Edna Edibles Or Over Our Heads - Which Store Did You Prefer On Facts Of Life?

Edna’s Edibles would be quite the store these days! Could you imagine an 80s themed store selling edibles?

Why isn’t Charlotte Rae more of a DL icon or favourite? Look at that fucking hair!

Inflatable palm trees and flamingos for me.

I preferred OOH because my fantasy boyfriend MacKenzie Astin was more heavily featured in those years.

It's a shame that Beverly Ann's incompetence bankrupted the place and they shut it down in the final season.

[quote]Beverly Ann's incompetence bankrupted the place.

Instead of NO CUSTOMERS?

[quote] It's a shame that Beverly Ann's incompetence bankrupted the place

The girls lost interest in the store and that is why it closed. By that time, the show was on its final legs anyways.

I blame Beverly Ann.

Over Our Heads because it was basically mainlining '80s kitsch.

[quote] Why isn’t Charlotte Rae more of a DL icon or favourite? Look at that fucking hair!

She's not quite at the level of Lavin or Bonnie Franklin, but then again she was nice and not a cunt.

She does seem nice. I like her here.

I'll say it again, it's totally fucked up that they made Natalie stare at that Charlie Chaplin mask all day.

Who is that cow?

“One little girl, she had this funny little voice, and she was fat. Chubby chubby chubby! And she was Jewish. And I thought she’d be a wonderful supplement to these other girls.”

Mindy Cohn’s discovery is actually a pretty cool Cinderella story.

Over our Heads was a nice bright set. Mrs. Garrett Mostly just floated in and out with a few asinine lines outside of the main plot in those years though.

[quote] she was nice and not a cunt.

Tell that to Geri Jewell

[quote] Mrs. Garrett Mostly just floated in and out with a few asinine lines outside of the main plot in those years though.

By that time she was ready to go, she only committed for another year to ease the transition from the food store to Over Our Heads, and in return wanted a lighter work load.

How weird...

Edna Edibles is winning the poll

But hardly anyone is talking about the cozy and earthy colors of the store and house.

I’ve watched this on cable. I fucking love it. I really like the early to mid 80s years. Solid show. It has been comfort food. I didn’t like the OOH years as much.

90% of working at Edibles involved moving things from a tray to a counter display. Using tongs if necessary.

Was Edna's Edible her aged roast beef curtains?

R18 The show was warm during those years because of that set.

I love the last three years of the show. It needed a change at that point. The Edna's Edibles years were OK, but that rustic look was on its way out by 1985. Plus the girls were getting older and the topical episodes were getting tiresome. It got a second wind when they went pastel, but you can see the slow changes during the second Edna's Edibles year, when they bring in Shirley Jones kid and Mac Astin.

Someone who worked on the show once posted here that Dixie Carter was the initial choice to replace Charlotte Rae. NBC wanted her to keep her around after they cancelled Different Strokes. She would have played an Aunt of Blair's who would have came in and played the mother hen role.

As a young gayling, I was *obsessed* with the set of Edna's Edibles. I was very young when it burned down on the show...perhaps 5 going on 6. (It was my first time seeing something having been burned down on TV, and I was very concerned.) When they/George Clooney rebuilt the store, I liked the new, bright store (it reminded me of a chintzy store at the local mall), but I missed the Edna's store with the barrels, exposed beams, cream puffs, and wicker baskets. Cracker Barrel was nearest thing I could find to it in real life, and that wasn't very similar. I've been rewatching the show (for free!) on Roku TV, and they definitely steered away from the store in later seasons and used the living room set more.

Unrelated to the stores, but Roku is currently playing S1-S3 of 'FoL', and I've never seen some of these eps since I wasn't born when they aired and/or I was too young to remember them (born in '80 here). Very serious issues are plot points: peer suicide, Blair's grandfather (whom she was named after) being in the KKK, Tootie only wanting to have black friends, etc. Dark stuff compared to the fluffy plots later in the series involving Natalie job-hopping from road work to the Mexican fast food restaurant. The early seasons were definitely influenced heavily by Norman Lear.

The episode where Blair dated a ‘retarded’ boy was uncomfortable. The number of times they kept saying retarded could have been a drinking game.

Tootie's Pussy Cookies and Nat's Ass Cake were their biggest sellers.

[quote] It was my first time seeing something having been burned down on TV, and I was very concerned

Serious question R24 - did you talk to your mother about it, and what did she say?

R27 We all know what her reaction was-“Oh dear, my son’s Streisand infatuation isn’t rooted in heterosexuality after all.”

