#78. Bonus Episode: 'Diff'rent Strokes'
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This short bonus episode is a deep dive into the early-'80s NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, after Vic — pursuing childhood nostalgia — rewatches two episodes ("First Love," with a young Janet Jackson as Willis's girlfriend, and "Slumber Party," a crossover with the Facts of Life girls including Molly Ringwald). Sonny is savage about the show's construction, declaring no pre-Simpsons sitcom should ever be watched again and marveling at its joke-a-page (or six-jokes-a-page, per JVL) hackiness, comparing it to the fictional terrible sitcom in Ricky Gervais's Extras; JVL, by contrast, finds it funnier than he remembered and praises a genuinely well-constructed Gary Coleman "Gestapo" joke as well as Conrad Bain's unshakeable on-screen professionalism. There's no opening banter section in this bonus episode — Vic dives straight into introducing the show, its Norman Lear pedigree, and its bizarre "rich white Park Avenue millionaire adopts his dead housekeeper's Black sons" premise, which Sonny needles as blithely accepting on the show's own terms. The back half turns dark and biographical, with Vic — drawing on his review of Todd Bridges's memoir Killing Willis — recounting the cast's grim real-life fates: Bridges's own sexual abuse by his agent overlapping eerily with the show's infamous "Bicycle Man" pedophilia storyline, his drug use and Johnny Cochran-defended attempted-murder case, Gary Coleman's growth-stunting kidney disorder, repeated arrests, and early death at 42, and Dana Plato's video-store robbery, drug overdose death at 34, and her son's later suicide — leaving Conrad Bain, who lived to 89, as the only cast member to escape tragedy. The episode closes on a tangent about the announced dramatic Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot, which Sonny mocks as an overly self-serious "prestige drama" take.
From the show notes
Oof.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe. Tell your friends. Today we are talking about a 1980s sitcom, Different Strokes, now streaming on Amazon.
JVL00:00:36No, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. I watched a 1998 film starring Dana Plato.
Vic00:00:45Which is also on Amazon.
JVL00:00:46Also on Amazon called Different Strokes. With a subtitle. The subtitle, Jonathan. The subtitle of, uh... From Melinda Mint? No. Jack Has It All. Good luck.
Vic00:00:58No, no, no. You ready? It's Different Strokes, a story of Jack and Jill. And Jill. So that's what I watched.
Sonny00:01:07That's a million times better. Why didn't we watch that? Why didn't we watch that?
Vic00:01:12That is, you know, and it was, that's under the category of softcore. And for, you know, there's a hilarious line by, I think, Paul Schaeffer during the roast for Richard Belzer. Because. Because Richard Belzer's wife had been in some of these kind of movies. And Paul Schaeffer says, what's the difference between hardcore and softcore? I can't even tell. Not even on the paid for. I cannot tell you the punchline of that. I'll tell you after. So, in any event, we decided, I think somebody was saying, oh, Different Strokes is on. We should check it out because we had done Knight Rider. So we did Different Strokes.
Sonny00:01:48Whoever put that idea in JBL's head should be ashamed of themselves.
Vic00:01:56And I thought, you know what? You know what? We're trying to give it Sonny that a lot of 80s television was great. And this is not helping. So, you know, I looked into it. I said, I have fond memories. I have fond memories of Different Strokes as a child that, oh, I want to go back. This would be really interesting. What are the favorite episodes in my mind? And I kind of had a few in my mind. But they're not in sync. So if you go online to any of these websites and talk about their favorite episodes and where they appear. Amazon, it's kind of in a weird order. So it didn't appear the way it was told. I ended up watching two episodes, one from season two. The other from season three. The one from season three is True Love and or First Love. And Janet Jackson is Willis's girlfriend.
JVL00:02:35Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson.
Vic00:02:36If you're nasty. If you're nasty. Another old reference. And then the other one is Slumber Party, which is where you had the mixer from the girls from Facts of Life. Including Molly Ringwald. Molly Ringwald.
Sonny00:02:47Who? Can I? Sonny. Question. I'm done. Sonny, go ahead. So Facts of Life was not on the air at that point, right?
