"A Different World" (1987) TV series 1987-1993

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Creator:

Bill Cosby

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Release Date:

24 September 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Big laughs on campus.

Plot:

A group of students at a historically Black university struggle to make it through college.

Plot Keywords:

Sitcom | Historically Black College | African American

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 16 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Jasmine Guy	...	Whitley Marion Gilbert Wayne / ... (136 episodes, 1987-1993)
Kadeem Hardison	...	Dwayne Cleophus Wayne (132 episodes, 1987-1993)
Darryl M. Bell	...	Ronald 'Ron' Johnson / ... (103 episodes, 1987-1993)
Charnele Brown	...	Kimberly 'Kim' Reese (90 episodes, 1988-1993)
Dawnn Lewis	...	Jaleesa Vinson Taylor / ... (89 episodes, 1987-1992)
Cree Summer	...	Winifred 'Freddie' Brooks (87 episodes, 1988-1993)
Lou Myers	...	Vernon Gaines (65 episodes, 1988-1993)

Runtime:

30 min (142 episodes) | 60 min (1 episode)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

Bill Cosby

Trivia:

Even after Lisa Bonet had left the series, there was still a certain amount of interplay between this show and "The Cosby Show" (1984). Phylicia Rashad, Lisa Bonet and Joseph C. Phillips appear on an episode during the 1990-1991 season when Dwayne comes to visit Denise. Rashad is also the sister of frequent episode director Debbie Allen. In the 1987-1988 season, Rudy Huxtable(played by Keshia Knight Pulliam)came to Hillman College to visit Denise. In 1992, a character from the late years of The Cosby show (Charmaine Brown, played by Karen Malina White) joined the cast of A Different World, as a new student at Hillman College.

Quotes:

[Ron and Dwayne are dressed as women to hide from cocaine dealers that are chasing them]
Ron Johnson: You look ridiculous.
Dwayne Cleophus Wayne: Well, nobody's gonna mistake you for Miss America.
Ron Johnson: I'm talking about you lipstick it clashes with your blouse.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "TV Land Moguls" (2004)

Became most interesting after people stopped paying attention

Most people remember this show as the spinoff of The Cosby Show built around Lisa Bonet's Denise character. After she (and Marisa Tomei) left the show, it was generally dismissed as a failure that was left on the air because of Cosby's influence. Oddly enough, it was at that point that this series got interesting. The "traditionally black college" setting provided a unique forum for exploring the topics that have arisen at the cultural crossroads that is Modern America. Metaracial politics informed both explicitly sociological stories and more traditional sitcom plots. It finally became the show they had probably intended to produce in the first place. That's not to say that "A Different World" became the greatest show in the history of Television. It never managed to settle on who the main characters were. The romance of Whitley and Dwayne was probably most prominent, but Ron, Freddie, Jaleesa, Kimberly, and, eventually, another generation of students took center stage from time to time too. I think medical student Kimberly best embodied the "entry point" or audience viewpoint. She was the character most likely to balance the materialism of Whitley, activist politics of Freddie, and more personal concerns of the other characters and achieve some kind of moral synthesis which the producers seemed to be aiming for.