R27, I did actually ask my mum about it. I asked what would happen if our house burned down and where we'd live, etc. We'd never had a fire extinguisher in the house--and we lived out in the country with the services of a volunteer fire department--so she bought a small fire extinguisher as a result of that conversation. Little gay me had no clue that fires were such a hot (pun intended) plot device in the 80s. See the fire at Southfork on 'Dallas', the fire at the cabin on 'Dynasty', etc.

R28, I was obsessed with Judy, thank you very much!

R30 She would have known you liked the peen before the FoL fire. :)

R29 Fires were so good for TV, Desperate Housewives used them at least three times, with Susan burning down Edie’s house, Edie burning down Susan’s house, and Edie’s psycho husband burning a nightclub down and killing many people.

No clue what you're talking about.

What are other shows that used fires as major plot devices? I'm blanking right now. They were always good excuses to refresh sets and have an easy cliffhanger. (I think J.R.'s office blew up once when Sue Ellen walked in looking for him, but I believe that was part of the dream season.) Seems like Jennie Garth was in a fire on '90210', too.

Which one of you fangirls built this?

I sometimes pretend that Aunt Lydia on Handmaid’s Tale is an unmedicated Mrs. Garrett, deranged after the fire that claimed Edna’s Edibles.

Why wasn't a head cook and some kitchen staff part of the Eastland years when they lived above the cafeteria?

Seems like a missed comic opportunity. And for plausibility's sake. I guess we were supposed to believe that Mrs. Garrett cooked every meal for however many hundreds or thousands of girls who were enrolled at Eastland?

[quote] What are other shows that used fires as major plot devices?

Punky Brewster, Hogan Family, Webster— off the top of my head.

Happy Days. Someone threw an apron on the still hot grill. Haunted. Little House on the Prairie

Babies make great battering rams.

R37, there was a head chef featured a few times during S2. A tall, older man who had very few lines. He and Edna would have a few exchanges, but nothing that really added to the plot. I watched an ep the other night featuring him where Edna tells him she's going to the eye doctor, but she hates getting her eyes dilated. She stumbles back to Eastland from the eye doctor (due to her dilated eyes) and gossipy Tootie starts the rumour that Mrs. Garrett is a drunk.

The thing about Facts of Life that makes it stand out from other sitcoms of its time is that EVERY episode is a very special episode. It didn’t just rely on the occasional two-part “bad touch” installment during rating sweeps. Every week there was a moral tale to be told.

It was just a good show. It was solid as has been said. It had a lot of good qualities. Good characters and nice stories.

I like the episode where they have to make pizzas for that fraternity or whatever.

Jo and Blair should have been a couple! They would be if the show aired today.

Actually Tootie was the deeply closeted one! Her coming-of-age as a baby dyke (with the aid of Mrs. Garrett’s “divorced” sister) was groundbreaking TV, especially during the Reagan era. If you watch closely, you’ll notice the erotic subtext in later episodes, which explore Tootie’s forbidden yearnings:

It was Beverly Ann who moved Tootie to previously unknown lesbian passions.

That haircut was pure Dykes on Bikes.

I kind of like that jazzified 80s version of the theme song — it grew on me. So I vote OOH.

That later version of the Diff’rent Strokes theme song, on the other hand,

[quote] That later version of the Diff’rent Strokes theme song, on the other hand...

It’s kind of ironic that they replaced the drums with a synth.

anyone else

I like the episode when Jo performs an abortion on Blair.

Over Our Heads — just because it was the most quintessentially ‘80s interior ever.

What I want to know is did Cloris Leachman really play the piano or did she play the same way Betty White played the piano?

It's a tough call, but I was more a fan of the girls than Mrs. Garrett, and I am an 80's child through and through, so I went with Over Our Heads.

There is only one Charlotte Rae as other networks tried to rip-off the "Facts of Life" formula

ABC tried "Living Dolls" and had Michael Learned as a "Mrs. Garrett" type but it didn't work and Learned explains below why she is no Charlotte Rae

Edna's Edibles, easily. Over Our Heads was an unfunny Spencer's Gifts, and brought on the worst 80s hair.

The girls reunited for a TV Movie "You Light Up My Christmas" - Nancy McKeon was unable to appear in person due to a family emergency, but she filmed a cameo separately, and it was inserted into the movie - but it wasn't with the other three.

I hope Our Mindy is reading this thread. A few eldergays on here swear she chimes in on DL from time to time. I follow her on IG and she seems like a lot of fun.

Somebody purporting to be Mindy definitely has. She signs her posts. Whether it's actually her, who knows? It's fun to think it is.

That clip is fantastic R13 lol

I always wanted more BOOTS ST. CLAIRE

I know, R14. But still, when they had a FoLbirthday for Charlotte reunion on "Home and Family" she couldn't be bothered. EVEN GEORGE FUCKING CLOONEY SENT A TAPE. But not Eastland's answer to Tina Louise! Her lack of gratitude sent Rae careening to her early death.