Vic00:02:56I believe. It was because what happened was in the first season, the Drummond's housekeeper was Mrs. Garrett, the same character. And then she leaves to pursue her dream like she wanted a full. It was as fulfilling being a maid. So she fulfills her dream of being a dietician at the school. Eastland. I forget what the name of the school was. And and that show was the follow up show from the 830 to nine slot. The Facts of Life. They have the same cinematic universe. Yes, they were the same. Cinematic universe. So just a little background. And then we can I want to ask you what you thought about these the show and in general. So different strokes was a it was a Norman Lear thing because Norman Lear had done, of course, all in the family and the Jeffersons. And he had done Maude. And in Maude, Arthur's character was played by Conrad Bain. Right.
Sonny00:03:52He wanted to see how far back he could set race relations in America after moving us. He wanted to see how far back he could set race relations in America after moving us forward so much.
Vic00:03:58Let me finish. So then he said, you know, find a vehicle for Conrad Bain. And the idea was this different strokes. And what happens is Conrad Bain is this very rich, this multimillionaire living in Park Avenue at a penthouse in Park Avenue. And his housekeeper died. And and there was no father. And so he adopts her kids, her two boys, the kids, Arnold and Willis. And that becomes different. That becomes different strokes. And if you watch the credits to the first or second season, you know, it's it's a stretch limo. And, you know, it drives into like the hood and then playing basketball.
Sonny00:04:39So I want to I wanted to ask you what the actual setup for the show was, because the way the way the credits play, it's this rich old white guy. Come on in to a basketball court and just takes two boys, just takes just takes two young black men back to his home. And everyone's like, yeah, this is fine.
Vic00:04:58That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. The guys who are playing basketball, where'd they go? It's OK. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like the old school stretch Cadillac, too, you know, and the Ric Flair had like it had like it had like a satellite.
Sonny00:05:10Yeah, it was like it had like one of the TV antennas in the back.
Vic00:05:14Yeah, it was like a Fleetwood. So that's Wayne's world. That's the story. And that's how it started. And this was on NBC. It was like eight or eight thirty on a Saturday night. Uh, primetime.
JVL00:05:29Sonny or JVL, my main, my main.
Sonny00:05:32So I only watched what I only watched one of these goddamn episodes because I was not I was not watching. I was not. I could not do 44 minutes. I could barely do 22 minutes.
Vic00:05:42It felt like an hour, didn't it?
Sonny00:05:43Uh, I watched I watched Slumber Party. I watched the one with the facts of life girls.
JVL00:05:48So I, uh, I was the thing, the thing about it, the thing I came away.
Sonny00:05:55Uh, with from this was that no sitcom that was produced before the Simpsons should ever be allowed to be seen by anyone ever again. Uh, because it was, it wasn't, it's not just that it's bad in the sort of like way that a lot of network TV is bad, though. It was certainly bad in the way that a lot of network TV was bad. It's just, it's so, it's so hacky and like punchline set up punchline set up punchline. Oh. Double entendre. Oh, uh, ref, not even references. It's like, uh, the, the whole thing was so fucking bad. Um, and I, again, I was very, I was slightly confused by the setup. I didn't quite understand why these two kids were living with him. That's why. Um, and, and on top of that, I was trying to decide if, um, I could, I, I wasn't sure about this. If, uh, uh, Gary Cole.
Vic00:06:51Gary Coleman.
Sonny00:06:52Gary Coleman, not Gary Cole, the character. Gary Cole is a great actor. He's a great actor too. Gary Coleman. So was Gary Coleman an adult? 10. No, okay. At that time. When this was happening. He was about 10. Yeah. Cause he, he, he never got much bigger than that, right?
JVL00:07:07So we can talk all about him. Yes. Uh, he was born with a rare kidney disorder and the medication he took for it as a young child, stunted his growth and sort of froze his face as a child's face. Yeah. And so he never got much taller than four, eight, I think his, his, when he passed away at an untimely age, he was about four foot eight. Uh, but he always had those sort of full cheeks and kind of looked like a kid.
Vic00:07:34Yes. Yeah. And much to his advantage and then much to his disadvantage at the same time. So, you know, it was a blessing and a curse.
Sonny00:07:40I, I, I, so I found myself, I was like, I was very distracted by that because I couldn't, I wasn't, I wasn't a hundred percent sure what, what the story there was. Um, but again, it's just the, the, the, like for instance, in this episode, there is a guy is trying to play a song, a violin, trying to play violin at the table and he comes out and he gets a note into it. And then the telephone comes out and this happens like five fucking times. This keeps happening. And I was just like, I was like, there's no, there's no, Sasha's going to be mad. Sasha, Sasha, Sasha is not going to be able to play his violin song. He's going to be so angry.
