"Rough Housing" - The Facts of Life

"There's a place you've got to go for learning all you want to know about the facts of life." - Gloria Loring singing the original theme song of the series.

Running from 1979 to 1988 on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) network as a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, the series The Facts of Life ran nine seasons as a staple of television, produced by Norman Lear's Embassy Television.

While I wasn't born until over a decade after the series ended, I began watching the series in syndicated reruns on The Hub Network in elementary school, instantly falling in love with the character's fun antics and the life lessons of housemother Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae). In my journey to become more familiar with the series from the era I adore so much, I chose The Facts of Life as my first series to re-watch select episodes from. Despite focusing much of my rewatching on the later seasons, I did want to first re-watch the pilot episode, stemming from a season I always skipped over in my original viewing.

From the start of the episode, we are introduced to all of the characters within the opening theme song, featuring fourteen cast members! While four of them were simply special guest stars from Diff'rent Strokes, it still highlights the large cast setting that was employed for the first season before its major reworking to only five cast members.

As expected, the series, which was ordered from a backdoor pilot from its proceeding show, featured the former show's cast members being introduced to the new setting, simultaneously introducing the audience to it as well while also showcasing their personalities.

Not even five minutes in, Mr. Drummond (Conrad Bain) asks Mrs. Garrett if he was returning to be their housekeeper, with her responding that being the housemother of the Eastland Girls School is only temporary. Little did they know the new series would last longer than the original.

Something I always observe with pilot episodes is the large amounts of exposition dropped throughout, oftentimes namedropping character names often, and emitting large amounts of personality that tend to mellow out throughout the season. This episode is no different, as you would expect with such a large ensemble cast.

Going through the plot of this episode, it is easy to see its dated nature, with Cindy (Julie Anne Haddock) miffed that Blair (Lisa Whelchel) is constantly mocking her femininity, questioning to believe her judgements or not. This leads to a larger conversation by Mrs. Garrett about judging someone simply based on their appearances and not who they are as a person. While it would likely this would be handled a little differently in present-day, I'm honestly glad to see that Rae's character was presented as affirming, willing to support Cindy in however she believes is most genuine.

Closing the episode, we see a time-jump where Cindy focuses less on her self-doubt and personal image, and instead embraces the opportunity to compete against Blair for Harvest Queen. While she lost the competition, she appeared proud to be herself, and that is the important thing.

Finally, to note, is that Mr. Drummond shows up, once again, at the close of the episode, making sure that Mrs. Garrett will return back. While she never does, it appears this was made in the event that the show would be canceled, allowing Rae to return to her previous role. This makes it seem that NBC was potentially doubtful the show would get picked up further than the single season.

Little did they know.

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