The Facts of Life Complete Series Jan 13th 2015 (1 Viewer)

[The Obsolete Man]

I guess I feel the show had a kind of Norman Lear-vibe during the Eastland/Edibles era which I prefer over the generic-'80s-sitcom/Who'sTheBoss-GrowingPains feel it had when Over Our Heads began.

After the cast was pared down for season 2, the show had more "very special episodes" than you could shake an afterschool special at. That did last, IIRC, through the Edna's Edibles years. It's been a while since I've watched anything past season 5, but IIRC, the show did lose the "issues" episodes around the time the Over Our Heads era began.

Well, except for that one time in season 9.

/still haven't seen that episode, because Nick at Nite wouldn't air it,.
//Set shipped. hopefully, it'll be here on Thursday or Friday.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

It came. Finally.

First time I had ever seen the Diff'rent Strokes episode. The series itself looks pretty good, video quality-wise. I'm only two episodes in, so I'm curious if Overacheiving will look worse than the other episodes, since that's a different version than was on the Sony sets.

Oh, and the Paley Center reunion was fun.

 

[BlairWarner]

Mind if I ask the length of the Paley Center reuinion? I'm dying to see it...I have the first five seasons on DVD already, and made my own discs for the remaining seasons (all fit on two Blu-rays!) but besides having better quality versions of my homemade discs, the Paley Center reuinion was my big push to buy this set this soon (as I'm sure it will come down in price). I'm anxiously awaiting mine, and it will be the first thing I watch.

Thanks!

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Mind if I ask the length of the Paley Center reuinion? I'm dying to see it...I have the first five seasons on DVD already, and made my own discs for the remaining seasons (all fit on two Blu-rays!) but besides having better quality versions of my homemade discs, the Paley Center reuinion was my big push to buy this set this soon (as I'm sure it will come down in price). I'm anxiously awaiting mine, and it will be the first thing I watch.

Thanks!

I think it was somewhere around 45-50 minutes.

Oh, and it looks like they restored the "last week" recap to The New Girl part 2, since that runs in the 24:40s on the new set, while the original set was in the 23:50s.

 

[spartandrew15]

Shout Factory also wasn't able to clear Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" for the recent WKRP full series set. Looks like after MJ's death, Mijac Music is making very very high asking prices for the rights to MJ songs. (Mijac Music publishes any song first performed by MJ.)

Probably "Ease on Down the Road" from "The Wiz."

 

[MatthewA]

I find it a coincidence that once Coca-Cola took over Embassy, effectively making it part of the food service industry, the girls got into another line of work!

Shout Factory also wasn't able to clear Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" for the recent WKRP full series set. Looks like after MJ's death, Mijac Music is making very very high asking prices for the rights to MJ songs. (Mijac Music publishes any song first performed by MJ.)

How would Mijac Music have gotten the rights to any of Charlie Smalls' songs from The Wiz? "Ease on Down the Road" was in the original show, so he didn't sing it first.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I'm midway through season 3.

Video quality isn't as great for S3 as it was for S1 and 2. Not Shout's fault, it's 33-year-old videotape, and it looks it.

Mindy Cohn hasn't lost her smirk yet. I remember for the first, say, 4 or 5 years, you could see her smirk trying to hold back a laugh after every joke.

Unfortunately, I'm on the *ugh* Jermaine Jackson episode.

Normally I like the preachies and the after-school special episodes, but this one...

Jermaine Jackson? Really? Maybe Michael. But Jermaine?

Well, it's over now, and I never have to watch it again.

 

[spartandrew15]

Mijac Music has the rights to non-MJ songs like "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" and "When a Man Loves a Woman". As for why, it must be similar to how Michael Jackson once owned the rights to Beatles songs. And apologies for my mistake in discussing The Wiz song - I didn't realize that The Wiz was a musical before a movie. I did verify the publishers of "Ease on Down the Road" via the BMI Repertoire Search.

And in general, show tunes are often very costly to license.

I find it a coincidence that once Coca-Cola took over Embassy, effectively making it part of the food service industry, the girls got into another line of work!


