Dana Michelle Plato was an American actress. An influential teen idol of the late 1970s and early 1980s, she was known for playing Kimberly Drummond on the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986). Her personal struggles with substance abuse were well documented by the media and lead to her premature death at the age of 34. Her life has retrospectively been called a "tragedy".
Gary Wayne Coleman was an American actor and comedian. Coleman was the highest-paid child actor on television throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. He was rated first on a list of VH1's "100 Greatest Kid Stars".
The Oprah Winfrey Show, often referred to as The Oprah Show or simply Oprah, is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, from Chicago, Illinois. Produced and hosted by Oprah Winfrey, it remains the highest-rated daytime talk show in American television history.
Leif Garrett is an American actor, singer, and television personality. He worked as a child actor, then in the 1970s became famous as a teen idol in music. He later received much publicity for his drug abuse and legal troubles.
Daniel Leroy Baldwin is an American actor. He is the second oldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all of whom are actors. Baldwin played the role of Detective Beau Felton in the NBC TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, and has also starred in Ned Blessing: The True Story of My Life (1992), Mulholland Falls (1996), Vampires (1998), The Pandora Project (1998), Stealing Candy (2002), Paparazzi (2004), Cleaver (2007) and Grey Gardens (2009).
Conrad Stafford Bain was a Canadian-American comedian and actor. His television credits include a leading role as Phillip Drummond in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986), as Dr. Arthur Harmon on Maude (1972–1978), and as Charlie Ross in Mr. President (1987–1988).
The Smoking Gun is a website that posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots on a daily basis. The intent is to bring to the public light information that is somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources. Most of the site's content revolves around historical and current events, although it also features documents and photos relating to out-of-the-ordinary crimes and people.
Fish is an American sitcom and a spin-off of Barney Miller that aired on ABC from February 5, 1977 to May 18, 1978. The series starred Abe Vigoda as New York City Police Department Detective Phil Fish and Florence Stanley as his wife Bernice.
Laura Mackenzie Phillips is an American actress. Her best-known roles include Carol Morrison in the film American Graffiti, Julie Mora Cooper Horvath on the sitcom One Day at a Time, and Molly Phillips on Disney Channel’s supernatural series So Weird.
"Very special episode" is an advertising term originally used in American television promos to refer to an episode of a sitcom or drama series which deals with a difficult or controversial social issue. The usage of the term peaked in the 1980s.
Intervention is an American documentary series that premiered on March 6, 2005, on A&E. It follows one or two participants, who are dependent on or addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. They are documented in anticipation of an intervention meeting by family or friends. During the intervention meeting, loved ones give the addict an ultimatum: go to an inpatient drug rehabilitation program immediately, or else risk losing contact, income, or other privileges. The show follows up on the recovery progress for future episodes or for web shorts.
Tyson Beckford is an Jamaican American model and actor best known as a Ralph Lauren Polo model. He was also the host of both seasons of the Bravo program Make Me a Supermodel. Beckford has been described as one of the most successful black male supermodels of all time, achieving fame and huge contracts similar to the female models who had huge success in the 1990s.
One to Grow On is an educational public service announcement that broadcast during NBC's Saturday morning line-up from 1983 to 1989, when the network ran cartoons. The name is taken from the custom of putting an extra candle on a birthday cake as "one to grow on". One to Grow On focused on ethical and personal safety dilemmas and attempted to teach viewers how to solve them. The public service announcement appeared immediately after the end credits of NBC cartoons, such as ABC did with Schoolhouse Rock! and CBS with In the News.
Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, later called simply Rehab with Dr. Drew, is a reality television show that aired on the cable network VH1 in which many of the episodes chronicle a group of well-known people as they are treated for alcohol and drug addiction by Dr. Drew Pinsky and his staff at the Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California. The first five seasons of the series, on which Pinsky also serves as executive producer, cast celebrities struggling with addiction, with the first season premiering on January 10, 2008, and the fifth airing in 2011.
Oprah Gail Winfrey, also known mononymously as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Diff'rent Strokes is an American television sitcom, which aired on NBC from November 3, 1978, to May 4, 1985, and on ABC from September 27, 1985, to March 7, 1986. The series stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges as Arnold and Willis Jackson, respectively, who are two boys from Harlem taken in by a wealthy Park Avenue businessman and his daughter. Phillip Drummond is a widower for whom their deceased mother previously worked; his daughter, Kimberly, is played by Dana Plato. During the first season and the first half of the second season, Charlotte Rae also starred, as Mrs. Edna Garrett, the Drummonds' first housekeeper, who ultimately spun off into her own sitcom, The Facts of Life, as a housemother at the fictional Eastland School. The second housekeeper, Adelaide Brubaker, was played by Nedra Volz. The third housekeeper, Pearl Gallagher, was played by Mary Jo Catlett, first appearing as a recurring character, later becoming a main cast member.
Zach Anner is an American comedian, actor, and writer with cerebral palsy who gained worldwide attention with the submission of a video to Oprah Winfrey's "Search for the Next TV Star" competition. He won his own TV show on OWN through Oprah's Your OWN Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star. His wheelchair travel show, Rollin' With Zach, premiered December 12, 2011. Zach recently wrote for and guest-starred on the ABC-TV sitcom Speechless, which is centered on a teenager with cerebral palsy.
Live in Front of a Studio Audience is a series of live television specials that was first broadcast by ABC on May 22, 2019. Conceptualized and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the specials feature all-star casting for live recreations of sitcom episodes of various televisions created by companies run by the renowned producer, Norman Lear, that originally aired in the 1970s and 1980s.
"The Bicycle Man" is a two-part very special episode of the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978–1986). Serving as the 16th and 17th episodes of the fifth season, it was written by Blake Hunter, directed by Gerren Keith, and guest-stars Gordon Jump as a bicycle shop owner who tries to molest Arnold Jackson and his friend Dudley Johnson. The episode also features Le Tari as Ted Ramsey, Dudley's adoptive father, and Brad Trumbull as Detective Simpson.
