Norman Lear quietly produced "Diff'rent Strokes" (and "The Facts of Life") during the same general time frame. These both premiered in the latter half of the Jimmy Carter administration but ended their run well into the tenure of Ronald Reagan, and in different ways were emblematic of where American culture would evolve.
The core premise of "Diff'rent Strokes" (a slang-ish spelling of the word sets it apart from certain people's expectations) involves a racially blended family: Millionaire widower Phillip Drummond takes on his late maid's two boys as foster children. The maid's two sons, Willis and Arnold Jackson (played by Todd Bridges and Gary Coleman, respectively), were Black, and had lived n Harlem all of their lives. Now, the pair were being introduced to the Park Avenue upper-crust, as filtered through Phillip as a foster father (initially) and Phillip's biological daughter, Kimberly (played by Dana Plato). The Jackson brothers' father was apparently deceased for some time already before their mother passed.
During the eight-season tenure of the series, it spent most of its run on NBC, with the last on ABC.
In the early seasons, much of what went on was "typical" fare for a family situation comedy- generally lighthearted "family-hour friendly" shenanigans and interactions (keeping in mind that "the family hour" was an informal commitment by the three major networks at the time to curb back on shows with a violent or sexy context in the first hour of nightly programming), but with a twist: much of the comedy-- which for many, may well be dated now-- was gleaned from the incredulousness of guest characters (mostly white) when Arnold, Willis, or both were introduced as Phillip's sons (he would eventually formally adopt both of them). Sometimes, this was played for a brief laugh, and at other times, this was a core part of a given episode's plot.
Especially during these early seasons, dramatic tension concerning racial matters figured into many of the plots, subtly and blatantly. Select episodes featured a relative (e.g., Phillip's mother), a school friend (a boy Kimberly likes) or an institution (Phillip's country club) expressing bigoted feelings directly toward the boys or to someone else when they're not around (though sometimes, they were behind a closed door or even under a couch when such sentiments were uttered.) Additionally, there were occasionally Black characters who challenged either the Jacksons or Phillip on the validity of cross-racial adoption and whether something is being lost in the process. Typically, these plots were resolved in a pat matter, with a sentiment that could be summed up as "Love is what counts; we're going to be alright". Again, this was a sitcom, so it wasn't set up to go in-depth with any of the arguably serious matters that were touched upon periodically.
As years passed, the racial conflicts were de-emphasized; more general issues regarding teen life became much of the focus: peer pressure, cigarettes, drinking, dating, sex, and more. Early on in the series, Coleman's Arnold became the putative focus; with cherubic looks and a poise that belied his true age, he became a crossover mainstream superstar child actor of pop culture in America. During the run of the series, he frequently appeared as a guest in other television shows as well as television commercials, and occasionally films. Bain portrayed Phillip as a conservative man but deeply empathetic (conservative in the traditional, non-political sense; explicit politics didn't come up in the show compared to "All in the Family") . One of only a handful of adult actors on the show early on, he was a grounding force in the plots, preventing things from lurching into farce.
Dana Plato and Todd Bridges played their roles as Kimberly and Willis professionally. Kimberly was more of a "typical" teen sitcom girl: smart, well-mannered, and occasionally preoccupied with boys. In the latter seasons, her presence was limited due to real-life pregnancy when Plato had married young. Bridges' Willis early on was severely skeptical of living with Phillip in his wealthy, white, and (as far as he was concerned) hostile, indifferent world. It took a few seasons for Willis' anxieties to apparently abate. Willis was also deeply protective of Arnold, and eventually had a dating life with a recurring character, Charlene (played by future pop superstar Janet Jackson).
There were a handful of quasi-"mother" figures on the show, in the form of the successive maids that followed the Jackson boys' mother. First was Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae), who served for a few years until being called away to the "Facts of Life Show" to serve as the boarding school girls' house mother/guidance counselor. The second featured maid, Adelaide (Nedra Volz, an alumnus if "All in the Family"), was similarly sassy like Mrs. Garrett, but as a much older woman, seemingly not poised to make much of a career jump as her predecessor. Adelaide lasted a few years to be replaced by Pearl (Mary Jo Gallagher).
By the last couple of seasons, actress Dixie Carter was introduced as a love interest for Phillip, Maggie; a divorcee with a young son of her own, Sam (Danny Cooksey), the pair of them managed to boost the ratings for a while, and also put the Arnold character in the novel position of now being an older brother himself. Blended-family tensions renewed slightly but they were never portrayed as untenable. Mary Ann Mobley would play Maggie for the closing season of the series.
An assortment of recurring characters appeared during the run of the show, especially young actors who were Arnold and Willis's friends from school. Assorted celebrities also made appearances such as Nancy Reagan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mr. T, Clarence Clemons and more.
The series has its criticisms.
Primarily, there's the "assimilation fantasy" angle: where seemingly all it takes for two orphaned black children to "make it" in America (particularly in the Reagan era) is to be adopted by a generous white family. As mentioned, the racial-based challenges for Arnold and Willis, two school-aged boys navigating privileged upper-middle-class Manhattan, seemed to be "smoothed out" after the earliest seasons, which many felt was not realistic, in retrospect. Any biological extended family of the Jackson brothers were scarcely glimpsed during the run of the show; as such, the series kind of prevents Arnold and Willis from keeping active ties to Black culture outside of their younger peer group. Quite a number of the "social message" plots come across as rather telegraphed by 21st century sensibilities.
Arnold being centered in the series might not in and of itself be controversial, but to the extent that much of Gary Coleman's life became public through interviews, his celebrity status was zeroed upon somewhat relentlessly by many in the news media at the time. A rare kidney disease stunted his growth, and thus leaving him in the odd position of being, say, 12 years old, but "portraying" a third grader onscreen. This led some writers, particularly in African-American culture, to observe that the network series had an "easy" time portraying an increasingly older young man as a "perpetual kid", and thus, not particularly meant to be taken seriously. That, on top of his real-life medical challenges (and the expenses they incurred) were looked at by some as a low-key form of exploitation.
Despite the Willis and Kimberly characters both being middle-school aged and on the verge of teen life by the time the series began, there was no sexual tension or curiosity between the two of them; it was just a given that they accepted each other as stepsiblings uncritically. Obviously this would have presented an extremely provocative scenario for network television at the time, but producer Lear was always someone to push envelopes creatively on his other shows that he was responsible for. At this point it just remains something that an academic might bring up, in retrospect. Particularly as scholarship regarding what cross-racial adoption in America has meant over the decades (especially involving celebrities and middle-class Caucasians as the parents), "Diff'rent Strokes" provides a substantive amount of popular-culture based material to reference and study.
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