Diff'rent Strokes for Diff'rent Folks
I was once told that I wasn't a "true" child of the 80's because I had never seen an episode of the tv show Diff'rent Strokes, let alone known what Willis was talkin'bout. Hearing this comment made me really wonder about the show and why I could not remember watching it. Then I found out that Diff'rent Strokes was made from 1978 to 1984, so I wasn't even born while a lot of the shows were made, or even old enough to sit in front of the TV. I was still very curious to see what this show was like, unfortunately it wasn't played on TV stations in my area. I wish that there was a TV station that played old sitcoms 24 hours straight. That would be heaven! Anyhow, last March break I went to visit my cousins in Sarnia, and low and behold Diff'rent Strokes was played on a TV station from Detroit. It's played everyday at 9 am. But being my March break, I didn't want to wake up that early in the morning to watch it. Thank goodness for VCRs! I taped three episodes over the March break and I took the tape back home with me to watch ritually. Diff'rent Strokes is just hilarious and I wish that it was played on a TV station in my area, but I could sort of see why it isn't. The show is sort of racist, and stereotypical. It's about a rich white man and his daughter taking in two black homeless (were they homeless? I guess I need to see the first episode) boys in from the hood. There's also a lot of racial jokes in the show, none too nasty but jokes that I couldn't see being tolerated in today's society. I'm very surprised to be seeing it played in Detroit actually, but I'm not complaining. I'm going back to Sarnia next week and I've got two blank tapes to tape a couple weeks worth of Diff'rent Strokes. After seeing the three episodes that I taped over the March break, I kind of got a crush on Gary Coleman. He was cute and his lines were so hilarious in the show that I thought that he must be really cute now a days too. When I told my cousin Jessie about my Coleman crush, she thought that I was crazy. She told me that he looks exactly the same now, as he did back then, but just much more creepier since he has a growing disease and all. She also was recently arrested for punching a woman who asked for his autograph. This made me sad to hear about this poor little, once cute, childhood actor. I wanted to see what he looked like now and get the scoop on his run in with the law. So the best place I thought that I would find this information was on the Internet (I know, it's not always reliable, but I'm not gonna go the library to research Gary Coleman!). I did find all this information, and a whole lot more. What Gary Coleman did to that bus driver who asked for his autograph was very minuscule compared to what Todd Bridges and Dana Plato have done - attempted murder, robbery, posing for Playboy, drug overdose and now suicide. Yep, Dana Plato, that sweet innocent sister from Diff'rent Strokes has recently died. Actually, I didn't get that information from the Internet. My mom, who had found out about my love for Diff'rent Strokes, told me one morning and then I saw it on TV for weeks, I even picked up the People magazine with all of the information of Dana Plato's death. I was very sad to hear about this especially since I've just gotten into Diff'rent Strokes lately. But with every bad thing, comes something good. Gary Coleman took every possible opportunity to get back on TV. I saw him on Hard Copy, Dateline and Sally. I have to say that the episode of Dateline that he was on was really sad. They didn't talk about Dana Plato's death, but just Gary Coleman's acting career. That didn't really bother me though. I heard enough about her death that week anyway. The show talked about how Gary Coleman's parents forced him into acting at such a young age. When Gary was very sick with colon cancer, they still made him act in TV movies and to top it all off they robbed Gary! Dateline interviewed the Coleman's, who claimed in the interview that they had no idea where all of Gary's money had gone, meanwhile they're sitting on an expensive couch in a nicely furnished room in their house for this interview. In the meantime, Gary Coleman's living in a one bedroom apartment and working at a kid's arcade to make a living. I know how one sided Dateline can be, but the Coleman's had nothing to back them up. Today Gary's working on a movie which should be out in about a years time. I don't know what it's called or what it's about, but it should be better then the movie Dana Plato starred in, called "Diff'rent Strokes" (that was a porn movie by the way). As much of a fan of Diff'rent Strokes I am, I don't think I'll be going to rent that one. But I'm really interested in seeing Gary's movie. It's hard for me to try to picture him in any other role than lil' Arnold's in Diff'rent Strokes. Oh and just incase you're wondering about Gary Coleman being charged with assault for hitting that bus driver, I'm also on his side for that one...well not entirely. The bus driver asked Gary Coleman for his autograph. Gary said no. The bus driver then said "You're just a washed up childhood actor...blah, blah, blah", to which Gary got upset about and punched her. I don't blame Gary for getting mad. I'm sure he's heard enough about how he can't get any roles now, but violence wasn't the way he should have handled the situation. This bus driver was twice the size of Gary, so he must have been really mad to go and punch her. Poor, poor childhood actors!
back
