Seasons 1–2 (1978–80)

The first season aired at 8:00 pm ET on Friday nights. It dealt with common topics such as various growing-up and adjustment issues experienced by Arnold and Willis, and mild culture clashes. Plots that saw Mr. Drummond searching for love, and stories that mildly addressed racism were also sometimes featured.

Although billed on the opening credits of each episode, Plato appeared only semi-regularly for much of the first season. On-screen this was explained with her character often said to be away at her private school; in reality the producers were still undecided whether the character was extraneous to the format, with the option that she could simply be faded into the background and written out as away studying should they choose to drop her. But Plato and her character were well received by audiences, and the producers became convinced that her inclusion added an extra element of appeal to the audience, offering a female character for young girls and women to identify with. As a result, from the later first season and on into the second season, Plato became a regular character.

Charlotte Rae appeared as Edna Garrett in every first-season episode; the final broadcast episode of the first season, "The Girls' School", also known as "Garrett's Girls", sees her agreeing to accompany Kimberly to her private school, the fictional Eastland, in order to help with preparations for a play- in actuality, this episode acted as the backdoor pilot for the spin-off series The Facts of Life (Garrett's Girls being an early working title). Mrs. Garrett is present for the first 13 episodes of the second season of Diff'rent Strokes, with the character last seen in the episode "The Rivals", after which she leaves, offscreen, to take a permanent position at Eastland, The Facts of Life having by then been picked up for a full series. (Kimberly did not become a regular character in that series, although the two shows had a number of crossovers.)

Shortly after the second season began, the show was moved to Wednesdays in a less kid-friendly timeslot, 9:00 pm ET. Following Rae's departure midway through the second season, Nedra Volz took over as the housekeeper, the older and crankier Adelaide Brubaker, introduced in the episode "The Election". Volz appeared on a semi-regular basis, but was not added to the opening credits, instead always credited with the guest cast on the closing credits. The reason for this, in part, was that it was in Rae's contract that she be allowed to return to Diff'rent Strokes should The Facts of Life be canceled.

Also first appearing in the second season was Arnold's best friend Dudley Johnson (Shavar Ross), first seen in the episode "Teacher's Pet". Robbie Jason (Steven Mond), another recurring school friend, also makes his first appearance in that episode. Arnold and Dudley (and often Robbie) shared many childhood escapades together, and were featured in many episodes, school-based and otherwise, throughout the show's run. As part of this, Arnold's school life also gradually began to feature more in many episodes; this increased in subsequent seasons.

The first and second season also included three hour-long crossover episodes (edited into two-part format for syndication and overseas broadcasts) with NBC sitcom Hello, Larry, which had been moved to the slot immediately following Diff'rent Strokes in an effort to boost its ratings (an effort that ultimately failed; it was canceled after the end of its second season).

Seasons 3–4 (1980–82)

The third and fourth seasons had some of the show's highest ratings and continued much of the themes of the first two seasons, but also gradually saw the introduction of some more serious topics into storylines. Beginning with the third-season episode "Count Your Blessings" and also touched upon in several other episodes is the fact that Arnold will never grow much taller, reflecting Gary Coleman's real-life medical condition. This same episode introduces wheelchair-aided Melanie Watson, born with osteogenesis imperfecta, as Kathy Gordon, who continued to guest-star one episode per season until Season 6. Also, shortly after Season 4 started, the show kept the same 9:00 pm ET timeslot, but moved from Wednesday to Thursday.

Also introduced in the third season is Philip's dotty and eccentric sister Sophia (Dody Goodman), in the episode "Junk Food Junkie". Appearing on a semi-regular basis, she effectively filled the same function as Adelaide as the older female character in many stories, and is present in many third and fourth season episodes.

Other recurring characters introduced over the third season included Le Tari as Dudley's adoptive father, Ted Ramsey (in the episode "Football Father"), Janet Jackson as Willis's girlfriend Charlene DuPrey and, in the fourth season episode "Kathy", Arnold's teacher Miss Chung, played by Rosalind Chao, who had played a different character in the third-season episode "Almost American", in which the regular cast only have minor roles, which served as the backdoor pilot for a potential sitcom focusing on the students of an immigration and naturalization class. The pilot was not picked up for a series, and was the only time the characters and setting appeared in Diff'rent Strokes.

