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Live In Front Of A Studio Audience - General Discussion


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8 minutes ago, Bastet said:

That was Justina Machado playing Teresa Betancourt; she was a recurring character during the season in which this episode appeared -- she was renting a room from the Bunkers, which is why she came down from upstairs and why she had dinner with them.

Yes.  She was played by Liz Torres (Miss Patty from Gilmore Girls) in the original.  I think she was only on All in the Family for a season.  

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3 hours ago, Lady Iris said:

What's with the dislike for the actor? Not being snide, genuinely curious.

I don't mind him overall, but it wouldn't surprise me if his speaking pattern and mannerisms make him look sort of...toolish to people.  That said, whoever thought he should play Lex Luthor in any capacity was drunk, because he was HORRIBLE as that. 

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4 hours ago, Lady Iris said:

I thought Jesse Eisenberg did a really great job. What's with the dislike for the actor? Not being snide, genuinely curious.

I've wondered that myself.  The only thing I can figure is that he comes off as kind of smug.  Although part of that might be some of the roles he plays.

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I had to watch the original AITF episode on youtube after I saw this performance just to remind myself how superior COC was as Archie Bunker.  It was a great episode though either way.  I remain perplexed about the dialogue choices, especially since they posted the caution title card at the beginning of the broadcast, and Kimmel said before the GT segment started that these episodes were being performed exactly as they were originally taped back in the 70's.  Except where they weren't the same.

So, the truly offensive racial/ethnic slurs that would be least acceptable on today's broadcast air remain intact and they leave it to the network to bleep the offensive term (the Chinese slur last night as well as the N word in the last edition of this show).  Yet, the original script and broadcast in which Archie refers to that "goddamn war" was not used and rather they went with "rotten damn war", which is an overdub of the original and how it has played in syndication for many years.  I feel actually quite fortunate to have seen the original episode in 1976.  It's been many years since I've heard the original line recited.  The expletive is quite tame by today's broadcast standards so I really don't get why they didn't take this opportunity to restore the original script.

I was not as regular a viewer of Good Times as I was of AITF, so there are probably a number of episodes I haven't seen, including the Politicians.  I wasn't able to find the original episode on youtube so I won't be able to compare, but the performance last night seemed way off in terms of timing.  Just seemed like the actors were missing their marks multiple times, and it seemed to me that it was primarily John Amos who was either forgetting his lines or missing his cues, but I think the rest of the cast did the best they could to protect and cover for him.  I also read elsewhere that Andre Braugher flubbed his dialogue a few times but I didn't catch it myself.

Marisa Tomei's an American treasure, and Kevin Bacon gives us all a Christmas gift, now being one degree from Norman Lear and everyone else in the cast.

ETA:  Although I appreciated another opportunity to see that award-winning AITF episode, I have to admit I found this edition of LIFOASA much more underwhelming than the first special, mostly because now that there are twice as many of these episodes, it is far less novel an experience than when there was just one.  Although I was impressed with some of the performances, and was pleased to see the John Amos surprise casting, along with the brief appearances from some of the other original GT actors, I would not mind if this was the last time they did this.

Edited by sd dude
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3 hours ago, sd dude said:

I was not as regular a viewer of Good Times as I was of AITF, so there are probably a number of episodes I haven't seen, including the Politicians.  I wasn't able to find the original episode on youtube so I won't be able to compare, but the performance last night seemed way off in terms of timing.  Just seemed like the actors were missing their marks multiple times, and it seemed to me that it was primarily John Amos who was either forgetting his lines or missing his cues, but I think the rest of the cast did the best they could to protect and cover for him.  I also read elsewhere that Andre Braugher flubbed his dialogue a few times but I didn't catch it myself.

While this was the weaker of the two shows, what it also suffered from was the number of program interruptions by the "ABC Special Report" to update viewers as to what was happening in Washington, D.C. So that rewatching it later, without the benefit of the interruptions, it looks as though the actors kept missing their marks/flubbing their lines.

