He was MIA during a lot of episodes. I know Kim was booted because of the pregnancy and Gary had health issues but what was his deal? Was it the drugs???

Starting from season 7, producers and writers decide to give more space to Arnold and Sam characters. Indeed Todd Bridges appearance already was strongly reduced since season 7, just one episode was based on Willis in season 7 ("Undercover Lover") and one in season 8 ("Willis goes to college").

According to IMDB, Bridges began to have troubles with authorities after Diff'rent Strokes was cancelled from ABC. But, in the DS Unauthorized Story Movie, first troubles seem to happen on 1984, just when the season 7 was produced.

One guess: the "Undercover Lover" episode talks about drugs in the school, and Willis talks about drugs stupidity. Odd. Maybe it's just not a coincidence.

Anny

Starting from season 7, producers and writers decide to give more space to Arnold and Sam characters. Indeed Todd Bridges appearance already was strongly reduced since season 7, just one episode was based on Willis in season 7 ("Undercover Lover") and one in season 8 ("Willis goes to college").

According to IMDB, Bridges began to have troubles with authorities after Diff'rent Strokes was cancelled from ABC. But, in the DS Unauthorized Story Movie, first troubles seem to happen on 1984, just when the season 7 was produced.

One guess: the "Undercover Lover" episode talks about drugs in the school, and Willis talks about drugs stupidity. Odd. Maybe it's just not a coincidence.

Anny

Thanks but that was a bad move on their part. It's been said many times here that Sam's entrance is when the ratings dropped. Though I personally don't find him as annoying as some.
The new Maggie (Mary Ann Mobley) didn't cut it for me. She just didn't have the spunk of Dixie.
But that's all water under the bridge now (no pun intended)

...I personally don't find (Sam) as annoying as some.
The new Maggie (Mary Ann Mobley) didn't cut it for me. She just didn't have the spunk of Dixie.
But that's all water under the bridge now (no pun intended)

I totally agree. But evidently the new characters = the DS jump the shark moment.

Mobley overacted the part, especially the Sam's Missing eps. Dixie seemed totally at ease.

In all Honesty, it was time for the Willis Jackson character to have a reduced role because he was much older and not living at home anymore so why would there be eps based on Willis? It looks like he should have been spinned off

Mobley overacted the part, especially the Sam's Missing eps. Dixie seemed totally at ease.
I totally agree with you. Throughout the Sam's Missing episodes, I was cringing at the horrible acting she was doing. I could've done a better acting job than her; especially her last line at the end of the first part where she says, "Please find my son". Ugh, worst actress ever :p . She either acted too over-emotional or not emotional at all. I don't care for either of the Maggies but I prefer Dixie to Mary Ann Mobley. She at least acted better and Sam's Missing could've been a more powerful episode had she been on it.

We had a big discussion about Mary Anne's acting chops. She was very beautiful but was a little green during some moments. Willis was away at college so it is quite understandable that he would have his appearances reduced on the show during the last season.

Willis was away at college so it is quite understandable that he would have his appearances reduced on the show during the last season.

Yes Thomas, this is the reason built into the comedy helping the audience to understand "why" Willis appearances are reduced a lot. But we're trying to understand the real reason, that is, if this happened in some way while Todd begun to have serious troubles with law. Please remember that Todd's appearances are really reduced in the season 7 too, when Willis still went to hi-school.

Anny

Please remember that Todd's appearances are really reduced in the season 7 too, when Willis still went to hi-school.

Anny


Is there a pun intended? :lol:

I don't know where's the pun, I really talk a very poor english, please explain it to me :o

Anny

I don't know where's the pun, I really talk a very poor english, please explain it to me :o

Anny

"high" school

Sure, "high" ... that's what I meant (like in "hi-score", hi is a diminutive of high). But where's the funny pun? :crazy:

Anny

To be on drugs is sometimes referred to as being high and he was in high school.

Ohmigod you really are green. LOL I can't believe it took this much time to break this down :lol:

Oh, I understood ;) I didnt know it.

In Italy we use "alticcio" a kind of diminutive of italian word "alto" ("high" in english) in order to refer someone a bit drunk.

Odd simile... :D
Anny

he was in every show but two, and it was not because of drugs

He was still in the show just only missed 2 shows in 8 year

Starting from season 7, producers and writers decide to give more space to Arnold and Sam characters. Indeed Todd Bridges appearance already was strongly reduced since season 7, just one episode was based on Willis in season 7 ("Undercover Lover") and one in season 8 ("Willis goes to college").

According to IMDB, Bridges began to have troubles with authorities after Diff'rent Strokes was cancelled from ABC. But, in the DS Unauthorized Story Movie, first troubles seem to happen on 1984, just when the season 7 was produced.

One guess: the "Undercover Lover" episode talks about drugs in the school, and Willis talks about drugs stupidity. Odd. Maybe it's just not a coincidence.

Anny

It seemed like last season and a half or so of DS, might as well have been called "The Arnold and Sam Show". It seemed like the writers didn't entirely know what to do w/ Willis by that point since he was a young adult.

he was in every show but two, and it was not because of drugs

I think that Todd explained in his autobiography, Killing Willis (https://books.google.com/books?id=Wtj0X66VWysC&q=last+season#v=snippet&q=last%20season&f=false), that Gary Coleman and/or his agent likely had something to do w/ the fact that Todd didn't take part in the last two episodes of DS.