Due to a pay dispute involving Coleman and his parents—who acted as his managers—over the latter's demand to increase his salary from $1,800 to $30,000 per episode, which resulted in Tandem suing them for breach of contract,^[11][12][13] Coleman did not appear in the first four filmed episodes of the fourth season ("The Ski Weekend", "First Day Blues", "The Team" and "Hello Daddy?"), with a separately filmed cameo tagged on to the end of one episode explaining that he was away in the country visiting some of Mr. Drummond's relatives. The final two episodes produced for the third season ("Growing Up" and "The Model") had originally been postponed due to a writer's strike, and the interspersing of these two episodes with the ones without Coleman taped at the start of the fourth season allowed the span of his absence to be broken down onscreen. When the dispute was ultimately settled, Coleman returned to the series, missing only two more episodes (season 7's "The Gymnasts" and "Baseball Blues").

Due to the popularity of Coleman's character, a spin-off series was briefly considered, to be titled Arnold and focusing on the character's school life. But the idea was dropped, both due to producers not wanting to water down the character's appeal in the main series, and deciding that the additional workload would be too much for Coleman..

Seasons 5–6 (1982–84)

The fifth season saw a day and timeslot move, to Saturdays at 8:00 pm ET (with the new comedy Silver Spoons following at 8:30). The second episode of the fifth season, "In The Swim", introduced Mary Jo Catlett as the rotund, ever-cheerful Pearl Gallagher, the last of the Drummond household's three maids. Catlett joined the main cast, appeared in almost every episode until the end of the show's run, and was billed on the opening credits from the sixth season onward. "In The Swim" also saw the move of Kimberly from her private school, to the one attended by Willis—a move brought about in part at Plato's suggestion, with it being felt it might open up potential new storylines.

The fifth season also introduced a new recurring character in Arnold's class at school, that of Lisa Hayes (Nikki Swasey). Although in her first appearance, in the episode "Cyrano De Jackson", she is sweet on Arnold, in subsequent appearances, the pair were enemies, often squabbling and trading insults, a recurring theme until the end of the series (although Lisa's final appearance, in the penultimate episode of the show's run, "The Photo Club", sees the pair addressing their differences and striking a truce of sorts).

The fifth season also continued the upturn of many more storylines dealing with serious topics, becoming the epitome of the "Very Special Episode" concept employed by 1980s sitcoms, a trend that continued until the end of the show's run; the best-known example^[14] being the fifth season two-parter "The Bicycle Man" (originally broadcast on February 5 and 12, 1983), in which Arnold and Dudley are lured in by pedophilic bicycle shop owner Mr. Horton (Gordon Jump) who attempts to molest the boys.

Midway through the sixth season, Plato became pregnant with her first child, and approached the producers of the show to incorporate her pregnancy into Kimberly's plotline. Initially they agreed to add to Plato's suggestion, but later reversed course. (Incidentally, a Season 3 episode, "Little Mother", had tackled a similar theme, involving a friend of Kimberly who discovers she is pregnant and, because of a misunderstanding, the rest of the family is led to think that Kimberly is pregnant before finding out the truth.) Plato's publicized brushes with substance abuse contributed to this decision, resulting in her dismissal from the series at the end of the sixth season.

Although still pulling in reasonable viewing figures by this time, ratings were beginning to fall, so producers decided to add several new characters to the cast to freshen the series up and open up future storylines. Dixie Carter and Danny Cooksey were cast to portray recently divorced television aerobics instructor Margaret "Maggie" McKinney and her son Sam, respectively.^[15] Carter was introduced midway into the sixth season (in the episode "Drummond's Lady"); after she abruptly left for California, Drummond and the family took off after her, in the two-part story "Hooray for Hollywood", a storyline that also introduced Sam, Maggie's son from her previous marriage. Phillip proposed to Maggie, and they married in the episode "The Wedding" (first broadcast on February 25, 1984). Several past characters attended the wedding ceremony, including Aunt Sophia, Adelaide, and Mrs. Garrett.

