Today, we look at a heartfelt episode of Facts of Life featuring Tootie and her mother.
This is “All the Best Things,” a spotlight on the best TV episodes, movies, albums, etc.
This is a Year of Great TV Episodes, where every day this year, we’ll take a look at great TV episodes. Note that I’m not talking about “Very Special Episodes” or episodes built around gimmicks, but just “normal” episodes of TV shows that are notable only because of how good they are.
All this month, I’ll be spotlighting great Black-centric TV episodes.
Like I said, I totally forgot about Leap Year this year, and I thought that I was going to begin the month with James Earl Jones, and end the month with James Earl Jones. It would have been awesome. But, well, it IS Leap Year, so I had to come up with a 29th episode, and I had the idea of picking an episode that aired ON Leap Day!
On Leap Day, 1984, Chip Fields guest-starred on an episode of The Facts of Life as the mother of Kim Fields’ Tootie.
Tootie wants to be an actor, but her mother is a lawyer, and she assumes her daughter will follow in her footsteps. Meanwhile, she is also really strict on her daughter, while being the “cool” mom with the other girls.
It comes to a head with an excellent fight scene…
Great stuff.
The real life parental connection led to an excellent chemistry got the scene. The Facts of Life rarely had fights quite this relatable.
Okay, if I’m going to have 307 more of these, I could use suggestions, so feel free to email me at brian@poprefs.com!