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1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

While this was the weaker of the two shows, what it also suffered from was the number of program interruptions by the "ABC Special Report" to update viewers as to what was happening in Washington, D.C. So that rewatching it later, without the benefit of the interruptions, it looks as though the actors kept missing their marks/flubbing their lines.

But why would the network interruptions affect what the actors were doing live in the studio in Hollywood?  They would be oblivious to the news interruptions. The experience of the television viewers who were dealing with the interruptions would obviously be affected, but for viewers like myself watching the west coast feed of the tape delayed "live performance" without the news interruptions, neither the viewer nor the performers would be affected, so if the performance quality suffered and it was obvious to the viewer, I'm not sure how the interruptions could have played a role in that. Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to communicate? Were the performers directed to pause in place during each interruption and those pauses were then edited out of the west coast feed?  It certainly didn't appear like there were cuts in the middle of live scenes. 

Edited by sd dude
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4 hours ago, sd dude said:

Although I appreciated another opportunity to see that award-winning AITF episode, I have to admit I found this edition of LIFOASA much more underwhelming than the first special

Honestly, I think I enjoyed this one more than the first one.  Mostly because the All in the Family episode was better.  The only flaw in the script was the prank Santa toy, it was a little lightweight.

I'm sure I've seen both of these shows in their original form, but oddly the Good Times one was more familiar to me.  Maybe it was more reinforced in my mind since it was a double episode.

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19 hours ago, JBC344 said:

Still don't understand while they won't have Ellie in a blond wig, which was instrumental to who Gloria was. 

It could be argued that being a blonde was more Sally Struthers’ trademark than Gloria’s, just as Ellie Kemper’s natural red hair is a trademark of hers — but I’m not that familiar with the character of Gloria. Was it important for Gloria to deconstruct the stereotype of the “dumb blonde” by being more educated than Archie? If so, then maybe the message is that the Dumb Blonde stereotype no longer exists? IDK. 

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5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

It could be argued that being a blonde was more Sally Struthers’ trademark than Gloria’s, just as Ellie Kemper’s natural red hair is a trademark of hers — but I’m not that familiar with the character of Gloria. Was it important for Gloria to deconstruct the stereotype of the “dumb blonde” by being more educated than Archie? If so, then maybe the message is that the Dumb Blonde stereotype no longer exists? IDK. 

The character of Gloria was the "ditzy sweet blond" who grew into her own as the show went on. For me it just stood out with the idea of trying to keep with the original. 

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13 minutes ago, JBC344 said:

The character of Gloria was the "ditzy sweet blond" who grew into her own as the show went on. For me it just stood out with the idea of trying to keep with the original. 

To me, it does stand out in a bad way, almost distracting. Because all of the other actors make the effort to pay homage to the original. Either with their accent, their costume, their hairstyle, etc. Some with all of the above. Look at the praise Marisa Tomei is getting, and rightfully so, for fully taking on the character of Edith. It just seems like a lack of effort on Ellie's part.

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31 minutes ago, Benji said:

To me, it does stand out in a bad way, almost distracting. Because all of the other actors make the effort to pay homage to the original. Either with their accent, their costume, their hairstyle, etc. Some with all of the above. Look at the praise Marisa Tomei is getting, and rightfully so, for fully taking on the character of Edith. It just seems like a lack of effort on Ellie's part.

Yes, this. There are body type differences among the other cast members--Carroll O'Connor vs. Woody Harrelson, Kevin Bacon vs. the guy who originally played Pinky, although KB having a mustache when the other guy didn't was distracting to me, too--but even with that in mind, you still knew who they were playing just by looking at them (and WOW, they did a great job transforming Jesse Eisenberg into David!), which made the difference between SS's Gloria and EK's Gloria even more glaring to me. 

