Line #1 YMMV/TheFactsOfLife


1	* AssPull: The sudden revelation that Andy Moffett was a foster kid for the sake of turning him into Beverly Ann's adopted son and moving him into the house. For almost three seasons, there was never any mention that his parents were fosters, one episode even focused on his paternal grandmother, Polly Moffett (Season 8's "Write and Wrong"), and in ''Down Under'' his trip was funded by his uncle. Suddenly, he had no real family to call his own until Beverly Ann comes along.
2	* DesignatedVillain: Andy in "Adventures in Baileysitting". It was Blair's job to babysit her sister and take her to a movie, but since she wanted to go to a luncheon for underclassmen, she left Jo and Natalie in charge. Then they had to leave because of a bomb threat at a community center (well, Jo had to leave to pick someone up; Natalie left because [[SkewedPriorities it was a good news story and she wanted the scoop)]] and they leave Andy in charge. Unfortunately, he accidentally brings the wrong girl home and everyone gets mad at ''him.'' This is forgetting that he's just a kid, it was ''Blair's'' responsibility to watch her sister and at least one of the girls should have stayed with her. While the former did admit to her bad decision, neither Jo nor Natalie ever admitted that they were wrong. Worst, if not for Bailey repeatedly saying "they lost me", it's likely they wouldn't have admitted their guilt.
3	* EnsembleDarkhorse: [[Creator/GeorgeClooney George]] was so popular it ended up working against his character when his actor started getting ''much'' better offers.
4	* FanPreferredCouple: The second season introduced new girl Jo Polniaczek to the main cast and had her form a rivalry with Blair Warner. This rivalry, as well as their actresses' chemistry, quickly led to Jo/Blair becoming the most popular pairing in the fandom. This only grew as the two became best friends, to the point that Jo's daughter in the reunion calls Blair "Aunt Blair". This continued even after they were each given multiple male love interests, most notably Jo marrying Rick Bonner and Blair marrying Tad Warner by the time of the reunion. Still, even years later, Jo/Blair remains the fandom's most popular ship.
5	* FoeYayShipping: A good number of fans see this in Jo and Blair due to the... interesting chemistry that sometimes shows up during their fighting. Common opinion seems to be that if [=FoL=] was done in modern times, Jo & Blair would be together and no one would bat an eye.
6	%%* GrowingTheBeard: The second season ReTool.
7	* HarsherInHindsight:
8	** In "Baby in the House", Blair dreamily tells their former classmate's daughter a fairytale about Prince Charles leaving his then-recent marriage to Princess Diana for her. Years later, it would come out that the couple had been unfaithful to each other throughout the marriage and that early in the marriage, the former was still involved in an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, who eventually became his second wife.
9	** In the second part of "The New Girl" as the four girls are sitting in jail, Natalie stressed about her mother's reaction to her predicament and believing she would have a heart attack and need a coronary. A little over three years later, she really would lose a parent this way, but it was her father who died rather than her mother.
10	** One episode began with Jo coming back from playing field hockey and Blair expressing skepticism towards the sport saying that the physical contact [[InsaneTrollLogic will ruin her bone structure]], to which the former jokes that plastic surgery is in her future anyway. A season nine episode, "Less Than Perfect", had Blair get into a car accident due to falling asleep behind the wheel and getting a laceration on her face that will require plastic surgery to fix.
11	** "Dearest Mommie" has a teenaged Natalie being given the opportunity to be a columnist for a New York newspaper and she expresses hope that it will elevate her celebrity status and one day to go a New York society party and "dance with Creator/WoodyAllen". Needless to say, this comment didn't age well.
12	** The episode "The Secret" has Jo upset that her father's criminal record being exposed and at one point she asks Blair, who is trying to calm her down and convince her to forgive her father, if her father or one of her stepfathers had spent time in prison, to which she said no. In the season eight episode "Where's Poppa?", her real father pleaded guilty to insider trading and is likely to do prison time.
13	** "The Interview Show" has Tootie expressing her wish to reunite with the girls after they're all married and with children. This is doubly so, because not only was Jo unable to reunite with them due to her commitments to the police department, [[spoiler: but her own husband, Jeff, would die prior to it, leaving her widowed with a young daughter.]]
