the corner office

Gary Coleman of Diff'rent Strokes fame died this weekend. Brings backs memories... early early 80s on Bop TV with the bronzed braai grille TV aerials that had to be specially installed at 90 degrees to how they were otherwise supposed to be. I think Diff'rent Strokes was on a Thursday night (or was it Tuesday?) and we'd tape it on our big-ass Sony Betamax and watch it over and over again until a few days later when we'd record something else over it.

I still remember some of the scenes vividly. For some reason, the most vivid being the crap beige sheets that Willis smeared water over to let Arnold think he'd wet the bed - probably because I had similarly coloured beige sheets at the time and as kids we'd recently been upgraded to these new-fangled duvet things ourselves. But there are others: the hispanic tutor who fakes a Harlem accent, the hot date aunty who couldn't handle the idea of being a mom, a brick-and-concrete school lunch area with a brown paper lunch bag, and the report card 'not as good as it could've been but better than if I hadn't done as well as I did' - a line I use to this day ;-).

The kind of series that would be worth watching again, although knowing that all 3 kids ended up with drug problems and bankrupt and in court - and in the case of Dana Plato - in jail and star of soft pr0n movies before killing herself, I suspect the youthful magic might be a bit hard to recapture.

In a final sad twist, turns out Dana Plato's son committed suicide a few weeks ago as well.