The Facts of Life is an American television sitcom created by Dick Clair and Jenna McMahon that originally aired on NBC for nine seasons from August 24, 1979, to May 7, 1988. A spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, the series follows Charlotte Rae as Mrs. Edna Garrett as she becomes a housemother and later dietitian at the fictional Eastland School, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York.

The first season featured a large ensemble cast that was quickly trimmed, with main co-stars throughout the majority of the series consisting of Lisa Whelchel as Blair Warner, Kim Fields as Tootie Ramsey, Mindy Cohn as Natalie Green, and Nancy McKeon as Jo Polniaczek. The premise of The Facts of Life changed numerous times throughout the course of its run, coinciding with the changing lives of its young characters. From the fifth season onward, the setting of the series shifted from the Eastland School to a storefront that Mrs. Garrett turns into a bakery called Edna's Edibles, which later becomes a pop culture gift shop called Over Our Heads run by the girls. Additional co-stars added to the main cast throughout the series' run include Pamela Adlon, Mackenzie Astin, George Clooney, and Sherrie Krenn. In 1986, Rae left the series and was replaced by Cloris Leachman as Mrs. Garrett's sister Beverly Ann Stickle, who serves as the series' main star for its final two seasons.

Initially not a ratings success, The Facts of Life went on to become one of NBC's highest-rated series of the 1980s, becoming the network's highest-rated comedy series in its third season. A 1988 opinion poll conducted by USA Today found that the series was among the top ten most beloved programs among American teenagers at the time. Three television films based on the series were also aired, including The Facts of Life Goes to Paris (1982) and The Facts of Life Down Under (1987) on NBC, and The Facts of Life Reunion (2001) on ABC. The Facts of Life was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards throughout its run, including a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Rae in 1982.

Plot Season 1

A spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, the series featured the Drummonds' former housekeeper Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) working in a new job as the housemother of a dormitory at Eastland School, a private all-girls school in Peekskill, New York. The girls in her care included spoiled rich girl Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel); the youngest, gossipy Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey (Kim Fields), and impressionable Natalie Green (Mindy Cohn).

The backdoor pilot for the show was originally aired as the last episode of the first season of Diff'rent Strokes and was called "The Girls' School (a.k.a. Garrett's Girls)." The plot line for the pilot had Kimberly Drummond (Dana Plato) requesting that Mrs. Garrett help her sew costumes for a student play at the East Lake School for Girls, the school Kimberly attended in Upstate New York, as her dorm's housemother had recently quit.

Mrs. Garrett agrees to help, puts on a successful play and also solves a problem for the boyfriend-obsessed Nancy Olsen (Felice Schachter) as she also meets Blair; Tootie; Sue Ann Weaver (Julie Piekarski), a small-town girl from Kansas; and the budding social activist Molly Parker (Molly Ringwald). Mrs. Garrett is asked to stay on as the new housemother but says she would rather continue working for the Drummonds at the end of the pilot.

After the backdoor pilot, the name of the school was changed to Eastland and new characters were added with Natalie, athletic tomboy Cindy Webster (Julie Anne Haddock), and Mr. Bradley becoming part of the main group featured. Although Kimberly Drummond is featured as a student at Eastland, her character did not cross over to the spinoff series with Mrs. Garrett. In the show's first season, episodes focus on the issues of seven girls, with the action usually set in a large, wood-paneled common room of a girls' dormitory. Also appearing was the school's headmaster, Mr. Steven Bradley (John Lawlor) and Miss Emily Mahoney (Jenny O'Hara), an Eastland teacher who was dropped after the first four episodes. Early episodes of the show typically revolve around a central morality-based or "lesson teaching" theme. The show's pilot episode plot included a storyline in which Blair Warner insinuates that her schoolmate Cindy Webster is a lesbian, because she is a tomboy and frequently shows affection for other girls. Other season one episodes deal with issues including drug use, sex, eating disorders, parental relationships, and peer pressure.

Seasons 2–8 The producers felt that there were too many characters given the limitations of the half-hour sitcom format and that the plotlines should be more focused to give the remaining girls more room for character development. Four of the original actresses—Julie Anne Haddock (Cindy), Julie Piekarski (Sue Ann), Felice Schachter (Nancy) and Molly Ringwald (Molly)—were written out of the show, although the four did make periodic guest appearances in the second and third seasons, and all but Molly Ringwald appeared in one "reunion" episode in the eighth season. Mr. Bradley's character was also dropped and replaced by Mr. Charles Parker (Roger Perry). Mr. Parker appeared in episodes through the beginning of season 5. In addition to being housemother to the remaining girls, Mrs. Garrett became the school dietitian as the second season began. Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon), a new student originally from the Bronx, arrived at Eastland on scholarship. A run-in with the law forced the four to be separated from the other girls and work in the cafeteria, living together in a spare room next to Mrs. Garrett's bedroom. The season two premiere of the retooled series saw an immediate ratings increase. By its third season (1981–82), Facts of Life had become NBC's No. 1 comedy and No. 2 overall NBC program, beating its predecessor, Diff'rent Strokes, for the first time.