14	** At the conclusion of "Double Standard", Blair and Jo decide "We just won't tell anyone", regarding Blair's friend Harrison trying to rape Jo. That's right, Jo just became a #[=MeToo=]/[=#WhyIDidntReport=] story.
15	* HilariousInHindsight:
16	** The girls are in awe about an upscale Italian restaurant they're visiting in "The Affair" and Natalie and Tootie say that it looks just like the pictures in ''People'' magazine, only in color. The magazine began using color photographs around 1994.
17	** In "Next Door" after the gas leak in the building was fixed, Natalie proclaims [[Franchise/FinalDestination "I cheated death; I'm living on borrowed time"]] and [[Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney "I played chess with the Grim Reaper and won"]].
18	* HollywoodPudgy: Joan Rivers infamously dubbed the cast members "The '''Fats''' of Life" following an appearance at the Emmys one year. This was attributed to having large amounts of snacks on set during frequently long breaks between video-taping. In reality, Creator/LisaWhelchel had gained a bit of weight early in the show, but nothing too out of the ordinary for a teenage girl. Creator/MindyCohn on the other hand, was incidentally losing weight due to an interest in dance and had to be hidden under baggy clothes.
19	* InformedWrongness: Tootie's father in "Overachieving". While opting to tell Tootie to stay away from Mrs. Garrett might have been a little extreme. It wasn't out of line for him to want to understand why Tootie's classmates all dream of having substantial careers, while Tootie is only concerned with going to Beauty School.
20	* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: In "Seven Little Indians", the entire cast is massacred by [[spoiler:Blair]]. But this is the Facts of Life, so no way were the deaths going to stick, and sure enough [[spoiler: the whole thing turned out to be a nightmare Tootie was having.]]
21	* RetroactiveRecognition:
22	** The guest cast throughout the series is packed with then-unknowns including Creator/HelenHunt, Creator/MayimBialik, Richard Grieco, Creator/DavidSpade, Creator/SethGreen, Creator/JamiGertz, Creator/RichardDeanAnderson, Creator/JulietteLewis, Creator/MollyRingwald--oh, yeah, and ''George freakin' Clooney.''
23	** Creator/PamelaAdlon who joined in Season 5 as street punk Kelly Affinado is better known as a voice actor, some of her more notable projects being ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'', as well as onscreen acting in ''Series/{{Californication}}'', ''Series/{{Louie}}'', and ''Series/BetterThings''.
24	** Creator/LaurenTom, who would later become better known as a voice actress, had her first television role as Miko, a Japanese student who appeared in a few episodes.
25	** Lisa Whelchel later appeared in ''Series/{{Survivor}}: Philippines'', where she finished second.
26	* TheScrappy: Any regular character outside of Mrs. Garrett and the four girls due to their CousinOliver tendencies (save for [[MrFanservice George]]). Though Beverly Ann was the most blatant example. By the time Charlotte Rae left the series, all four girls had graduated high school and no longer needed someone looking out for them thus making a Mrs. Garrett replacement unnecessary, to begin with. Making Beverly Ann a {{cloudcuckoolander}} that even the girls thought was weird to the point of annoyance didn't help.
27	* SpecialEffectFailure: One episode had a running gag in which Natalie was stacking boxes of merchandise in the store only to have them fall over any time someone slammed the door but it's very obvious that boxes aren't falling over, they're being punched from below creating something of an exploding effect.
28	* SugarWiki/SheReallyCanAct: All of the cast had their moments, but when Nancy [=McKeon=] cranked on the waterworks, the audience followed suit.
29	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Became one for the 1980s, just compare the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GxXRbSFDg season 2 opening ]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAX7WGCvP7c to the season 7 one]].
30	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
31	** The journalism teacher, Mr. Gideon, from "Front Page". Granted, Jo was wrong and unprofessional to run the story that ruined his teaching career about him being arrested at a cocaine bust (he was at the party, but was clean and was released after an hour) in an act of revenge, yet it doesn't diminish his own accountability. Aside from staying at the party in spite of his knowledge of drug use on the premises, he also spent months being tougher on Jo in class over the "potential" she had in journalism...which consisted of routinely humiliating her, giving her lousy grades[[note]]and keep in mind that as a scholarship student, if her grade point average got low enough, she could have flunked and ''lost'' said scholarship, the only thing keeping her in Eastland[[/note]] and putting her on the spot, which came off as bullying, without letting her know [[ToughLove his true intentions.]] The last straw was him yelling at her and dismissing an assignment that she spent weeks researching. She had to learn a hard lesson, but he was still an asshole and a terrible teacher who forgot he was dealing with a ''student,'' not a professional reporter.