Season 7 (1984–85)

For the seventh season, Carter and Cooksey were added to the opening credits (with Carter getting special "and" billing, last in the order) and many new areas and ideas were explored, as viewers now got to see Philip as a happily married man.

Due to Plato's pregnancy and publicized substance abuse issues, she had been dropped from the regular cast at the end of the previous season. Kimberly was written out of the show with the explanation that she moved to Paris to study for a couple of years, but returned as a guest star for the season finale "A Special Friend", after Plato gave birth.

Since there was a new fresh-faced kid in the house with Sam, Arnold now had his own little sidekick and was happy to be a "big brother" for a change. With Willis shifted into the background slightly, this new brotherly duo took center stage for many storylines. In the season, Bridges continued as a main cast member, but was absent in several episodes. Additionally, stories focusing on Arnold's school life, which had featured occasionally in many previous seasons, were delved into much more.

Season 8 (1985–86)

The introduction of Maggie and Sam had not improved ratings, which continued to decline over the course of the 1984–85 season; as a result, in the spring of 1985, NBC decided to cancel Diff'rent Strokes after seven seasons. However, Embassy Television subsequently reached a deal with ABC to pick up the series for an eighth season; the network change saw Strokes move back to its original night, Friday, airing at 9:00 pm ET. With this move, the show's recognizable theme song was re-recorded, updating it into a then-more modern pop style. (Fellow Embassy sitcoms and former NBC stablemates The Facts of Life and Silver Spoons—respectively entering their seventh and fourth seasons—also debuted similarly updated versions of their theme songs for the 1985–86 season.) Arnold's "What'choo talkin' 'bout?" catchphrase—which was gradually directed less towards Willis and more to other characters over the course of the series; the oft-quoted Willis variant not being used at all during Season 7—was retired, reportedly as Coleman had grown tired of using the line.

Dixie Carter opted not to return to the series. It was said that she had left to star in her own series, Designing Women, however she and Coleman had often clashed, leading to tension and animosity on-set.^[12] She was replaced in the role by Mary Ann Mobley, who had previously played an unrelated, one-off love interest of Drummond's in the second-season episode "Teacher's Pet". She had been considered for Maggie when the role was created, but was not chosen in part due to the age disparity between her and Bain (the two actors were born 15 years apart, with Bain being the elder).^[16]

In this final season, Jason Hervey joined the semi-regular cast as Charlie, another of Arnold's school friends. First seen in the episode "Bully For Arnold", a number of storylines focus on Arnold, Dudley, Robbie and Charlie as a quartet. Plots focusing on Arnold and Sam also continued to feature prominently, with Willis by this stage appearing on a secondary, semi-regular basis.

After her guest appearance at the end of the previous season, Plato returned making several further guest appearances in the final season and billed with the guest cast. Her final appearance, in the episode "Bulimia" (originally aired on January 17, 1986), dealt with the revelation of Kimberly's eating disorder, and won praise both for Plato's performance and the sensitivity of the writing.

ABC canceled the series after 19 episodes of the proposed 22-episode season were produced, a result of low ratings and a feeling that the series had run its course; although it was also observed that by this time, the once joyous Coleman, now 17, was looking angry and haggard,^[13] a combination of his ongoing medical issues and a bitter financial dispute with his parents.

The final episode, "The Front Page" (originally aired on March 7, 1986), involves Arnold writing an investigative report for his school newspaper on student athletes using anabolic steroids. It was in many respects a standard episode, with no indication that it would be the series finale due to the show's abrupt cancellation. Bridges, Plato and Catlett were all absent from the episode, and several cast members later voiced their disappointment that they had not realized it would be the final episode, and would have liked to have been present to mark the end of the series onscreen more adequately.