JVL00:08:20How about the, the weird blonde that Conrad Bain is having dinner with? And she's like, why don't you, is she British though? From very, from the very first minute is like, why don't you come back to my hotel room next? You know, that, that woman is there to get it on with Conrad Bain.
Vic00:08:37She just wants to bang.
Sonny00:08:39Spotted dick. And look, look, good for her. Good for her. Who can blame her for being annoyed when these kids start rolling into the restaurant? Also, where was this restaurant? Was it like down the street? Yes. Yes. Did they, did they like get in a cab? No, no.
Vic00:08:54You know, they took us to Rock Park Avenue and they walked down the street to Pavillon. So I felt like, you know.
Sonny00:09:02Also, that restaurant looks like a, a, a olive garden. That's what they all look like in 1987. It's a crap.
Vic00:09:10Yeah, the sets were the same. I felt like it gave me confidence that if I, you know, if I lived, if I were born earlier, I would be able to write these shows. The script, I mean, it sort of writes itself.
Sonny00:09:23I think it's actually, I think it's actually more difficult. More difficult. No, see, I was actually thinking about this. I think it, I think it's actually because it's so formulaic that you have to, you have to like hit those, those joke beats. You know, what is it? A joke a page. You have to hit a joke a page.
JVL00:09:36These are way, way more than a joke. So a joke a page is the modern standard. I believe that when this is something I was thinking about while we were watching it. This is set up joke, set up joke. I think these are oftentimes like six jokes a page.
Sonny00:09:53I mean, yeah, there's not, there's not six lines of diet.
JVL00:09:57No, no, no, but this is, and sometimes up is larded up in the, here's the degree of difficulty because they, because you have to tell the story entirely through jokes. There's nothing but the jokes, right? The, the whole, the entire 22 minutes is set up joke, set up joke, which means that you have to tell whatever the, your thin story is for the episode. You have to tell it with no exposition. Tell it only. With jokes, moving from joke to joke.
Sonny00:10:25I think it would actually be exceptionally hard to write a script like this. I mean, I think it would, I, I'm not, I, I actually.
Vic00:10:29I could write the jokes though. Those jokes are pretty, I could do those jokes. The worst part is. You'd be a punch up guy. Yes, that's right. I'd punch it up. You give it to me and I'll punch up because, but sometimes they would tell a joke, you get a laugh, and then they immediately followed it by another joke line, killing and stepping over the original joke. It was like, oh.
Sonny00:10:47It reminded me, it reminded, the other thing it reminded me of was, did you guys watch the show Extras, the Ricky Gervais show Extras? Yes. Love, I love that show. And the, the, the terrible sitcom that he makes that is like. Yes. What he imagines. When the whistle blows. Like what Ricky Gervais imagines the BBC wanted the office to be. When the whistle blows. That's what this reminded me of. Just like unironically terrible and. Do you remember the catchphrase in that?
Vic00:11:14Is he, is he having a laugh?
Sonny00:11:16Is he having a laugh? Oh yeah, thank you. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. I couldn't pull it. Yeah.
JVL00:11:19You know, the, the other weirdness of this is that this is. I would say 75% of the setup jokes are constructed so that Gary Coleman gets the punchline.
Vic00:11:30Yes.
JVL00:11:31And that again adds another degree of difficulty. Like you've got this 10 year old kid who's the franchise who at. Right. By later in the show I think is pulling a hundred grand per episode. Or his parents. Which is nuts. Yeah. And you know some of the, I don't know. There was a really funny bit in the, so I'm, I'm sorry that you didn't watch the, the, the first love, the Janet Jackson episode, because that is much more like a French bedroom farce where, you know, the girl comes over and they're hiding and then her dad shows up and they're hiding her. There's this moment where there's a Casablanca joke, which is only fine, but then the door of the front door rattles and Gary Coleman's line is, I hope it's not the Gestapo. Right. And so that's, that's a funny joke, but then the door is opened and we see that it's the dad and Coleman's reaction is it. It is. Right. It's the dad. Like that's, I'm sorry. That is a reasonably sophisticated three level joke. Right. And the timing, he had good timing on it. He had very good timing. And the timing on it's good. Was the guy like German? I don't understand. No, no, no. He was. No, no. But the one he's, he's the dad who's there to get the girl back. That's why he's the Gestapo. It is.
