narrator: todd bridges played willis, the streetwise skeptic to arnold s wide-eyed innocent. we don t belong in no penthouse. we ain t the right color. i ll get me a skin transplant. narrator: dana plato s kimberly was the privileged prep-school teen who learned life lessons from her stepbrothers. this is arnold, and this is willis, kimberly. hi there. hi. hi, metal mouth. daddy, isn t this delicious? we just met, and already he s insulting me like a real brother. narrator: on november 3, 1978, silverman s faith in lear and coleman paid off. diff rent strokes premiered in the family-friendly 8:00 p.m. time slot. silverman: and that was actually the first show that i put on the air in at nbc, and it was an immediate success. drew: when diff rent strokes came out, it was such a massive phenomenon. brown: it dealt with life
Started when she was writtence off the show due to her pregnancy. then, 2 years after leaving the show, dana s mother died, and her husband left her shortly after. losing so much so quickly sent the 23-year-old into a rapid decline. brown: she started abusing drugs, alcohol, pills, and her son s father actually filed for custody and was awarded full physical custody of the son because she was no longer fit to be his mother. narrator: adding to dana s depression was the fact that she d been typecast ast that america s wholesome sweetheart and was offered only parts she saw as clones of kimberly, her character on diff rent strokes. in an attempt to recast herself as a sex symbol, plato posed nude in the june 1989 issue of playboy. the 5-page spread created the desired attention but didn t have the desired effect on her career. drew: when dana plato did playboy, it was really a move of
narrator: after the groundbreaking television comedy diff rent strokes was canceled in the spring of 1986, the lives of its three child stars todd bridges, dana plato and gary coleman began to unravel. wolf: the diff rent strokes kids are the poster kids for, you know, young actors gone wrong. you ll interview actors just starting out today, and they ll kind of tell you, i ve read those stories. i m not gonna to be like todd bridges. i m not gonna be like dana plato. narrator: the immediate problem for all three stars was the fact that diff rent strokes had been such a hit. after eight years of being so closely associated with the beloved characters of kimberly, willis and arnold, casting agents had trouble seeing the actors as anyone else. weiss: all these kids were pigeonholed into these characters that we had seen for
Nbc s diff rent strokes number-one-ranked abc fought back by airing the hit show happy days against the new sitcom. mcilwain: i mean, you re seeing sort of the opposite of american life. one show, happy days, that s obviously a sort of throwback, a longing for the supposed good old days. on the other hand, you got diff rent strokes, that is about now. it s about life in the 70s at that time, about the circumstances, the problems, the struggles, that are going on for this sort of very weird, different-kind-of-looking family, and so in a way, you have the sort of competing ideals, if you will, on the two networks, you know? and it s sort of like, you know, what do i want america to be like really? narrator: americans fell in love with kimberly, willis, and little arnold, and diff rent strokes gained even more viewers as the first season rolled along. the jokes on the family-friendly show weren t as biting as past
all in the family. and i figured the combination of norman lear and gary coleman in this concept very, very family- friendly early evening concept was a ideal combination. narrator: silverman was confident viewers would fall in love with coleman and theall in show s unique family. weiss: mr. drummond, his wife dies. he has this daughter, and then his black housekeeper dies. and her dying wish is to have him adopt her sons. arnold and willis go to live at this park avenue apartment, and automatically have a built-in family of mr. drummond, a sister named kimberly and a maid named mrs. garrett. hi, fellas. (laughter) she got it right. mrs. garett, are you passing?