I know there are many Dana Plato fans here so I hope I don't offend any of you with this, but I just got done watching an episode recently where she did a really bad acting job. In the episode where Mr Drummond was in a car accident there is a scene where Kimberly answers the phone and is given the news that her dad was in an accident. For anybody who has this one on tape you should play it and watch how she reacts to this terrible news. There was absolutely no emotion in her voice, and I honestly don't think that that is the way someone would react in real life. Can any of you think of any other instances of bad, or overacting on the show?

I agree with you that some of the acting on the show is sometimes not 100%. Overall, I think Gary and Dana always do pretty well, Todd sometimes underdoes performances and Conrad Bain sometimes overdoes lines.

I think the biggest overacting performance on DS was probably Mary Ann Mobley in the last season, some of her performances were too over the top like in Bulimia. Sometimes actors forget that lines need to be delivered as though it was real life and I think she often forgot that, if you see Bulimia watch how she delivers the line "I Don't think so darling."

I saw another episode recently which I thought was funny. It wasn't really a job of overacting or anything, but it was still rather humorous. I can't remember the name of the episode, but I can remember the final scene. In it Mr Drummond grabs what looked to be a 13 year old Willis and put him on his lap. If you look at Todd's face during this scene you could tell he was not happy to be sitting on Mr Drummond's lap. He honestly looked like he wanted to punch him in the face. That's just one of the various hilarious outtakes I noticed from this show.

I agree with you Jethro, Mary Anne Mobley did a really bad acting job most of the time. You would have thought they would have hired someone for the Maggie role who was a little more like Dixie Carter's version of the character. Aside from the two of them being from the South, I didn't see too many similarities in the characters.

I actually thought Mary Ann Mobley was better as Maggie because even if her acting was bad, she brought the character to life.
It felt like Dixie Carter was reading her lines as Dixie Carter and not as the character she was playing.

I remember in I think it was the True E Hollywood story it mentioned the whole sitting on lap thing, because it said Gary Coleman hated it too.

What other hillarious outtakes are there?

they hated it. they were embarrassed by it.

Originally posted by JethroSimpson
I I think the biggest overacting performance on DS was probably Mary Ann Mobley in the last season, some of her performances were too over the top like in Bulimia. Sometimes actors forget that lines need to be delivered as though it was real life and I think she often forgot that, if you see Bulimia watch how she delivers the line "I Don't think so darling."

I now laugh when I remember Mary Anne delivering that line because it looks a little funny. Not to put her down. Her acting was actually good and convining at times, the "I don't think so darling" looked as though she said it with the feeling of suspicion rather than compassion.

Another line that Mary Ann Mobley delivered poorly was her line at the end of the Sam's Missing epidode part 1. "Please....find my son." I know that it was suppose to be a serious moment but the way she said that line made me laugh.

i know that line was funny. and that was the ending line of that episode and when they paused it on here her face made me laugh harder.

I agree with DJM77, I forgot about her performance in that episode.

Another line she did in Sam's Missing is when the police walked in and she started talking about the furniture- then she suddenly flung her hand over her face and said "look at me" I thought that was badly done too.

Hey Jethro, sorry I didn't answer your question sooner. I haven't been able to come up with too many examples of funny bloopers since I haven't seen any episodes for the last few weeks. But mainly when I say bloopers I mean funny facial expression, or people accidentaly tripping, or flubbing up there lines always makes me laugh. One example of this was in the spanking episode where Kimberly is confronting Arnold about staying away from here stuff, and in response to her telling Arnold this, Arnold reaches up and kisses her on the lips. In the next scene they cut over to Willis who looks over at the audience, shrugs his shoulders with a smile, and a what the heck was that kind of look on his face. The audience went hysterical when Willis did this. You have to be real observant to notice some of this stuff, but I find that there are moments like that in many episodes.

You know I heard recently that before becoming an actress Mary Anne Mobley was in beauty pageants and stuff like that. I don't know if she was ever Miss America, but I agree she definitely gets the drama queen title for her acting on Diff'rent Strokes. Pretty much in every scene she has in "Sam's Missing", I put my head down laughing unable to even look at the screen. Her performance in that episode was down right embarrassing in my opinion.

I thought the part when she said "find my son" was well done. I think she overdid it a little when her mouth was open for a few seconds when she discovered that Pearl set a place for missing Sam at the table. That is nothing to really be shocked about. It should just be more of a reminder that he is missing. Mrs. Mobley-Collins, if you read this post, nothing against you, I still think you did a good job overall on DS. LOL.