How would Mijac Music have gotten the rights to any of Charlie Smalls' songs from The Wiz? "Ease on Down the Road" was in the original show, so he didn't sing it first.

 

[MatthewA]

I'm midway through season 3.

Video quality isn't as great for S3 as it was for S1 and 2. Not Shout's fault, it's 33-year-old videotape, and it looks it.

Mindy Cohn hasn't lost her smirk yet. I remember for the first, say, 4 or 5 years, you could see her smirk trying to hold back a laugh after every joke.

Unfortunately, I'm on the *ugh* Jermaine Jackson episode.

Normally I like the preachies and the after-school special episodes, but this one...

Jermaine Jackson? Really? Maybe Michael. But Jermaine?

Well, it's over now, and I never have to watch it again.

Michael was busy with Thriller at the time. Still, the message of the episode is a valid one: celebrities aren't superhuman and free from flaws.

Kim Fields actually recorded a song about Michael Jackson. I used to have this 45 but it got...misplaced.

 

[Kasey]

I actually love the JJ episode, it's one of my favorites; so over-the-top with Tootie's hyperventilating and Mrs G taking flak from the girls for caving.

OT, did anyone else think that in the Paley Center footage that Lisa eerily looked almost exactly as she did in 1981? How is this possible???

 

[The Obsolete Man]

I knew his voice before I even saw the credits...

Season 8, "Seven Little Indians"... Maurice LaMarche as Rod Serling.

The only way it would have been more obviously Maurice LaMarche is if he had been doing his Orson Welles impersonation (or The Brain voice... however you want to describe it).

 

[classicmovieguy]

I'm midway through season 3.

Video quality isn't as great for S3 as it was for S1 and 2. Not Shout's fault, it's 33-year-old videotape, and it looks it.

Mindy Cohn hasn't lost her smirk yet. I remember for the first, say, 4 or 5 years, you could see her smirk trying to hold back a laugh after every joke.

Unfortunately, I'm on the *ugh* Jermaine Jackson episode.

Normally I like the preachies and the after-school special episodes, but this one...

Jermaine Jackson? Really? Maybe Michael. But Jermaine?

Well, it's over now, and I never have to watch it again.

That episode is so bizarre... Yes, I'd sympathise with Tootie if this was Michael or Janet, but Jermaine?? Really?? I can't decide which part was more weird - Tootie being tackled by the bodyguard or her present being destroyed by the bomb-squad.

 

[MatthewA]

That episode is so bizarre... Yes, I'd sympathise with Tootie if this was Michael or Janet, but Jermaine?? Really?? I can't decide which part was more weird - Tootie being tackled by the bodyguard or her present being destroyed by the bomb-squad.

At least it wasn't Tito. As for the bomb squad, there was likely a lot of fear about fans potentially losing it and turning violent in the wake of John Lennon's assassination, which had only happened slightly more than a year before this episode aired. In all fairness, though, Jermaine did have some success on the Billboard R&B charts.

 

[Powell&Pressburger]

So far season 8 is far better than season 7. I just feel like during season 7 Charlotte Rae had nothing to do at all. The writing became juvenile to say the least. At times itself like they tried to hard and the jokes were just bad.

I didn't care for the 2 part farewell to Edna season 8 opener but the episodes that have followed on the rest of the first disc of S8 seemed like the show has gotten back on track. I almost have to wonder is Paul Haggis ruined the show later during season 7 or if others behind the show forced the boring episodes.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

So far season 8 is far better than season 7. I just feel like during season 7 Charlotte Rae had nothing to do at all. The writing became juvenile to say the least. At times itself like they tried to hard and the jokes were just bad.

I didn't care for the 2 part farewell to Edna season 8 opener but the episodes that have followed on the rest of the first disc of S8 seemed like the show has gotten back on track. I almost have to wonder is Paul Haggis ruined the show later during season 7 or if others behind the show forced the boring episodes.