Vic00:12:41Not that he's German. Terrifying.
JVL00:12:42Also the chosen actor who's six foot 10. He was, he was a big dad. So basically Janet Jackson's father, but it's not Joe Jackson. Yes. I don't know. I thought the whole thing was funnier than I remembered it being. Is that right?
Vic00:13:00I, I had the reverse experience, although it'll always, I always thought, I mean, again, this was prime time. So, but it had the feel of it after school special. Yeah. But the thing is, you know, I having, having read and reviewed the book, killing Willis by Todd bridges. Oh, you did. I did. It, it just adds all these layers. And tell me, do you give me a dump of your notebook from that? Uh, okay. So for example, they had the, uh, you know, there was that special episode with Nancy Reagan, the just say no episode. And that was a drug episode. Uh, and he says, you know, when they were not filming, there were, he and Dana Plato were getting high, you know what I mean? So there was that, that was going on. Um, uh, yeah. Todd bridges and Dana Plato and, uh, another, uh, girl, uh, they, they, he was in a threesome during the, uh, filming of, uh, circus of the stars. Remember circus of the stars?
JVL00:13:56Oh, I do remember that. Yeah.
Vic00:13:57Not obviously during the show, but we're not filming.
JVL00:14:00They went back and that was what's going on. Dana Plato.
Vic00:14:02A few times, a few times, but you know, he himself and it's, but here's, what's also crazy. So, you know, one of the most famous episodes is the bicycle man episode, right? With Gordon jump. Right. And it's, it's, it's the sexual abuse. It's he's a, uh, Gordon, the great actor, Gordon jump from WKRP and the Maytag guy, uh, plays a pedophile. And, uh, while, uh, while they're doing this, um, two-parter and it's with Arnold and his friend Dudley and Dudley's the actual victim, you know, Todd bridges is there playing Willis. Todd bridges himself was a victim of sexual abuse. He was abused and molested by his agent. Uh, and then it's, it's an awful detail in this, in, in, in, in, in this book that this is going on all at the same time. Um, and you know, and he had a promising, he had a promising career, Todd bridges. He started in the Abe Vigoda. Uh, sitcom fish. He was one of the kids and he got discovered and then, you know, got on this show and everything was great. And he would, he did some of these tours where they go to malls across America with Scott Bayo. So he was friends with Scott Bayo at the time, wild times. Uh, and then Dana Plato, of course, you know, it was all downhill after that. And she got into drugs. Uh, and then, uh, she held up a, uh, a video rental store, I think. And then, uh, so she got arrested for that. And then she did deferred.
JVL00:15:20All three of them had a lot of encounters with the law.
Vic00:15:26Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:15:26And Gary Coleman was, do you remember Todd Bridges, who he was represented by in his, his, uh, attempted murder case?
Sonny00:15:34Who represented him? Johnny Cochran.
JVL00:15:37Is that right? Yeah. Oh, that's right. He, uh, he was tried for attempted murder of his drug dealer. Right. And, uh, yeah, Todd Bridges was into crack.
Sonny00:15:46Cochran got him off.
JVL00:15:48And, uh, yeah, Gary Coleman was. Was arrested a whole bunch of times. Yeah. He was a security guard. He was a mall security guard.
Vic00:15:56You feel bad because people were making fun of him. And then of course, same thing with Dana Plato after Dana Plato, uh, uh, you know, uh, robbed the video rental store. The, the, the person for the video rental store would call the police. And the call is the person on the phone says, I just got robbed by Kimberly from different strokes. So she got ID'd and then she got back in this horrible. But then she ended up, you know, she died of a drug overdose and then, and her son did too. I mean, I was, no, no, her son, I think committed suicide. So it was just really awful. And it was the weirdest thing that the only.
JVL00:16:29She was dead at 34 and Gary Coleman was dead at 42. Yeah.
Vic00:16:32And it was a head injury. Do you remember that for him? He fell the only survivor of that family. You watch that sitcom, the only survivor is Todd Bridges and he had the. Oh, the Conrad Bain.
JVL00:16:43God bless him. Lived to 89. Yeah.
Vic00:16:45Yeah. And he, and, and Todd Bridges said he was a very good man. He, he was very, he was very good.
JVL00:16:50You know what? You say what you want. I was watching this, I can only imagine what the show was like backstage. Conrad Bain on screen is a total pro like that.
Vic00:17:04Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He just does this, he is grounded.
