Todd Bridges Reveals ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ Reboot Didn’t Include Kim Fields – Showrunner ‘Didn’t Want Kim’
Todd Bridges revealed that a Diff’rent Strokes reboot TV comedy was on the horizon but Sony stalled on the concept and the showrunner didn’t want Kim Fields to return in the role of Tootie.
Bridges described how the show would have moved forward and shared he didn’t know exactly why the showrunner didn’t want Fields to return. He said contracts were signed and the show was ready to go but it came to a halt.
The ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ reboot featured Willis and Tootie married
Bridges and Fields’s characters are married in the reboot. “It’s going to be where Willis is married to Tootie (Kim Fields) and they adopt two white kids,” he said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “And that’s them trying to make so that American people could see the other side of the shoe. We saw the Black side. I would see the white side and see how difficult it is for them. I think it’d be great.”
Beyond the Sony stall, he said a big roadblock was the showrunner who didn’t want Fields. “The first lady who was the showrunner, she didn’t want Kim, but I did,” he said. “I’ve always wanted Kim and I wanted to do it the way I wanted to do it. And I think it would’ve worked better, but you know, they’re listening. We’ll get it done the way I want to get it done. Cause I knew that way is the way to make the American public accept it and make them start watching it and like it.”
Todd Bridges does not know why the showrunner didn’t want Kim Fields to return
Bridges doesn’t know why the showrunner did not want Fields to return. “Kim Fields is amazing to me and she’s an amazing actress and her playing the role of Tootie would be hysterical,” he said.
“The fact that Tootie married Willis, you know, they actually got married! And then you could play on the fact that it took Willis a long time to even see Tootie in that light. It’d be hysterical. Otherwise, it won’t have the same effect without Tootie,” he remarked.
He envisioned a ‘Facts of Life’ mashup too
Bridges went even further. “Cause see if you have Tootie in there, you could bring it back to the Facts of Life girls in and out. Hire them for even recurrent roles or regulars on the show,” he said.
“Just imagine I married Kim Fields and Mindy Cohn is a lawyer, you know? And, and they’re always given Willis crap because they’re always giving Willis crap. So it doesn’t stop just because he’s married to Tootie. They keep going with Willis. Willis is always depending on something like I can do this, right? But can’t get it right. I wish I could do something and messes it all up. And then finally Tootie and them all coming anyway and fix it.”
“You know, that’s what Diff’rent Strokes is all about anyway,” he added. “You know, Blair can be a lot of different roles. It can be hilarious if Blair became the housekeeper, it would be hysterical. Something against who she wanted to be. So she’s the angry housekeeper. The housekeeper who doesn’t want to be there, but she needs the money. It would be hysterical.”
