A new wave hit Hollywood as Jennifer Aniston, Kathryn Hahn, and many more Hollywood talents revamp the 1970s sitcom The Facts of Life in front of a live studio audience.
ABC announced November 29 that the event featuring the 52-year-old Friends actress and the 48-year-old WandaVision actresses will air the following week.
Aniston will take on the role of Blair Warner (originally played by Lisa Whelchel), and Kathryn will play Jo Polniaczek (Nancy McKeon) - two students at an all-girls high school in upper New York.
The two stars will be joined by Ann Dowd playing the role of housemother Edna Garrett, Gabrielle Union, and Allison Tolman. Edna Garrett was a character on Diff’rent Strokes which ran from 1978-1985. Being Mary Jane’s Gabrielle Union will play the role of Tootie Riley and Fargo's Tolman as Natalie Green. Jon Stewart would feature in a surprise role later in the show.
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The sitcom originally aired on NBC from 1979 to 1988 became one of the longest-running shows in the 80s. Edna Garrett (the late Charlotte Rae) played the lead character as she teaches school girls of Eastland essential life lessons they wouldn’t find in classrooms.
The show was a spinoff of Diff'rent Strokes, spanned for nine seasons, and generated three TV movies: The Facts of Life Goes to Paris (1982), The Facts of Life Goes Down Under (1987), and The Facts of Life Reunion (2001).
The special is produced by talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Norman Lear, who has had a handful of shows (Good Times, The Jeffersons, All in the Family) aired in front of a live studio audience in 2019.
These were Lear's golden words concerning the project; "Other than with my family, there’s no other place I’d rather be in my 100th year than on a soundstage at Sony with these glorious actors."
"Reliving what our company had produced all those years ago and sharing it with the millions of viewers who could use a little laughter." Lear said when speaking about the December special.
Earlier this year, Lear was honored with the Carol Burnett Award at the 78th annual Golden Globes. “I am convinced that laughter adds time to one’s life, and nobody has made me laugh harder, nobody I owe more time to than Carol Burnett and the brilliant team that helped her realize her comedic genius."
He continued saying, "At close to 99, I can tell you that I have never laughed alone, lived alone, and that has as much to do with my being here today as anything else I know." Though the star-studded special aired on Tuesday, December 7, at 8 pm. ET. fans can stream the episode on Hulu.