They're currently showing the later episodes on RewindTV, yep, the last two seasons pretty every episode centered around Sam and Arnold. Season 7 focused way too much on Sam. By season 7 the writers clearly didn't know what to do with Willis's character. At this point of the show his character was missing from a lot of episodes or was reduced to a background character with one or two lines. By the time season 8 came around, Willis was phased out and disappeared.

Willis was in college, but they didn't have to send him off so far away to live for it had they had him visit the house and be in every episode...


So I think he had problems that led to the role being reduced.


But had that not happened, he either would have had more episodes, or he may have even gotten his own spinoff in college. It's weird they didn't do that in the fall of 1985. The show could have lasted until 1989 with him or into grad school, too had it lasted longer. DS universe could have been prolonged after 1986 cancellation with visits from the cast to Willi's show. The same could be said if Sam had her own spinoff on Gimme A Break! when she went to college in fall of 1986. GAB universe, after cancellation in 1987 could have lasted into the early 1990s with actors making appearances on Sam's show...

In layman's terms, by the time Todd (and the late Dana Plato, who was unfairly fired by Strokes' producers following the completion of the sixth season in the spring of '84 upon becoming pregnant with her late son, Tyler Lambert) and his character had both reached the cusp of adulthood, there was no longer any need for him--considering the fact that Maggie and Sam McKinney were now ensconced in Mr. Drummond's luxurious Park Avenue penthouse apartment (Mr. Drummond and Maggie had both tied the knot midway through season six, as Strokes fans already know). Arnold, for all intents and purposes, matured somewhat into a responsible (if somewhat still mischievous) preteen during the final two seasons and stepped into Willis' battered sneakers by becoming a mentor and second banana to the precocious Sam; Gary Coleman turned sixteen in '84 and had grown weary of playing an adolescent moppet for the previous four years.

Todd's overall appearances on Strokes during the final two years--Strokes, of course, moved to ABC in the autumn of '85--were indeed significantly reduced; of the forty-two episodes telecast on both NBC and ABC between the autumn of '84 and the spring of '86, he appeared in slightly under half of them--nineteen episodes in total. Although his smiling image is featured prominently on Shout! Factory's DVD releases for both the seventh and eighth seasons, Todd was essentially a no-show during Strokes' last two years.

According to his 2010 memoir, Killing Willis, Todd lamented that he had missed the opportunity to appear in the series finale ("The Front Page") due to both professional and personal problems happening in his life (his escalating battles with substance abuse, the disintegration of his parents' marriage, his confrontations with the LAPD, his strained relationship with his father, and the aftermath of the sexual abuse he endured from his former publicist--an acquaintance of his father, James--several years earlier, during his success on Fish). Todd also noted that Gary--as well as his business manager and agents, not to mention his adopted parents (W.G. and Sue Coleman)--had him banned from the set for reasons unknown, as well as blacklisted from the industry altogether throughout the remainder of the eighties and even into the nineties. In fact, Todd claimed in Killing Willis that he was initially set to make a cameo appearance alongside Gary and Conrad Bain in the hour-long series finale for The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air (entitled "I, Done") a little over a decade later, but sadly discovered that his lines had been excised from the final script literally at the eleventh hour.

Enjoy your evening, guys and gals.

I think that Todd explained in his autobiography, Killing Willis (https://books.google.com/books?id=Wtj0X66VWysC&q=last+season#v=snippet&q=last%20season&f=false), that Gary Coleman and/or his agent likely had something to do w/ the fact that Todd didn't take part in the last two episodes of DS.

0Deb9nHiJB4

Todd also claims (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Deb9nHiJB4) that the reason why he wasn't in the final episode, "The Front Page" was because in his words, that was Willie Coleman, Gary Coleman's father's final jab to him because Todd wouldn't do what he wanted to do.

0Deb9nHiJB4

Todd also claims (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Deb9nHiJB4) that the reason why he wasn't in the final episode, "The Front Page" because in his words, that was Willie Coleman, Gary Coleman's father's final jab to him because Todd wouldn't do what he wanted to do.

Todd was largely absent and practically relegated into the background during the last two seasons--particularly the last (which, of course, aired on ABC)--of Diff'rent Strokes not only due to Willie "W.G." Coleman's newfound clout with Strokes' producers, but also partly because of Todd's legal troubles...according to Todd's 2010 memoir, Killing Willis, W.G. Coleman had had issues with Todd beginning as early as season three when Gary suddenly became a household name and W.G. and his wife, Sue, didn't want Todd to spend time with Gary off-camera anymore.

Todd was largely absent and practically relegated into the background during the last two seasons--particularly the last (which, of course, aired on ABC)--of Diff'rent Strokes not only due to Willie "W.G." Coleman's newfound clout with Strokes' producers, but also partly because of Todd's legal troubles...according to Todd's 2010 memoir, Killing Willis, W.G. Coleman had had issues with Todd beginning as early as season three when Gary suddenly became a household name and W.G. and his wife, Sue, didn't want Todd to spend time with Gary off-camera anymore.

I admittedly, haven't truly read Todd's book, but I always thought that his legal issues (https://www.grunge.com/668379/tragic-details-about-todd-bridges/) really began (https://screenrant.com/celebrity-big-brother-todd-bridges-criminal-record-details/) if you will, after Diff'rent Strokes went off the air for good in 1986. Unless of course, you know something that I don't know for sure. ;) I did read (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Bridges#:~:text=Legal%20and%20criminal%20problems,-Bridges%20started%20smoking&text=In%20his%20twenties%2C%20Bridges%20battled,for%20carrying%20a%20concealed%20firearm.) however, that in 1983, he got arrested and fined for having a concealed firearm.