In 1983, Jo and Blair graduated Eastland Academy in the highly anticipated season four finale "Graduation". To keep the four girls under one roof, in the season five premiere, "Brave New World", Mrs. Garrett went into business for herself and opened a gourmet food shop named Edna's Edibles. The four girls came to live and work with Mrs. Garrett in the new refreshed space. In September 1985, NBC moved the seventh season of the series to its burgeoning Saturday night lineup at 8:30, as a lead-in for the new series The Golden Girls at 9 pm. In an attempt to refresh the "ratings work horse" and increase ratings, George Clooney was added to the regular cast and Mrs. Garrett's store was gutted by fire in the season seven premiere "Out of the Fire". The follow-up episodes "Into the Frying Pan" and "Grand Opening" had the girls rebuilding the store with a pop culture-influenced gift shop, called Over Our Heads. The changes proved successful as all three episodes placed in the top ten ratings each week. By the end of the season, TV Guide reported, "Facts success has been so unexpected that scions of Hollywood are still taken aback by it... Facts has in fact been among NBC's top-ranked comedies for the past five years. It finished twenty-seven overall for the 1985–1986 season, handily winning its time slot against its most frequent competitors, Airwolf and Benson. Lisa Whelchel stated, 'We're easily overlooked because we've never been a huge hit; we just sort of snuck in there.'"TV Guide July 5–11, 1985

Charlotte Rae initially reduced her role in seasons six and seven and later decided to leave the series altogether, believing she had done all she could do with her character and desiring to move on to other projects. In season eight's heavily promoted one-hour premiere, "Out of Peekskill" Mrs. Garrett married the man of her dreams and joined him in Africa while he worked for the Peace Corps. Mrs. Garrett convinces her sister, Beverly Ann Stickle (Cloris Leachman), to take over the shop and look after the girls. The character of Beverly Ann had a similar personality to Leachman's previous Emmy-winning role as Phyllis Lindstrom on two 1970s CBS sitcoms–The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Phyllis. Beverly Ann later legally adopted Over Our Heads worker Andy Moffett (Mackenzie Astin) in the episode "A Boy About the House". Describing the new changes to The Facts of Life, Brandon Tartikoff, the president of NBC Entertainment, said he "was surprised that The Facts of Life performed well this season, as, with a major cast change and all, I thought it might not perform as it had in the past. Facts has been renewed for next season.""Web Brass Dissect Past Season" Variety April 22, 1987

Final season In the ninth and final season, the series aired on NBC's Saturday lineup at 8 pm; NBC still had confidence in the series, making it the 8 p.m. anchor, kicking off the network's second-highest rated night (after Thursdays). For the February Nielsen rating sweeps, the writers created a controversial storyline in this season for the episode titled "The First Time". Natalie became the first of the girls to lose her virginity. Lisa Whelchel refused to do this storyline that would have made her character, not Natalie, the first among the four young women in the show to lose her virginity. Having become a Christian when she was ten, Whelchel would not say the lines because of her religious convictions. Whelchel appeared in every episode of the show but asked to be written out of "The First Time". The episode ran a parental advisory before it began and placed 22nd in the ratings for the week. With the show still easily winning its timeslot, NBC had made plans to renew The Facts of Life for a tenth season but two castmates—Mindy Cohn and Nancy McKeon—chose to leave at the conclusion of season nine. NBC cancelled the Facts of Life but used the two-part series finale ("The End of the Beginning"/"The Beginning of the Beginning") to serve as a backdoor pilot for a new series in which Blair became the new headmistress of Eastland when she purchased the school to prevent it from closing.

Cast

Production Development The Facts of Life was produced first by T.A.T. Communications Company, later known as Embassy Television (Norman Lear's production companies) and then as Embassy Communications and Columbia Pictures Television (through ELP Communications) on January–May 1988 episodes of the series. Sony Pictures Television currently owns the distribution rights to the sitcom. From 1979 until 1982 the show was produced at Metromedia Square in Los Angeles. In 1982, production moved to Universal City Studios and then to Sunset Gower Studios in 1985.

Theme music The show's theme song was composed by Al Burton, Gloria Loring, and her then-husband, Alan Thicke. The first season lyrics began "There's a place you gotta go / For learnin' all you ought to know / About the facts of life," sung partly by the cast.

Later seasons opened with "You take the good, you take the bad / You take them both, and there you have / The facts of life," sung by Loring. The original lyrics shifted to the closing credits before being dropped entirely. Burton, Loring, and Thicke had previously composed the theme to Diff'rent Strokes.

Episodes

Television films The Facts of Life Goes to Paris The Facts of Life Goes to Paris, a two-hour TV movie in which Mrs. Garrett and the girls travel to France, aired September 25, 1982. It ranked 22nd for the week, with an 18.1 rating and a 31 share. The movie was later added to the American syndication package, separated into four half-hour episodes; however, the original cut of the film appears on the Season 4 DVD set in 2010. The TV movie was directed by Asaad Kelada.

The Facts of Life Down Under