Would someone here please explain "the moral" of this episode? The prostitute who befriends Tootie does not change her life in any way, and her pimp receives no punishment of any kind. Is this really the message the FOL producers wanted to show children?

In this particular episode, Tootie wanted to be independent and do her own thing (13 years old).
She ran away to be with the other girls even shen Mrs. Garrett told her she was too young. It wasn't until she met Kristy and her "friend" Mike and found out what they did (the waitress warned her) that she got a dose of reality and decided to go back to Eastland.
The point was that you might think you want to live your own life and do whatever you want, but you don't really know how hard it is until you get out there in the world. So hard that you turn to other things to cope like drugs, alcohol or, in Kristy's case, prostitution.
Tootie deciding to go home was her saying "You know, if this (prostitution) is what I have to do to survive, then I don't want to be here". She even tried to get Kristy to come with her, but Kristy was already in too deep. Kristy had no one but herself, but Tootie had friends and family and the end scene showed that.

Very good episode. One of the best in my opinion. As I remember it though Tootie never made any effort to get Kristy to get out of her situation. Tootie was basically naive to the fact that Kristy was a prostitute throughout the majority of the episode and when she did finally did learn the truth from the waitress she was outraged.

Kristy basically was begging her to return to the apartment with her implying that something bad would happen if she didn't return to her pimp with Tootie in tow. Around this time Mrs. Garrett and the girls turned up and Tootie flew into their arms like a lost little child.

The final scene in the episode was Tootie staring through the glass diner window at Kristy when Mrs. Garrett asked her if she knows who that girl was. Tootie responds I believe with "Just a girl" and then walks off with Mrs. Garrett as the episode ends.

So no real effort was made on Tootie's part to rescue Kristy even when "the cavalry" turned up to rescue her from her predicament.

It was an effective way to end the episode but still I felt it was a bit out of character for Tootie not to even mention to Mrs. Garrett about what was going on in the diner involving the pimp and the young girls he was pimping out.

"Very good episode. One of the best in my opinion. "

"So no real effort was made on Tootie's part to rescue Kristy even when "the cavalry" turned up to rescue her from her predicament.

It was an effective way to end the episode but still I felt it was a bit out of character for Tootie not to even mention to Mrs. Garrett about what was going on in the diner involving the pimp and the young girls he was pimping out."

Isn't that a contradiction?

^ Not at all, why does something have to be happy to be enjoyable? Schindler's List was popular even though it was a sad movie because it got across a good message, same with this episode.

I agree that it was a bit of an empty ending for the prostitute to just be left in that situation, that always bugged me. However, in your first post you ask if this is the message the producers wanted to give to children. I think you are misreading this episode. This wasn't really an episode like the shopping lifting episode where it followed a "cause and effect" plot line. This episode was more of a "spreading awareness" episode similar to the suicide one, where the producers were trying to open eyes to a problem that was going on and being ignored.

I guess the reason they chose not to save Kristy was the same reason they chose to have the suicide attempt from the other episode be successful. It was so that the audience would be left aware of the reality of these situations. They didn't want this to be a 'happy ending story' because in reality it usually isn't.

^ Not at all, why does something have to be happy to be enjoyable? Schindler's List was popular even though it was a sad movie because it got across a good message, same with this episode.

I agree that it was a bit of an empty ending for the prostitute to just be left in that situation, that always bugged me. However, in your first post you ask if this is the message the producers wanted to give to children. I think you are misreading this episode. This wasn't really an episode like the shopping lifting episode where it followed a "cause and effect" plot line. This episode was more of a "spreading awareness" episode similar to the suicide one, where the producers were trying to open eyes to a problem that was going on and being ignored.

I guess the reason they chose not to save Kristy was the same reason they chose to have the suicide attempt from the other episode be successful. It was so that the audience would be left aware of the reality of these situations. They didn't want this to be a 'happy ending story' because in reality it usually isn't.

Great points. I guess my only gripe with the ending is I wish they could have done something with Tammy Lauren who did a pretty good job in this episode. I kind of wish that she would have gotten her own spinoff as there was the bare bones of a sitcom premise there if they could have sprung her from the pimp.

You could have had Kristy remain in NY, perhaps get a job working at the diner for Bernice, add a couple of other girls to the mix and there could have been a decent sitcom there following the adventures of these foundling girls on their own in New York. But I think the fact that FOL had already cornered the market on the sitcom based around a young female cast probably meant that there wouldn't be much interest in creating a similar show.