32	** Andy's grandmother from "Write & Wrong". She plagiarizes one of Natalie's stories and wins 500 dollars from it. Then when she admits the truth to Natalie, she shows zero remorse for it. Not helping matters is when Natalie wants to sue her for the plagiarism, Blair, Jo, and Tootie try to talk her out of it on the grounds that she's just a little old lady and Andy's grandmother, while also downplaying her actions.
33	* ValuesDissonance:
34	** Roy, the bakery delivery boy and StalkerWithACrush, who continues to pursue Jo over several episodes after she tells him no repeatedly and angrily makes it clear she isn't interested. Given that this was the 1980s, it's played for laughs. Today it would rightfully be considered stalking and harassment. Roy would have a restraining order against him and would likely be banned from the Eastland campus.
35	** Modern audiences will find it highly unsettling to hear the subject of suicide in "Breaking Point" (like when Jo was talking about a friend of hers who jumped to her death and described the girlfriend as ending up "splattered on the sidewalk") being met with ''laughter''.
36	** Similarly, in "Baby in the House" when former student turned teenaged mother, Allison, says that for her 17th birthday she received a playpen. Although the audience laughed, the line was never meant to be funny and looks even less so nowadays (but otherwise it was generally understood by them the gravity of teen parenthood.)
37	** In "Different Drummer" where Blair tutors a mentally disabled young man, Mrs. Garrett uses the term "retarded" to describe him. Although considered acceptable back then (the episode first aired in 1982), it would gather quite a bit of controversy if used today.
38	*** Also in the episode, Blair takes it upon herself to help enhance his talent for art. Fair enough, but her objective is ''really'' uncomfortable with her trying to "cure" him of his disability. Back then it was considered awful and these days you have to wonder how this even got on the air (and draws disturbing parallels between her actions and groups like "Autism Speaks").
39	** In "Legacy", modern audiences would probably question Mrs. Garrett's insistence that Blair look past her grandfather's horrifying racist acts, including using his power to deny rights to Blacks and joining the KKK, and remember him for the way he treated her.
40	** Despite providing the message of not succumbing to living life in fear as well as teaching real life self defense techniques, these days the episode "Fear Strikes Back" , where Natalie is almost raped while coming home from a party, has disturbing shades of UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming to it, especially in regards to the attitude of the self-defense instructor.
41	** In "Starstruck," when Tootie sneaks into Jermaine Jackson's dressing room, one of his bodyguards places her in a headlock and twists her arm behind her back, causing her great pain, even Jermaine isn't pleased with the sight and orders the bodyguard to let her go. Granted, she was in his dressing room without permission but given that she is only a 13-year-old girl, there is nothing remotely physically threatening about her that could warrant such usage of force.
42	** In the episode "Jo's Cousin," Jo's uncle (and one of his sons) tells his tomboy daughter Terry that she should drop out of the metal shop course, pump gas, or play basketball- because "girls don't do that sort of thing," and suggest that she take a home economics course, so that she can "learn to cook!" Sure, Terry's other brother does stand up for her, but the other brother and their father don't even take heed of it, which doesn't make it more comforting in this day and age.
43	* ValuesResonance:
44	** In this #[=MeToo=] era, Jo and Blair deciding "we just won't tell anyone", regarding Blair's friend trying to rape Jo is incredibly uncomfortable, especially since it still happens today.
45	** An early episode has Natalie refusing to go on a crash diet like her friends were doing, calling herself a "happy Magic Marker".[[note]]a comment that actually prompted ''applause'' from the then-1980 audience[[/note]] Indeed, that episode and her overall assertive and upbeat personality throughout the series that allowed her many friends and several boyfriends painted her as a refreshing and admirable aversion to the WeightWoe stereotype of plus-sized female characters that dominated television then and is still a problem to this day.
46	** "The First Time" has the plus-size Natalie be the one to lose her virginity (when the writers' intention for Blair to be the one, was deep-sixed by Lisa Whelchel's refusal to be involved with the episode), rather than Jo or Tootie.
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Context YMMV / TheFactsOfLife