I agree with ThomasE, I'm not having a go at Mary Ann Mobley because she was still the best Maggie, she just overdid her performances at times.

I have started looking a bit more at some of the facial expressions of characters, and you're right, they do sometimes look like they're thinking something totally opasite to the character that they're meant to be playing.

Hey Jethro, I saw the website. I noticed that you have not seen Arnold's Job. I viewed it a few months back. It's so so. He goes to work for a crust old man who is a photographer. Arnold finds himi self being a go for(gopher) rather than doing pictures and wants to quit. Maybe you have already read about this episode, but that is the synopsis. It didn't appeal to me as much.(The episode)

i think i have that episode

Originally posted by ThomasE
Hey Jethro, I saw the website. I noticed that you have not seen Arnold's Job. I viewed it a few months back. It's so so. He goes to work for a crust old man who is a photographer. Arnold finds himi self being a go for(gopher) rather than doing pictures and wants to quit. Maybe you have already read about this episode, but that is the synopsis. It didn't appeal to me as much.(The episode)


Thanks for the info, I actually have the episode but I haven't watched it yet. I got the rest of the DS episodes I needed a little while ago but since I know that I'll never see any more new ones ever again I've been running just one of them every couple of weeks.
I'm gonna try and complete the episode guide section soon. It's quite hard to rate the last season because some of them were so bad they were good!

Le Tari as Dudley's father

Le Tari as Dudley's father

First off, thanks for breathing life back into this topic. I am inclined to agree that Le Tari (bless his heart and rest his soul:( ) was a little raw when it came to acting. It seemed liked he was just saying the words out loud.

Kareem Abdul Jabaar seemed mono when it came to his acting. With him, I would liked to gave seen more variation. I have all the faith that if he were to continue acting that he could do a job.

Mary Anne Mobley was a bit stifled. We talked about this some years back. As I got older and looked at it, some of her work looked more manufactured than realistic. She was gorgeous and truly looked the part. I guess that there was faith that she could do the part. I think with a bit more training that she would have been able to knock it out of the ball park. :talk:

First off, thanks for breathing life back into this topic. I am inclined to agree that Le Tari (bless his heart and rest his soul:( ) was a little raw when it came to acting. It seemed liked he was just saying the words out loud.

Kareem Abdul Jabaar seemed mono when it came to his acting. With him, I would liked to gave seen more variation. I have all the faith that if he were to continue acting that he could do a job.

Mary Anne Mobley was a bit stifled. We talked about this some years back. As I got older and looked at it, some of her work looked more manufactured than realistic. She was gorgeous and truly looked the part. I guess that there was faith that she could do the part. I think with a bit more training that she would have been able to knock it out of the ball park. :talk:

Yes its funny reading back through this topic again like a 6 year trip back in time. I was re-watching The Bicycle Man the other day for the first time in ages and it re-enforced that Le Tari really struggled with emotional scenes. He wasn't too bad when it was just basic scenes but the end scene with Dudley, he just cannot inject any emotion into it. The same with the "Where There's Smoke' episode.

First off, thanks for breathing life back into this topic. I am inclined to agree that Le Tari (bless his heart and rest his soul:( ) was a little raw when it came to acting. It seemed liked he was just saying the words out loud.

Kareem Abdul Jabaar seemed mono when it came to his acting. With him, I would liked to gave seen more variation. I have all the faith that if he were to continue acting that he could do a job.

Mary Anne Mobley was a bit stifled. We talked about this some years back. As I got older and looked at it, some of her work looked more manufactured than realistic. She was gorgeous and truly looked the part. I guess that there was faith that she could do the part. I think with a bit more training that she would have been able to knock it out of the ball park. :talk:


I will give kareem a pass because what know what his real job was at the time-lol

I will give kareem a pass because what know what his real job was at the time-lol


:lol: :lol: What was his profession at the time? :confused:

:lol: :lol: What was his profession at the time? :confused:


HE PLAYED FOR THE LAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-LOL

HE PLAYED FOR THE LAKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-LOL


You do know that I was joking, right? :D

Danny Cooksey
Steven Mond
The white kid at the end of the marijuana episode
The kid who replaced Willis on the basketball team
The guys at the health club dinner

You do know that I was joking, right? :D


When I was replying I didn't see a LOL. Ok you had me worried

I will give you a pass for that Solomon.

I like both Maggies but yes Mary Ann played hers a little more dramatic than Dixie. The other thing is that some of the season 8 episodes ie: Sam's Kidnapping and Bulimia were very serious which was cause for extra drama.