Edited by UYI
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14 hours ago, sd dude said:

But why would the network interruptions affect what the actors were doing live in the studio in Hollywood?  They would be oblivious to the news interruptions. The experience of the television viewers who were dealing with the interruptions would obviously be affected, but for viewers like myself watching the west coast feed of the tape delayed "live performance" without the news interruptions, neither the viewer nor the performers would be affected, so if the performance quality suffered and it was obvious to the viewer, I'm not sure how the interruptions could have played a role in that. Or am I misunderstanding what you were trying to communicate? Were the performers directed to pause in place during each interruption and those pauses were then edited out of the west coast feed?  It certainly didn't appear like there were cuts in the middle of live scenes. 

On the east coast, they only interrupted during commercial, so they weren't interrupting in the middle of a scene. I'm assuming they kept the actors on standby during each break. Had there not been interruptions, they would probably know exactly how much time they had between each act break, but instead they had to wait around for each report to finish and probably had less notice on when they would be back on. It seemed like they were all pretty shaky every time they came back from a break. It also didn't help that it appeared John Amos kept forgetting his lines. I thought he did really well with his performance, but there were several beats where he would miss a line or two and the actors would stand around to see if he'd finish and then give up and move on. That definitely hurt the pacing.

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On 12/19/2019 at 4:47 PM, Bastet said:

That was Justina Machado playing Teresa Betancourt; she was a recurring character during the season in which this episode appeared -- she was renting a room from the Bunkers, which is why she came down from upstairs and why she had dinner with them.

The character first clashed with Archie when she worked in a hospital where he was a patient. When she answered their ad for a boarder, Archie resisted, but Edith got her way. I remember an episode where Teresa had a boyfriend who was white. He wanted to go to her bedroom with her, and they tried to hide from Archie. 

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8 hours ago, absnow54 said:

On the east coast, they only interrupted during commercial, so they weren't interrupting in the middle of a scene. I'm assuming they kept the actors on standby during each break. Had there not been interruptions, they would probably know exactly how much time they had between each act break, but instead they had to wait around for each report to finish and probably had less notice on when they would be back on. It seemed like they were all pretty shaky every time they came back from a break. It also didn't help that it appeared John Amos kept forgetting his lines. I thought he did really well with his performance, but there were several beats where he would miss a line or two and the actors would stand around to see if he'd finish and then give up and move on. That definitely hurt the pacing.

That's what I felt as well.  I mean, they could kept the pacing as in terms of the length of the ad breaks so it would end up being a slight live to tape delay but for some reason, they didn't.  I thought all the actors were doing fine until that first break went longer than expected and things slowly lost pace.  

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On 12/19/2019 at 10:02 AM, GHScorpiosRule said:

Woody Harrelson remains no substitute for Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker; that doesn't mean he's an inferior actor (not at all), but just that he can't hit that particular role anywhere near as well.  That scene needed the scary as hell, about to burst rage of O'Connor's Archie to make Pinky's contrasting response as powerful as it was the first time around.

Marisa Tomei has big shoes to fill as well, and does it more naturally; she remains a standout in this project.

Complicated thoughts on this.  On one hand, Marisa is a far better actor than Woody. He's a decent comic actor.  But she's just a great actor overall.  That said, we haven't really gotten episodes with powerful Edith moments for her to act--and there were a few doosies (for example, Edith's menopause episode--which won an Emmy).  She's had the easier assignment here, because she's really just had to play comedy so far (whereas this was a very dramatic episode for Archie, and even if Woody didn't quite pull it off with the visceral depth O'Connor did with this episode, he didn't embarrass himself either). 

Edited by Kromm
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1 minute ago, Kromm said:

Complicated thoughts on this.  On one hand, Marisa is a far better actor than Woody. He's a decent comic actor.  But she's just a great actor overall.  That said, we haven't really gotten episodes with powerful Edith moments for her to act--and there were a few doosies.  She's had the easier assignment here, because she's really just had to play comedy so far (whereas this was a very dramatic episode for Archie, and even if Woody didn't quite pull it off with the visceral depth O'Connor did with this episode, he didn't embarrass himself either. 

