“You take the good, you take the bad, you take both, and you have the facts of life, the facts of life.”

Let’s be honest… You’ll be humming this classic TV sitcom opening as you watch this tribute to The facts of lifewhich premiered on NBC exactly 45 years ago today. To be precise, it was August 24, 1979.

At that time, NBC desperately needed hits. Only one of its primetime series, Our little farmfinished the season in the top 20. So the network decided to push Charlotte Rae out of the comedy as housekeeper Edna Garrett. Different strokes to the fictional Eastland, a boarding school for girls, in The facts of life. Different strokes In the 1978/79 television season, the series reached 27th place overall, which was reason enough for NBC to produce a spin-off series.

The pilot for The facts of lifewhich serves as the season finale of the first season of Different strokesMrs. Garrett had Kimberly Drummond (Dana Plato) help sew costumes for a school play at Eastland, the school Kimberly attended. Kimberly was back at the Drummond house in New York City at the start of the second season of, without explanation. Different strokesbut Charlotte Rae as Mrs. Garrett stayed in Eastland. At least for the first seven seasons of The facts of life (until Cloris Leachman, as Mrs. Garrett’s sister, Beverly Ann Stickle, unnecessarily intervened).

At the beginning, seven girls were under Mrs. Garrett’s watchful eye: Lisa Whelchel as snooty Blair Warner, Felice Schachter as boyfriend-obsessed Nancy Olsen, Julie Piekarski as Sue Ann Weaver, a small-town girl from Kansas, Molly Ringwald (already a queen in the film) as Molly Parker, Julie Anne Haddock as tomboy Cindy Webster, Mindy Cohn as comical Natalie Green (who in real life was attending a girls’ boarding school when she was discovered by Charlotte Rae), and Kim Fields as Dorothy “Tootie” Ramsey (who inexplicably spent most of the first season on roller skates).

Also present were John Lawlor and headmaster Mr. Steven Bradley, as well as Jenny O’Hara as the good teacher Miss Emily Mahoney. Yes… it was a full set!

After a moderately rated first season (from which Jenny O’Hara left after only four episodes), the producers reduced the cast of The facts of life down to just four girls: Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cohn, Kim Fields, and newcomer Nancy McKeon as tough (but soft) Jo Polniaczek from the Bronx. John Lawlor had also left the school, and Rae’s Mrs. Garrett was now the school’s nutritionist.

After a run-in with the law, the now four girls were forced to live together in a guest room next to Mrs. Garrett’s bedroom. The facts of life found its focus. In the first seasons, Geri Jewell also occasionally appeared as Blair’s cousin Geri Tyler, who was the first disabled actress to have a recurring role in a television series.

Although it was never a top 10 hit, Golden Girls-style comedy with a teen theme ran for nine seasons.

As with any long-running series, there have been changes to The facts of life. Mrs. Garrett left Eastland to open her own deli, Edna’s Edibles. Blair and Jo went to college (which was one of the six backdoor pilots that never made it to series), and the girls eventually moved back in together. Pamela Adlon (credited as Pamela Segull) made a brief appearance as Kelly Affinado, a tough girl Jo befriended. Edna’s Edibles burned down. And George Clooney was added to the cast as carpenter George Burnett (who rebuilt the store as a pop-culture-influenced establishment called Over the Top).

Mackenzie Astin also stepped into the role of orphaned Andy Moffett (who was later adopted by Beverly Ann, played by Cloris Leachman).

Ultimately, George Clooney only lasted one season, and Charlotte Rae decided to leave after seven seasons. The facts of life to pursue other opportunities. In the two-part opening sequence of the eighth season, Mrs. Garrett marries Robert Mandan as Dr. Bruce Gaines and the aforementioned Cloris Leachman moves in with the girls. The ninth – and final – season also featured Sherri Krenn as Pippa McKenna, a young girl from Eastland’s Australian sister school.

In contrast to the innocence of the earlier episodes, The facts of life Eventually, it evolved into more adult storylines, such as Natalie, played by Mindy Cohn, losing her virginity.

NBC planned an extension The facts of life for a 10th season, but two cast members – Mindy Cohn and Nancy McKeon – decided to leave at the end of season 9. And in the two-part series finale, Blair bought Eastland and had to deal with a gaggle of new students in the now co-ed environment.

Fun fact: There were four more backdoor pilots on The facts of life that did not make it into the series. The first was the episode titled “Sylvia & Brian” (originally aired March 25, 1981), which focused on an interracial marriage (with Richard Dean Anderson prior to airing).MacGyver)Next came “The Academy” (March 31, 1982), set at a military school for boys, followed by “Jo’s Cousin” (April 14, 1982), which featured Jo’s (Nancy McKeon) relatives in New Jersey. And toward the end of the series, Natalie (Mindy Cohn) moved to SoHo in the episode titled “Big Apple Blues” (March 19, 1988).

There were also two The facts of life TV movies: The facts of life go to Paris in 1982 and The facts of life Down Under in 1987.

In 2001, the cast (without Nancy McKeon) reunited for the television film The Facts of Life Reunification. And one episode was re-produced in ABC’s Live in front of a studio audience Special from Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel with Ann Dowd as Mrs. Garrett, Jennifer Aniston as Blair, Kathryn Hahn as Jo, Allison Tolman as Natalie and Gabrielle Union as “Tootie”.

“Everyone laughed at us, they made fun of us,” Charlotte Rae once said. “But we persevered. We tackled serious problems. We handled everything right. And we made a difference.”

Recently, Mindy Cohn claimed in a July 2024 interview on a radio show Jeff Lewis Live that a Facts of life The reboot was well into the planning stages when a cast member, whose name she declined to disclose, asked for her own deal.

“For a 40-year friendship and sisterhood, there was a wave of emotion,” Cohn said. “We were united for 40 years by not talking about each other, not doing anything dirty, one for all, all for one. And this kind of destroyed that.”

Even so, The facts of life lives on in reruns… all 201 episodes. And to conclude the opening of this feature…

When it seems like the world will never live up to your dreams, you suddenly realize that life is all about you.

It takes a lot of effort to get them right when you learn the facts of life, learn the facts of life.