Following its cancellation, the show was brought back onto ABC's schedule in June 1986 for three months of Summer reruns, airing on Saturdays at 8:00 pm ET until August 30 of that year. The final season ranked 69th out of 106 shows, and averaged an 11.5 household rating.^[17]

Main

• Conrad Bain as Phillip Drummond (1978–86)
• Gary Coleman as Arnold Jackson (1978–86)
• Todd Bridges as Willis Jackson (1978–86)
• Dana Plato as Kimberly Drummond (1978–84, 1985–86 recurring)
• Charlotte Rae as Edna Garrett (1978–79, 1984 guest)
• Mary Jo Catlett as Pearl Gallagher (1982–86)
• Danny Cooksey as Sam McKinney (1984–86)
• Dixie Carter as Maggie McKinney Drummond #1 (1984–85)
• Mary Ann Mobley as Maggie McKinney Drummond #2 (1985–86) and as Ms. Osborne (1980)

Recurring

• Nedra Volz as Adelaide Brubaker (1980–82, 1984 guest)
• Janet Jackson as Charlene DuPrey (1980–84)
• Dody Goodman as Sophia Drummond (1981–84)
• Shavar Ross as Dudley Johnson (1980–86)
• Le Tari as Ted Ramsey (1980–84)
• Rosalind Chao as Miss Chung (1981–83)
• Steven Mond as Robbie Jason (1980–85)
• Jason Hervey as Charlie (1985–86)
• Nikki Swasey as Lisa Hayes (1982–86)

Phillip Drummond is the only character to appear in every episode of the series. Arnold Jackson missed five episodes, two from the fourth season in 1981–82 (“First Day Blues" and "The Team") and three from the seventh season in 1984–85 ("The Gymnasts", "Sam Adopts a Grandparent" and "Baseball Blues").

Supporting characters

Outside the Drummond household, there were a large number of supporting characters over the years. In the third season, Janet Jackson played Willis's girlfriend, Charlene DuPrey. She was a frequent recurring character until the sixth season, when Charlene and Willis break up but remain friends. Mr. Drummond's dotty sister Sophia (Dody Goodman) was regularly seen in the fourth season, playing matchmaker for her brother in hopes of getting him to remarry.

Dudley Johnson (Shavar Ross) was Arnold's best friend, who, like Arnold, was adopted, and with whom he shared many memorable childhood scrapes. Some of these were important or serious storylines under the "very special episode" heading, which Diff'rent Strokes popularized. Ted Ramsey (Le Tari) was Dudley's adoptive father, who turned up occasionally.

Other classmates and friends of Arnold seen over time included Robbie Jason (Steven Mond) and snobby Lisa Hayes (Nikki Swasey), who initially was sweet on Arnold, but later came to despise him, leading to hatred between the pair and many squabbles. Miss Chung (Rosalind Chao) was Arnold's teacher. In the fall of 1985, when the series moved to ABC for the seventh season, Arnold, Dudley and Lisa entered high school, where they gained a new friend in Charlie (Jason Hervey).

An oft-mentioned character spanning the entire show's run, was "The Gooch", a notorious bully at Arnold's school. First mentioned in the first-season episode "The Fight," which revolves around his bullying of Arnold, he is mentioned in numerous episodes (and his bullying of Arnold returned as the center of several plots), with Arnold's frequent descriptions of him as a burly and troublesome brute, forever looking for trouble but not very smart. The character never appeared onscreen. In the seventh season, after years of harassing Arnold (and later Sam), the Gooch was finally defeated by Arnold's neighbor and nemesis (and eventually friend) Carmella, a foreign exchange student.

Very special episodes

Nancy Reagan on the set of Diff'rent Strokes in 1983

Diff'rent Strokes was also known for its many "very special episodes," most notably an anti-drug episode ("The Reporter") that featured First Lady Nancy Reagan, who promoted her "Just Say No" campaign, and "The Bicycle Man", a two-part episode that guest starred Gordon Jump as a pedophile who lures Arnold and Dudley into his bicycle shop and attempts to molest them. Another episode involved a con artist (played by Whitman Mayo) posing as a relative of Arnold and Willis in an attempt to get access to the inheritance they were left by a former neighbor.