{quote]It was Beverly Ann who moved Tootie to previously unknown lesbian passions.

Quite. My friends and I referred to her as "Beverly Mann."

I prefer the episodes when they were ALL in high school and had to work in the cafeteria, also the VERY FIRST version song of Facts Of Life from 1979 was by far the BEST version.

I loved the theme song that had Mrs Garrett sounding like she was drunk all the way up to her bouffant bun on Sherry.

Mindy Cohn speaks more highly of Cloris Leachman than Charlotte Rae

R65 Clovis kept the gravy train chugging along for a few more seasons. Mindy knew her phone would be quite when the series wrapped.

Clovis=Cloris

Thanks to the poster who said the first three seasons were on Roku.

I have very vague memories of the first season - aka The Molly Ringwald Years.

It's kind of crazy that the first episode tackled the Lesbian issue - when Cindy worries that she could be "not normal" because she likes sports and pants, and football jerseys. Blair doesn't help matters by calling her "weird". The L word is never uttered. Of course Mrs. Garrett's first example of a woman who excels at sports is Billie Jean King - uh oh!.

Mindy Cohn

Mindy Cohn

Mindy Cohn

R24 I was a kid during the early seasons, and my parents didn't want us watching FoL or Different Strokes because they thought that the kids had smart mouths, and were a bad influence. They went out most Friday nights when the shows were on and we had a babysitter named Terry who would convince my parents to let us watch the shows because "it was a very special episode." Tootie learns about the downsides of drinking, etc...

The fact of the matter is that when it came to FOL she wasn't even lying, every week was "a very special episode." She only had to lie about Different Strokes.

We also weren't allowed to watch Three's Company because it was "smut."

My father would watch it though, and never figured out that I could stand in my bedroom door and see the show reflected in the mirror down the hall from my bedroom as HE watched the show. I didn't understand the smutty jokes until years later, as I was only 7 when the show premiered.

Mindy didn't even show up for the final episode! They had Natalie phone in from Manhattan, because apparently it would have been such a trek getting from there to Peekskill.

Rewatching season nine on Antennae TV over the summer, and it was such a mess. There was really no point in introducing another character, but they give us Pippa anyway. They can't even be bothered to do a proper episode where they close down the shop, it's treated as an aside. They cram Jo's engagement AND wedding into one episode, which also included Blair mulling over a proposal from her boyfriend and turning him down. (And no Mrs. Garrett for the nuptials, which was criminal) And the last two episodes are largely backdoor pilots for spinoffs (and unfunny ones at that).

LIAR!!! R70! Facts was not on Friday nights.

[quote] LIAR!!! Facts was not on Friday nights.

It aired on Fridays Night in Canada

[quote] Mindy didn't even show up for the final episode! They had Natalie phone in from Manhattan, because apparently it would have been such a trek getting from there to Peekskill.

She had a backdoor pilot that featured David Spade as one of her new roomates.

NO ONE CARES ABOUT CANADA!!!!

itt was on on Friday nights for the first few seasons before it moved to Saturdays as a lead in for the Golden Girls, so go fuck yourself, R72.

Natalie's backdoor pilot was the second to last episode, though. The final episode featured a five minute ending where Blair comes back to Peekskill and everyone's in the living room except Natalie, who winds up calling in.

R71 I forgot about Pippa. For a show that streamlined the cast from season 1 to 2, they were always trying to add another girl. There was that Princess character, the Asian girl, the mini Jo, then the Australian. No one cared.

R70 R75 Facts of Life was on Wednesday Nights at 9PM for several years before moving to Saturdays

The Edna Edibiles years they were up against Dynasty, then the number one show in the country

The OOH years were on Saturday Nights

[quote] There was that Princess character

that character was added, because the talk was to spin-off Jo &Blair into their own series - the College years

So Mrs, Garrett, Tootie & Natalie would stay on Facts, while Jo & Blair would have their own show

And the Princess character would replace the "Blair" void.

But then the network lost interest in the spin-off and just moved everyone to Edna Edibles

Christ I hated Miko! Her 2 episodes were like Night of a Thousand Pippas.

Kelly was another one who made no sense. She threw a brick through Edna's Edibles, she extorted Blair for money, yet Mrs. Garrett decides to let her keep coming back?

The Saturday time slot was a great one to have at the time! That’s the only one I was familiar with, actually — when I was watching the earlier ones, it was on NBC daytime (and also on Ch 5 before it was FOX).

I appreciate the later ones now because they did tend to be more “funny” and less special episode oriented.

Ultimately it has a lot more legs as a show then Diff’rent strokes did.

I much preferred the bright pastels over the dreary country wood.