A Different World

The original premise was to focus on a white student at a historically black university, with Lena Horne cast as an acting teacher, but the concept was reworked to center on Denise Huxtable, a black student, with a white roommate instead.

Meg Ryan was originally cast as Denise's white roommate but left to pursue a film career, leading to Marisa Tomei being cast in the role instead.

After the first season, Bill Cosby brought in Debbie Allen, a Howard University alumna, as chief creative officer to revamp the show after it was criticized for inaccurately portraying life at a historically black college.

When Lisa Bonet became pregnant in real life during summer 1988, Cosby refused to let Denise Huxtable be portrayed as pregnant, so the character was written out by having her drop out of Hillman and travel to Africa during the parent show's fifth season.

Following network rejection of storylines developed for Marisa Tomei's character, she and Marie-Alise Recasner were dropped from the show and replaced by Cree Summer and Charnele Brown, respectively, shifting the show's focus to Whitley and Dwayne.

The theme song was co-written by Stu Gardner, Bill Cosby, and cast member Dawnn Lewis, who revealed that being asked to write the song and being asked to audition for the show happened so close together that she initially thought it was a prank by friends.

Although Hillman College was fictional and located in Virginia, the visual campus shots used in the series were actually filmed at two real historically black colleges in Atlanta, Georgia: Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College.

Kadeem Hardison, who later played Dwayne Wayne, had earlier appeared on The Cosby Show as one of Theo Huxtable's friends in the first-season episode 'A Shirt Story,' though not in the role of Dwayne.

Sinbad, who joined the principal cast of A Different World, had previously guest-starred on The Cosby Show as a car salesman in the third-season episode 'Say Hello to a Good Buy.'

The pilot episode, which aired September 24, 1987, became the highest-rated television pilot in history.

The first season holds only an 11% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics accusing the show of being juvenile and overly reliant on The Cosby Show, but after Debbie Allen's overhaul the sixth and final season achieved a 100% approval rating.

During the show's original run from 1987 to 1993, there was a 24% increase in enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities, an impact often attributed to the show's influence on African-American youth.

Director Debbie Allen is the real-life sister of Phylicia Rashad, who played Clair Huxtable; Allen also appeared in a recurring role on the show as Whitley's psychiatrist.

Glynn Turman, who played Colonel Bradford Taylor, was once married to Aretha Franklin, who sang the show's theme song during seasons 2 through 5.

Actor Allen Payne turned down an offer to become a series regular on A Different World in Season 6, choosing instead to pursue a film career, which led to his starring role opposite Jada Pinkett Smith in the 1994 film Jason's Lyric.