Just FYI, @Bastet was the one who typed the post you quoted-probably from me quoting her.

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4 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Just FYI, @Bastet was the one who typed the post you quoted-probably from me quoting her.

That's because this board interface kind of sucks. I just wanted the words. It inserted the name. 

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43 minutes ago, Kromm said:

That's because this board interface kind of sucks. I just wanted the words. It inserted the name.

If you pull the text you want to quote from a subsequent reply that also quoted it, rather than the original post, it gets attributed to the one who replied:  If Poster A says "This sucks," Poster B quotes that and replies, "Yeah it does," and you copy "This sucks" from the quote box in B's reply instead of from A's original post, the attribution doesn't come out the way you wanted. 

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16 hours ago, Bastet said:

If you pull the text you want to quote from a subsequent reply that also quoted it, rather than the original post, it gets attributed to the one who replied:  If Poster A says "This sucks," Poster B quotes that and replies, "Yeah it does," and you copy "This sucks" from the quote box in B's reply instead of from A's original post, the attribution doesn't come out the way you wanted. 

Yes, but the board doesn't link you back to the original post.  You have to manually find the original.  It sucks, like I said. Who has time for that? That why I didn't press the button to quote the whole post. I literally just highlighted a few sentences. But it treats that the exact same way as if you quoted the whole post in terms of misattributing it.  As I said, because it's not great board software. 

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2 hours ago, Kromm said:

Yes, but the board doesn't link you back to the original post.  You have to manually find the original.  It sucks, like I said. Who has time for that? That why I didn't press the button to quote the whole post. I literally just highlighted a few sentences. But it treats that the exact same way as if you quoted the whole post in terms of misattributing it.  As I said, because it's not great board software. 

Maybe I'm not totally understanding the situation, but you know you can click the little arrow in the top right of the quote and it will take you back to that original post?  Then if that post has a quote in it, you can do the same to go back to that, and so on.

Now if someone will just tell me how to avoid having a screen print post twice when I paste it in...

 

image.thumb.png.81c2461904a6374a3c1b5b1e815a021d.png

Edited by SoMuchTV
Trying again to remove duplicate image...
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4 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

Maybe I'm not totally understanding the situation, but you know you can click the little arrow in the top right of the quote and it will take you back to that original post? 

That's pure genius. Thanks!

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I watched tonight's rerun b/c nothing better was on. Unfortunately,  I caught the AitF reenactment instead of the GT one, but really? They chose the draft dodger one? I may have injured my eyes watching this but assume the clapping seals were responding to the "applause" sign and not being spontaneous b/c it was so dated and contrived and really, who gets worked up over this today? Wow, Jessie pretty plays the same person in every role he gets. 

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10 hours ago, Ubiquitous said:

really, who gets worked up over this today?

Well, one “worked up” viewer segment is those of us who were left behind because of the draft. But your point is well-taken —at least by me— in that I was surprised Marisa Tomei displayed seemingly unscripted emotion in that scene.  But maybe she has an innate tendency to feel the emotions of others, which would contribute to her award-winning acting. 

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On 12/18/2019 at 9:40 PM, Nordly Beaumont said:

Marisa Tomei looked beautiful in that wig and outfit! My favorite part is her doing Edith's run/walk. Woody Harrelson was much better in the role this time. He seemed more at ease. Nice detail of putting his wedding ring on his middle finger (but Archie had rings on both middle fingers)

It felt clunky, they stepped on each other's lines and some jokes just didn't land. I'm sure the guy doing JJ was trying, but it came off as an intentionally bad impersonation. And he was too old. It wasn't horrible, but like you say... not good.

I do love people continually saying Pharoah looked too old for JJ when JJ always looked like the oldest teenager ever.

