Facts of life Reboot

[I Am A Swede]

 

 

Not to mention "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" where Vivian got a personality transplant and a severely diminished role after Janet Hubert was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Whew, that's opening a whole can of worms!  Clash of personalities, colorism issues, possible sexist leanings, backlash and a lot of it poured out into the public for all to see.

 

 

Ew at the possibilities of having Cliff raising the kids by himself!  That show needed Clair for so many reasons.  Without her presence, maintaining proper balance would have been the least of the show's concerns.

[mango]

 

I know exactly what you mean. In the episode where Natalie loses her virginity to Snake, and he doesn't call her for a while, Natalie asks Jo for advice. Jo brushes it off with some philosophical quote, and Natalie calls her out on it, saying something to the effect that Jo is only clucking out platitudes. When pushed, we finally see a glimmer of old-Jo. It was only momentary but noticeable. I love Scott Bryce but marrying Jo off and essentially having her as a background character, making a face here and there, for the rest of that final season was a shame. The essence of Jo was lost -- rough around the edges, blunt, but with a heart of gold.

[KMan101]

 

Yesss!!! I'm so happy you get it! It was like they were writing for Nancy, not Jo (IMO).

 

That's an excellent example! She was "phoning it in" so to speak. I wonder if Nancy wanted to get away from the tomboy aspects of Jo? Sure, people grow out of their phases as kids but it just seemed like, as you said better than I, the essence of her was lost.

 

I also think a part of it was that, it just seemed like, on-screen, Nancy was "over it", at least that's how sometimes it played out to me. I can't blame her but ... and the writing for Jo didn't help.

[dragonflies]

Wow I'd never heard that before about Claire on the Cosby Show, I loathed Claire but yeah she gave a balance the show needed.

[KMan101]

I could see that. I'd not watch that, but I could see that. I always found Cliff and Clair borderline obnoxious with their noses up in the air, a superiority complex (moreso Clair, and I like Phylicia Rashad) but at the same time there was a lot about the show I did like (looking back, the kids actually made a strong impact, they did well casting them and I liked the lessons learned and the closeness of the family, lots of it felt natural and realistic, it's obvious why it was a hit).

[dragonflies]

Claire and her holier than thou complex made me want to bitch slap her, she was way too sanctimonious

[KMan101]

 

Yesss! She really was.

[All My Shadows]

I've always hated The Cosby Show (well, except for a brief period when I was in middle school and we were all obsessed with the reruns on Nick at Nite), and Clair is a huge part of why. That family just wasn't my type of people. We have a few branches in my own family similar to them, and I don't like being around them.

[Franko]

I'm late to this thread, and I'm not trying to stalk Khan, but there are some good points to be made. I agree with the above, but I think we need to get back to the attitude of similar shows. For example, I'd be okay with watching Kelsey Grammer as a crime-solving lawyer, but I don't want to see Kelsey Grammer in "Matlock."

 

I always think to myself, "Jermaine's WIFE is not that excited to see him."

 

There are times I wonder if that was an NBC mandate, having a bunch of kids around to see which ones would click. Those last FOL episodes and the pilot to Good Morning, Miss Bliss make for great so close, yet so far viewing experiences.

[mango]

 

Totally. The show had run its course at that point. Combine Pippa and all those flashback-type episodes. It was clear the well of ideas was dry, but after nearly a decade, that's completely understandable. Marrying off Jo seemed like an easy way out to fade her away, especially sending her three-episode husband offscreen on a business trip (or a music trip? I forget). With Geoff coming back for Tootie, I always thought it would have nice to see Eddie return for Jo, maybe not as a boyfriend, but to see him again since he was her first love and they devoted a lot of time to him in the earlier years. 

 

That said, learning later how private Nancy McKeon is and what she wanted to do in life, I get her wanting to move on.

[KMan101]

Agreed on Eddie. I was always disappointed they didn't go back to that in later years. The whole marrying Jo off felt so weird to me, and then shipping her husband off-screen. IDK. It was all so weird.

 

I definitely get her wanting to move on. The show felt like it regressed. It didn't know what it wanted to be anymore. Too many flashbacky episodes as you said. It was time to move on.

[mango]

Nancy McKeon is taking part in this season's Dancing with the Stars. She's paired up with Val Chmerkovskiy.

 

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https://people.com/tv/dancing-with-the-stars-season-27-cast/

[John]

Wonder if reboot is still being considered.

Just watched the finale on LOGO

 

Got me thinking about all the spin-offs FOL attempted

Of all of these, which could have worked or not in your eyes

 

• "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.^[29] 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 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", 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 and future Oscar-nominee Juliette Lewis.

[KMan101]

None of them really felt like they had any legs to stand on if they made it to series. They seemed to really want Stone Academy to be a thing and take off it seems. The finale has grown on me over the years and probably would have had the most potential as a continuation, but by that time, I think everyone and the audience was ready to move on.

 

I really don't love the Cloris Leachman seasons, though they have grown on me. I always disliked the slow push out of Edna Garrett.