Another episode ("Skin Deep or True Blue") is about Kimberly's new boyfriend, Roger Morehouse (played by Grant Wilson), not allowing his sister, Emily (Melora Hardin), to go to their school's costume ball with Willis because he is black. A more humorous episode on pollution and the environment ("Green Hair") had Kimberly's hair turning green from acid rain.

In a two-part episode on the dangers of hitchhiking ("The Hitchhikers"), Kimberly and Arnold (who were out in the cold weather and didn't have money for cab or bus fare) were abducted by a serial kidnapper-rapist (played by Woody Eney), who initially acted as a good Samaritan by giving the two of them a ride and inviting them to his apartment. After the man's true nature became known, Arnold escaped to look for help and the man nearly raped Kimberly before the police arrived to arrest him. At the end of the episode, Bain (in an out-of-character PSA) spoke about what to do if real life situations as the one portrayed on the show were to occur.

Two notable episodes dealt with the consequences of alcoholism. In the first, season 5's "A Growing Problem," Willis moves out of the penthouse to live with Jerry (Lawrence Monoson) who abuses alcohol. In the second, season 7's "Cheers to Arnold," Arnold must deal with Ricky (Robert Jayne), a classmate whom he catches drinking a thermos of alcohol in the school bathroom.

In the final season (when the sitcom moved from NBC to ABC), the one-hour season opener ("Sam's Missing") revolved around Sam being kidnapped by Donald Brown (Royce D. Applegate), a bereaved father hoping to replace his own dead son, Tommy.

Other notable episodes included season 8's "Bulimia," in which the family discovered that Kimberly was suffering from bulimia. In season 7's "A Special Friend," Arnold and Sam met Karen, a street performer. After a performance, she has an epileptic seizure and Sam thinks she's dying. The boys then feel uncomfortable around her and when they begin making jokes about her seizures, they find out that housekeeper Pearl herself has epilepsy but, unlike Karen, controls her seizures with medication.

Spin-off and crossovers

The Facts of Life (1979–1988) is a spin-off of Diff'rent Strokes featuring Drummond's former housekeeper, Mrs. Garrett, who had accepted a job as the housemother for a dormitory at Eastland, an all-girls private school that Kimberly was attending. In a late first-season episode of Strokes ("The Girls School", which served as the backdoor pilot of Facts), Mrs. Garrett took Kimberly to the school with the intent of helping her sew costumes for a school play. While there, Mrs. Garrett met Kimberly's classmates and was offered the job as "dorm mother." She declined, but come fall, she had a change of heart. The Diff'rent Strokes cast appeared in the first episode of The Facts of Life (at one point, Drummond asks Mrs. Garrett "Are you sure we can't change your mind to come back to us?"). The success of the spin-off led to several Strokes/Facts crossovers in the ensuing years.

While not a spin-off, Hello, Larry (1979–1980) had a connection to Strokes as it was established in a crossover episode that Philip Drummond and Larry Alder (McLean Stevenson) were old Army buddies and Mr. Drummond had bought the company that owned the radio station where Larry worked as a talk show host.

The episode "Almost American" (aka "Night School"), was the pilot for a potential spin-off series, which ultimately was not picked up for a full series.^[19]

In addition, whilst not official in-universe cross-overs, two sixth season stories saw characters meeting stars of two of NBC's other biggest shows: the episode Mr. T and mr. t sees Mr. T guest starring when the apartment block is used to film a (fictional) episode of The A-Team; and in the two-part "Hooray for Hollywood," Arnold and Dudley sneak onto the set of a (fictional) episode of Knight Rider in hope of meeting series star, David Hasselhoff. (Although Hasselhoff, in his costume as Michael Knight appears, the voice of K.I.T.T. is not provided by William Daniels, who voices K.I.T.T. in the television series, but by an uncredited voice actor who voiced the car for various Universal Studios promotions.)

