Jo! Blair! Natalie! Tootie! Mrs. Garrett! The cast of “The Facts of Life” will reunite on TV Land Awards!

Okay, I thought it was kind of cool that the cast of Welcome Back Kotter – including John Travolta – will be getting together for the first time in more than 30 years at next  month’s TV Land Awards in NYC.

But this latest reunion is the real reason I’ll be watching: It’s just been announced that Mindy Cohn, Kim Fields, Nancy McKeon, Lisa Whelchel and the beloved Mrs. Garrett, Charlotte Rae, will reunite for the first time in over 20 years to accept the Pop Culture Award for The Facts of Life.

I love those girls! I even watched their reunion movie (McKeon did not participate).
Facts was a coming-of-age sitcom that ran on NBC from 1979-1988.  It was a spin-off from Diff’rent Strokes featuring the Drummonds’ housekeeper Edna Garrett (Rae) as she becomes a housemother at Eastland School, a prestigious all-female boarding school.

The house of live-in girls included the wealthy and beautiful Blair Warner (Whelchel), the gossipy roller-skating Dorothy “Tootie” Ramsey (Fields), innocent Natalie Green (Cohn) and streetwise Joanne “Jo” Polniaczek (McKeon).  The friends share the ups and downs of growing up – from teenagers to young women – all while leaning on each other.

COMING THURSDAY: Part one of my interview with Geri Jewell who had the recurring role of Blair’s cousin Geri. Miss Jewell has a memoir coming out next month where she recalls her years on Facts and talks about her life as a lesbian. One Sunday, she will be one of the featured performers at the Laugh Out Loud event to benefit the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s LifeWorks program.

I’ll have more on the event posted tomorrow.