Do you remember The Facts of Life? Do you have warm memories of watching Tootie, Blair, Natalie and Jo each Saturday night? If so, you may want to skip this story.
The Facts of Life was an NBC spin-off from the incredibly popular Diff’rent Strokes sitcom. The Drummond’s housekeeper Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae ) moved from posh Manhattan to Eastridge Academy girls school to oversee a house of young girls. The core girls were played by Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn, and Nancy McKeon. Rae left the series in 1986 and was replaced by sitcom veteran Cloris Leachman. The series ran for eight seasons and is also notable for co-starring George Clooney in 1986. A two-hour reunion movie aired in 2001 that reunited Rae, Whelchel, Cohn, and Fields.
Well, if you live in the New York City area, you’ll be able to check out a new and bizarre stage version of the show. The Facts of Life: The Lost Episode debuts next week at The Kraine Theater. Like The Golden Girls: Live! before it, all of the girls roles are performed by men. But unlike Golden Girls: Live! and The Real Live Brady Bunch, this play is an original parody and doesn’t incorporate any pre-existing episodes or scripts.
The “lost episode” is entitled “The Best Little Whorehouse in Peekskill.” The story goes like this: “Budget cuts are threatening to force Mrs. Garrett to leave Eastland. Blair, Tootie, Natalie and Jo will do anything to raise enough money so she can stay. Anything.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that episode. No word if Gary Coleman is open to a cameo but I’m doubting it. Stay tuned! 
Related links
The Facts of Life on DVD || Lisa Whelchel books
More about:
Diff'rent Strokes,
The Facts of Life
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I understand that Jamie Morris and his partner Christopher Kenney will produce and star in a new production, in Las Vegas, this summer, at the Onyx Theatre. I understand it is true “magic” and that they will be auditioning in May 2009.
It will be good to have a new series of the facts of life I have seen the original and it is good
there should be a petition to make a new series of the facts of life