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On 12/26/2019 at 10:12 PM, Kromm said:

Complicated thoughts on this.  On one hand, Marisa is a far better actor than Woody. He's a decent comic actor.  But she's just a great actor overall.  That said, we haven't really gotten episodes with powerful Edith moments for her to act--and there were a few doosies (for example, Edith's menopause episode--which won an Emmy).  She's had the easier assignment here, because she's really just had to play comedy so far (whereas this was a very dramatic episode for Archie, and even if Woody didn't quite pull it off with the visceral depth O'Connor did with this episode, he didn't embarrass himself either). 

It's confusing to me that people would still talk about Woody as if he's just the guy from Cheers. He's been doing great work in comedic and drama roles for over two decades now. He's not inferior to Marisa at all. They are both well respected talents with the awards and recognition to match.

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Another "Live In Front" special is coming in December.................

this time, it's going to be an episode of "Diff'rent Strokes" and an episode of "Facts of Life"

Specific episodes to be revealed at a later date.

Which episodes do you think they will be????

(I hope it's going to be "the pervert who likes to take pictures of shirtless boys" episode)

Kevin Hart will portray Arnold, Damon Wayans will portray Willis, John Lithgow will portray Drummond,

and Ann Dowd will portray Mrs. Garrett on both episodes.

 

I wasn't sure if we should make a new thread for this or just continue using the same thread

because "Hollywood" apparently is going to keep doing this.

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I kind of understand the Arnold part. They want a name but I don't know who they could get to do it that is a name. Also Coleman was not a child playing his age on the show most of the time. The Damon Wayans part though? I guess they still wanted someone older to play opposite Hart but this will not work. They should have just done some network synergy and cast the lead in the new Wonder Years as Arnold. Maybe even the kid from Stranger Things. Makes more sense. Lithgow as Hart and Wayans foster father. That is incredibly ridiculous 

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Ann Dowd is a great choice for Mrs. Garret though.  Even bears some resemblance to Charlotte Rae.  And if they want to keep up the practice of having adult actors far too old to play children play children, they might as well bring back Fields, Welchel, Cohn, and McKeon to play the same characters.

Airing live December 7, (not December 6, since I was mistaken).

And Hart is only slightly bigger than a little Gary Coleman.

Edited by sd dude
Edit the first - Adding some Hart snark. Edit the second - correcting the date.
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3 hours ago, sd dude said:

Ann Dowd is a great choice for Mrs. Garret though.  Even bears some resemblance to Charlotte Rae.  And if they want to keep up the practice of having adult actors far too old to play children play children, they might as well bring back Fields, Welchel, Cohn, and McKeon to play the same characters.

Airing live December 6, if I'm not mistaken.

And Hart is only slightly bigger than a little Gary Coleman.

December 7th.

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On 11/23/2021 at 4:28 PM, sd dude said:

they might as well bring back Fields, Welchel, Cohn, and McKeon to play the same characters.

 

Yes! That is the only way having adult actors playing kid characters makes any sense whatsoever.

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I am SO excited for this. I was born the year after FOL went off the air, but I watched the reruns on Nick at Nite in 2000-2001 when I was 11-12 years old (and I can confirm that there are more fans in my age range than you might think--SOME people in my generation appreciate the classics, damn it!), and have been collecting the seasons on DVD over the last several years (I'm currently on season seven).

So yeah, this will be a fun night for me. :) 

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On 11/30/2021 at 12:33 AM, TheOtherOne said:

The girls of The Facts of Life will be...

Jennifer Aniston (Blair), Gabrielle Union (Tootie), Allison Tolman (Natalie), and Kathryn Hahn (Jo).

https://deadline.com/2021/11/jennifer-aniston-gabrielle-union-kathryn-hahn-allison-tolman-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience-facts-of-life-1234881847/

I'll be honest I was really excited to hear about this till I heard of the casting. First with Fact of Life, these actresses are between 40-52 years old.  They couldn't find younger actors to play teens? Even if they got a script from their post Eastland days at college or after - it's still a stretch playing women in their early 20s. 

