Diff'rent Strokes

It's hard to believe, but 2003 marks 25 years since Gary Coleman asked Willis what he was talking about.

Norman Lear, who broke a lot of ground heretofore with All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, continued his magic touch with Diff'rent Strokes. A 25th anniversary marathon on any given television station would be a great way to remember this show, notwithstanding that Miss Dana Plato is no longer of this earth.

This show made Gary Coleman Gary Coleman, and he truly made the show what it was.

Diff'rent Strokes was and still is regarded by many as not just one of the most successful sitcoms in TV history but one of the very few, which succeeded due to the multi-racial cast of Conrad Bain as Philip/Mr Drummond, Dana Plato as Kimberley, Todd Bridges as Willis, and the lovable scamp, Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson. The performances given by the main leads in Diff'rent Strokes was great, particularly Conrad's as the strict but fair, Mr Drummond. Mrs Edna Garrett played by Charlotte Rae was funny, charming and witty and a great addition to the cast. But the star of the show was Coleman as Arnold and his famous catchphrase 'whatcha talking'about Willis?'.

Even though it was a sitcom, the show wasn't afraid of tackling and addressing social and controversial issues such as child molestation, racism, bulimia, class division and sex for example. The writing was funny but also sharp, witty and clever. Arnold has arguably the best and funnier lines out of all the characters, although Philip isn't that far off either.

He was one of the reasons why Diff'rent Strokes was such a huge success story, as Coleman's comic timing was almost spot-on. The cutesy factor that accompanies his cheeky and somewhat mischievous persona as Arnold was a huge incentive on his part.

There have been many sitcoms past and present, which centred around youngsters as the main protagonists, but whilst most of them have tried they have failed, mainly because one of the reasons for this is that those shows do not possess a central character as humorous, as versatile as Arnold and of whom has a personality of which viewers can fall in love with straight away.

Diff'rent Strokes didn't have just one but three child characters in Kimberly, Willis and Arnold. The concept was original and addressed the issue of child adoption in a straight-to-the-point manner but at the same time combine laughs with clean cut jokes, good gags and great humour. It's such a shame though that the notoriety of the show, in regards to the child performers was always brought up; likewise Coleman's own brushes with the law and surprising fall from grace, Todd's battle with drugs, and the rather unfortunate and well documented demise of Dana and her subsequent death during the late 90s, slightly tarnished the mainstream success, as well as history of Diff'rent Strokes. Next year in 2008, it will be the 30th anniversary of Diff'rent Strokes, since its debut in 1978.

All in all though, this was a great little sitcom, starring a little guy with a big heart played by Coleman which was destined to be a big hit, which it was and one that captured millions of audiences hearts, worldwide.

Diff'rent Strokes was an outstanding sitcom that dealt with real life issues such as racism, bulimia and child molestation. But never in television history that all the child stars had tragic outcomes.

Gary Coleman had severe kidney health issues which stunted his height and couldn't be taken seriously and the writers wrote him like a child in the later seasons. Gary would never act again and was force to work as a security guard to help pay his medical bills.

Dana Plato had a troubled life who became pregnant in real life and was fired. She later robbed a dry cleaner store to support her drug habit. Dana late overdosed and died.

Todd Bridges the lone survivor of the cast got arrested and went to prison but later redeemed himself.

I watched this show as a child and I enjoyed it for what it was. However, as the show got older even I could see that Gary Coleman was getting a bit to old for the role and that is of course when they did what every show featuring children who age do. Do they simply end the show gracefully...No! They try to keep the show alive, by interjecting a younger kid to try and bring the cute factor the show once had and lost when the children grew up. They did this on numerous shows, this is one of the few that I actually saw that did it. I watched Brady Bunch a bit when I was a kid, but I have never seen an Oliver episode. This show is about a wealthy guy who takes in the children of a former maid or something. That is about all there is to it. He has a daughter of his own and he raises the children the best he can as they go out in the world and face all of life's little challenges, including a guy who kidnaps young Arnold (Gary Coleman) and Kimberly (Dana Plato) in an episode that was a bit much considering this show was aimed at the family market. I mean you want your child to be safe and all, but you also do not want them becoming fearful and paranoid. They also had one where cute little Sam (the youth interjection) got kidnapped as well. Then they have an episode where they basically try to capitalize on the success of the film "Ghostbusters". So in recap this is a show that should have stayed on four or five years tops, but tried to keep the show going as long as possible and weakening what little did work.

Since I wasn't around when the show originally aired, I have to catch it whenever I can on Nick at Nite or TV Land. And since TV Land just showed a 48 hour fandemonium marathon, I was able to catch a lot of episodes.

I absolutely love this show. The plot approach is different which works out great. The writing and quick comedy is terrific and the acting is one of a kind. The writing that was given to Gary Coleman was unbelievably hysterical, and being such a young kid at that time, he handled it so well. While I like the entire cast and think that they all did a nice job, I must say that I especially like Todd Bridges. I don't know, there's just something about him that you can't help but like.

This show like all shows has its moments where the plots could use some improvement but what show would it be if it didn't have its moments? Overall, the eight seasons are filled with the better episodes.

'Diff'rent Strokes' scared me a little during the seventh and eighth seasons when they hauled in Danny Cooksey and Dixie Carter/Mary Ann Mobley to join the Drummonds. I think that it would have been better off leaving the family as it was. Then again, the boys were getting older, they lost their afros, and Kimberly started to move on. So, it's kind of a tricky situation.

I would really like to see a reunion but it would be a little hard without the sadly missed Dana Plato. All in all, this show was an above average, very funny, good family get-together show. I know I'll keep watching whenever it's on!

(P.S. - The theme song is really addicting.)