The Facts of Facts

My sister and I have never really gotten along, since she is from Earth and I am from. . . well, also Earth, but we're very different people. She has an MBA and can analyze all sorts of marketing stuff and manages a house and two kids and a husband, all who are little Energizer-bunnies, and I can barely manage an apartment and a cat. That being said, she DID ask my mother a few months ago whether or not movies were made in 1948. So clearly we're on different pages.

Growing up, there was one thing we both agreed on: our parents should NOT have sold weapons to Iran. No, no. She was actually okay with that. What we agreed on was that The Facts of Life was, bar-none, the greatest television sitcom to ever grace the airwaves. I've talked about this show's appeal before. You take a mother figure like Mrs. Garrett, and you have her raising four teenage girls, first at their boarding school and then over a bakery and finally over a store that sold crap nobody needs, like phones shaped like lips and Tina Turner-style t-shirts. Only, she's not really their mother--she's just this woman who hugged them and gave them advice and cookies and sometimes yelled, "Girls, PLEEEEAAAASE!" And there's something sort of satisfying, a tingly-good feeling that someone cares about you and nurtures you, but you owe them nothing and can't blame them for your genetic failings because you didn't come out of them.

When the show debuted in 1979, I was 2 and a half. When it ended in 1988, I was 11. Somewhere when I was about seven, my sister was allowed to watch, but it was beyond my bedtime. Like a child prodigy who learns without teaching, I knew without having seen one adventure of Tootie and Natalie and Blair and Jo, that I HAD to watch this show. On at least one occasion, I sat outside my parents' room while my sister sprawled out on their bed watching, and just listened.

A few years later, FOL moved to Saturday nights, and I was finally allowed to watch. Mom and Dad would go out to dinner or a bar mitzvah or "key party" and leave us with a babysitter, or, later, alone. And that was the night of Diff'rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, and my beloved Facts of Life. At 10, Hunter would come on, and I'd know it was time for bed. . . and I'd have sweet, sweet dreams about Fred Dryer.

One episode in particular sticks out in my mind. It was during the later, Cloris Leachman years. Tootie has a bad dream, after watching a horror movie, in which every cast member of the show gets killed (even George Clooney--who I have loved since the early 80's, thank you very much)! Back when it was first on, my sister made me turn it off. She said it was too scary. But about 5 years ago, when the show came to Nick at Nite for a ridiculously short tenure, we actually planned a night around it. We ordered Chinese food. And she didn't sit on me or torture me or any of that. (The episode is really hilarious. Jo is smothered to death with an inflatable frog.)

And now, my sister reads this blog, and when she posts, it's as Natalie or Jo or George (Clooney's character). And I know that the people who made the show all those years ago think it's camp (a term my sister's otherwise-brilliant husband cannot grasp) and that its fans will never leave them alone, but I hope they realize that no matter how silly or stupid or random a television show or a movie or a piece of theater is, there's likely someone out there who, for some reason, finds it pretty special. And that should make them feel good, even if the only work they can get is on lame Lifetime: Television for Women shows.

So what I'm trying to say is, Can I borrow $37,000, Sis?