boyfriend beat her ass. There were lots of "Very Special" episodes.