Second, the actors in Different Strokes. You have Kevin Hart as Arnold, and Damon Wayans as Willis. Again WTF?! Todd Bridges CURRENTLY is younger than Damon Wayans who is going to play his character!!!!!!  Do not get me started at Hart portraying Arnold. 

What they should have done is choose another Lear show that has adults like One Day at a Time, Maude, Good Times, or Sanford and Son.

 

 

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I just really don’t get casting adults as kids/teens.  It seems more like they want to do a show with those actors and just stuck them in a show they kinda/sorta fit.  If they had cast slightly older actresses, like the ones who played the sisters on Modern Family or the older sister on Blackish or The Goldbergs, I wouldn’t have an issue.  But middle-aged people playing (pre)teens?  Hard no from me.

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19 hours ago, Mittengirl said:

I just really don’t get casting adults as kids/teens.  It seems more like they want to do a show with those actors and just stuck them in a show they kinda/sorta fit.  If they had cast slightly older actresses, like the ones who played the sisters on Modern Family or the older sister on Blackish or The Goldbergs, I wouldn’t have an issue.  But middle-aged people playing (pre)teens?  Hard no from me.

In the case of FOL, it could work, given that the last few seasons had them in college...but obviously, even that's still a stretch. 

3 hours ago, absnow54 said:

Have they announced which episodes they’re doing? Because I’m about to put money down that George Clooney will make a special appearance in The Facts of Life episode. 

I feel like Lisa Whelchel is a lock. 

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4 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

I started watching this tonight on a whim, and it's a'ight, but what I really like are the fake commercials.  They are killing me.

 

I agree, I’m loving those plus the 70s style promos for current ABC shows

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Lisa Welchel could easily have recreated the role - holy cow she looks the same!  Kim Fields looks great as well and it was nice to see Mindy Cohn.  Kathryn Hahn as Jo is not enjoyable (Jo was always one of my favourites).  Never been impressed by Jennifer Anniston, and this didn’t change my opinion - and Lisa Welchel was right there!  Gabrielle Union didn’t have enough to do, and I enjoyed Allison Tolman and Anne Dowd.

Agree with the comments above that it would have been better with actual teenagers (or even 20 somethings), but still a fun watch!

Diff’rent Strokes - 

Surprisingly low key performance from Kevin Hart (by KH standards).

Loved!!! the theme song!

Seeing Snoop made me laugh out loud.

Much less campy than Facts of Life.

The commercials were great.

(Norman Lear looks like a muppet)

Edited by McKavity
Now that I’ve watched both…
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Facts of Life:

The only thing that was decent was Anne Dowd as Mrs. Garrett. I cannot believe Jon Stewart showed up with a beard. The rest of the actors seriously looked out of their place with their age showing. As i remember the issue with Carl wasn't his gear but he had severe acne. Who played Dink? I feel bad for the originals and the original script. This was so cringe.

Different Strokes:

So nice to see Todd Bridges and I'm shocked that he is the only one left from the cast. Again, Anne Dowd and Mrs. Garrett and John Lithgow as Mr. Drummond - great casting. Everyone else is FUCKING OLD. Seeing Kevin Hart on John's lap was just awkward. Again very cringe.

The only redeeming thing had to be the fake commercials.

Jennifer Beals and the shoulders Jack in the Box.

Jennifer and Alfonso Ribeiro in the ketchup commercial.

Alfonso Ribeiro with the Kraft single commercial.

The Aviation Gin commercial

Edited by greekmom
I had to bold and underline how cringe this was
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8 minutes ago, greekmom said:

I cannot believe Jon Stewart showed up with a beard. The rest of the actors seriously looked out of their place with their age showing.

They probably should have had Lisa Whechel play Blair again. I think that would have added something more to it.

I like Aniston fine, but it was more like Blair by way of Rachel. 

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