JVL00:17:08Like he's up at perfectly good presence on screen. He delivers. He delivers.
Vic00:17:12Yeah, really.
JVL00:17:13I, I was impressed as hell actually by Conrad Bain and what a nice centerpiece he makes. For the rest of the show to happen around him.
Vic00:17:22I, I, the problem with Different Strokes is a lot of the more interesting or edgier episodes came later. But that also means that, you know, Arnold is like 15 or 16. Oh yeah, the, with the gooch is good. The gooch. The gooch is good. But the later stuff, the problem is then, you know, when Arnold, as you, as, as Sonny noticed, seemed older, you know, when he became like 14, 15, but he's still, you know, the same size, then do you remember they brought in Danny Cooksey as Redheaded kid, right? Stepbrother, Redheaded kid, who I would only see one time later, uh, and he was on Terminator. He was Poochy. He was Poochy in, uh,
JVL00:18:02From the Simpsons.
Sonny00:18:03In Terminator 2?
JVL00:18:04No, on Different Strokes. Oh, yes. He was, he was the, the Simp, remember Poochy, when they bring it right in? In the Simpsons, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That kid became the Poochy character for Different Strokes, like, oh, we need something younger. No, I'm saying, which Redhead from Terminator? Oh, Judgment Day. Judgment Day.
Sonny00:18:19Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just his friend in the arcade. The kid from Salute Your Shorts. I guess. No, didn't say that. You guys didn't watch Salute Your Shorts? No, sorry. That was a niche. No.
Vic00:18:28That was my, that was my generation. See, that was my terrible sitcom. I, I'm sure if, if, if Pod is listening to this, he'd be very upset that Sonny doesn't want to, you know, like, about sitcoms pre, uh, Simpsons, and I would say, you know, there are great ones, we're just not talking about them, like Mary Tyler Moore and The Odd Couple. Yeah, I mean. And Three's Company, I like, but that was very sort of, that's also very, uh, one trick pony. It's all about misunderstandings.
Sonny00:18:51Obviously, there are great, there are great sitcoms, I Love Lucy, et cetera, et cetera, but like, uh, but I, I, I feel like we wouldn't be losing too much as a society if we just, it was a very.
Vic00:19:01Made a blanket rule. It was a very kid-centric lineup because at some point, 8:00 became Silver Spoons with Ricky Schroeder. Yeah. Remember? Kids were big. Kids were hot. Yes. And that was it. For some reason, and what are you doing on a Saturday night?
Sonny00:19:14Family Ties.
Vic00:19:15I'm watching this. Family Ties is centering around kids. Oh, that came later, that, that came later with Cosby, and that was, that was, that was really, that was really good stuff. Um.
JVL00:19:21The Kirk Cameron, the Kirk Cameron Center.
Vic00:19:22That's Growing Pains, Growing Pains.
JVL00:19:23Growing Pains, which by the way, if you look, the two things in the credits on Different Strokes that blew my mind were that Alan Thicke has a co-writing credit for the theme song.
Vic00:19:31Whoa.
JVL00:19:32Hm. And, uh. I don't know. That's good. It, it, there's a, at the very end, it says, "Videotaped at Metro Media Hollywood." Which means that this thing was not put on film. Oh yeah. This thing. This thing. This thing was taped on videotape.
Vic00:19:51It's, yeah, and it, and it kind of has that feel, but.
Sonny00:19:55It, it, yeah, and all I can think of when I saw is Boogie Nights.
JVL00:19:59Right? The, when, when they, you know, the, the guy comes to Jack and is like, yeah, we're just gonna use V, we're gonna use VHS, not film. And he's like, not film? And they're like, yeah, man, the product doesn't really matter. Well, you know. Yeah.
Vic00:20:12I think, you know, maybe, uh, uh, maybe they could do a different, more serious version of this. Uh, sitcom much like they're doing with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Sonny00:20:22Did you guys watch that trailer?
Vic00:20:23I did.
JVL00:20:24No.
Sonny00:20:25What?
JVL00:20:26Oh, you missed the JVO? No. What, what, what's the deal?
Sonny00:20:29Is it a socially conscious? Imagine, imagine the, uh, you have all of the same characters from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but you're putting it in a prestige drama in 2020. That's about what, that's about what the, the, the vibe of this thing is.
JVL00:20:45I'm sure it's fine.
?00:20:48I'm sure it's fine. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
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