Additionally, Arnold appeared on the Silver Spoons episode "The Great Computer Caper" and the Amazing Stories episode "Remote Control Man".

Later appearances as the characters

In 1994, Coleman appeared in an episode of Married... with Children ("How Green Was My Apple"), playing a building code inspector whom Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) called to report an illegal driveway. When Kelly (Christina Applegate) recognizes him, he denies any connection to Arnold Jackson, but utters his catchphrase to Al, "What'cha talkin' about, Bundy?"

In 1996, Coleman and Bain reprised their roles for the series finale of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air entitled "I, Done Part II", where they consider buying the Banks mansion. They reference Willis by name before meeting Will Smith's character, leading to Coleman uttering a variation of his catchphrase, "What'cha talkin' about, Will?"

Additional catchphrase references and appearances in popular culture

In 2004, Coleman appeared on the second season of The Surreal Life and was pressured to quote his famous catchphrase by Vanilla Ice.^[20][21] He also guest-starred as himself on The Wayans Bros., The Ben Stiller Show, Drake & Josh, The Jamie Foxx Show, The Parkers, Robot Chicken, and The Simpsons.

Gary Coleman

In 1989 three years after the series ended, Coleman sued his parents and his former manager over misappropriation of his trust fund. Although he was awarded over $1 million in the decision, he filed for bankruptcy in 1999. In 1998, Coleman was charged with assault after he punched a woman harassing him and demanding an autograph while working as a security guard at a shopping mall. In 2001, Coleman (still working as a security guard) was videotaped trying to stop a vehicle from entering the mall. The driver ridiculed him and released the tape to be broadcast on numerous television shows.^[23] In 2007, Coleman was cited for disorderly conduct in Provo, Utah, for having a "heated discussion" with a woman.^[24] On May 26, 2010, Coleman, who had battled health problems since childhood caused by congenital kidney disease, was admitted to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo after falling and hitting his head after suffering a seizure. Coleman was then placed on life support after suffering an intracranial hemorrhage and died on May 28 from complications of his injury at age 42.^[25]

Dana Plato

During the series' sixth season, Plato became pregnant and her character was written out of the series (though she would go on to make guest appearances for the final two seasons). In 1984, she married the father of her child, musician Lanny Lambert, but the couple divorced in 1990. Due to financial difficulties and her severe addiction to drugs and alcohol, Plato relinquished custody of her son, Tyler, to Lambert. In an attempt to boost her faltering career, Plato posed for Playboy in June 1989, but her appearance in the magazine did not help her land acting jobs.^[22] By 1990, Plato was living in Las Vegas. Despite having made $25,000 an episode while on the series, she was often broke and was working as a cashier at a dry cleaning store.^[26] In February 1991, she was arrested after robbing a Las Vegas video store armed with a pellet gun. She was arrested the following year for forging prescriptions for Valium.^[27] In 1998, she appeared in a softcore pornographic film entitled Different Strokes: The Story of Jack and Jill...and Jill, which was intended to capitalize on her Diff'rent Strokes fame.^[22] After her arrests, Plato publicly admitted that she struggled with an addiction to drugs and alcohol.^[28] Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999 at age 34. Her death was ruled a suicide.^[29] Her son, Tyler, died by suicide in 2010.

Todd Bridges

After the series ended Bridges developed an addiction to cocaine. In February 1988, he was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of a drug dealer at a crack house in South Central Los Angeles. He was acquitted in November 1989.^[30] Bridges was also arrested on a concealed weapon charge and possession of cocaine.^[22] In 1994, he was arrested after allegedly ramming someone's car after an argument.^[31] After years of battling drug addiction, Bridges became sober in the early 1990s.^[32] He has traveled across the United States, touring schools and discussing the dangers of drug use.^[33] Bridges has continued acting in films and television. Bridges's more high-profile role was as Monk, a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran, conspiracy theorist, and nephew of Chris's boss Doc on the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris.^[34] Since Charlotte Rae's death in 2018 at the age of 92, Bridges remains the sole living member of the original cast.