The Facts of Life

The Facts of Life is a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes, launched via a backdoor pilot titled 'The Girls' School (a.k.a. Garrett's Girls)' that aired as the season one finale of Diff'rent Strokes.

The original pilot featured a much larger ensemble, including a young Molly Ringwald as social activist Molly Parker, but four of the original actresses (Julie Anne Haddock, Julie Piekarski, Felice Schachter, and Ringwald) were written out after season one to allow more focus on the remaining girls.

George Clooney joined the regular cast in season seven as part of an effort by NBC to refresh the long-running series and boost ratings.

When Charlotte Rae left the series in 1986, she was replaced by Cloris Leachman as her character's sister Beverly Ann Stickle, a role noted for having a similar personality to Leachman's Emmy-winning Phyllis Lindstrom from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Phyllis.

Lisa Whelchel, who became a Christian at age ten, refused to perform the storyline in the season nine episode 'The First Time' that would have made her character Blair the first of the girls to lose her virginity, so the storyline was rewritten for Natalie and Whelchel was written out of that episode.

Production of the series moved locations several times: Metromedia Square in Los Angeles from 1979–1982, then Universal City Studios in 1982, and finally Sunset Gower Studios starting in 1985.

Several attempted backdoor pilot spin-off episodes featured notable guest actors before they became famous, including Richard Dean Anderson (later of MacGyver and Stargate SG-1), Megan Follows, David Spade, Richard Grieco, Seth Green, Mayim Bialik, and Juliette Lewis.

A 2021 recreation of an episode for the Live in Front of a Studio Audience special was popular enough that Norman Lear suggested a revival series, but according to Mindy Cohn the plan collapsed after a cast member secretly tried to negotiate a separate spin-off deal, causing a rift among the actresses.