IIRC, Charlotte Rae had nothing to do because she took 10 episodes off in S7 (and something like 6 episodes in S6). And there was a lot of behind the scenes shuffling in S6 and 7. Jerry Mayer disappeared, Jack Elinson returned, various writers and producers came and went, and with the beginning of S8, everyone behind the scenes changed.


IMO, S8 was the one that felt off to me, not S7. In fact, S8 kind of abandoned the old preachy, issue-oriented format of the first 6 seasons and just became a straight sitcom. There were a lot of gimmicky episodes, something about the characters seemed off at times, and Andy became a foster child with literally no warning whatsoever.


And speaking of Andy... man, he looked like a minature, blonde John Astin.


Anyway, just started season 9. I'm really glad to see that in the latter half of S8 into S9, Blair's mile-high 80s hair has gone away for good and returned to a more S2-like style. Ugh, the 80s. Bad music, bad fashion... great sitcoms, though.

 

[Kasey]

I feel there were no genuine laughs (or very few) beginning with S7 and the new format. At least Cloris Leachman was something new and different, but she was just there to round out the cast more or less since the girls really didn't need a mother figure at that point. I am basically enjoying the Over Our Heads era mostly for it's '80s camp value (i.e. the El Debarge and Stacey Q episodes).

 

[MatthewA]

IIRC, Charlotte Rae had nothing to do because she took 10 episodes off in S7 (and something like 6 episodes in S6). And there was a lot of behind the scenes shuffling in S6 and 7. Jerry Mayer disappeared, Jack Elinson returned, various writers and producers came and went, and with the beginning of S8, everyone behind the scenes changed.


IMO, S8 was the one that felt off to me, not S7. In fact, S8 kind of abandoned the old preachy, issue-oriented format of the first 6 seasons and just became a straight sitcom. There were a lot of gimmicky episodes, something about the characters seemed off at times, and Andy became a foster child with literally no warning whatsoever.

I wonder how much influence Coca-Cola exerted on the writers of Embassy's shows once the buyout was complete. And two years later, they were absorbed into Columbia Pictures Television, so factor that into the equation and you can see where things might get unstable behind the scenes. And NBC's role in all this is unclear, other than that in Brandon Tartikoff's book The Last Great Ride (that may or may not be at my house right now), this is one of the shows he uses as an example of when to step in and make suggestions.

When Jerry Mayer left for Punky Brewster, which ended up at Columbia because of fin-syn, he took some things from Facts with him: Henry Warnimont had already lost his photo studio in a fire before Mayer joined, but then after getting contractually squeezed out of the business by the guy who bought him out for $100,000 (in Chicago?), he opened an alliterative diner called "Punky's Place." This has been going on in sitcoms since radio.

Another person who left around this same time was Asaad Kelada, their regular director. IIRC, he defected to Who's The Boss?, which didn't become a hit until after the Embassy/Coca-Cola buyout (somebody at ABC must have had it in for Norman Lear personally; all the shows there that Lear was personally involved with were flops, and they punted on the chance to get All in the Family and Diff'rent Strokes).


I actually liked a lot of the later "gimmick" episodes at the time, and it seemed like the cast enjoyed doing non-issue episodes for a change. I remember watching the Cloris Leachman episodes when they were new and the Charlotte Rae ones as they had just gone into reruns at the same time; I was 5 when it went off the air.

 

[moviebuff75]

Someone on Amazon stated that Season 6-Ep. 25 "Bus Stop" is cut. Can anyone confirm?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

Someone on Amazon stated that Season 6-Ep. 25 "Bus Stop" is cut. Can anyone confirm?

Yep.


It only ran around 22:30, and you could see a bit of the cut scene in the end credits.


3 edits out of 201 episodes isn't bad, IMO.


/the 3 edits are the music cuts in Graduation (which we were warned about and aren't really noticeable), the use of the syndicated version of Bus Stop, and the scene missing from Jo's Cousin. On the flip side, the two-parters had the "last time on" segments added back in, and Overachieving was presented uncut.

 

[LeoA]

Is Jo's Cousin intact on the original Shout Factory season set?