You take the good, the horrible, and everything in between, and you get "The Facts of Life." But for next week's "Live in Front of a Studio Audience" recreation of the popular 1980s sitcom, there's no awful, only brilliant — no, make that great — casting. Jennifer Aniston will play Blair, Gabrielle Union will play Tootie, Allison Tolman will play Natalie, and Kathryn Hahn will play Jo, in addition to the previously announced Ann Dowd (as Edna Garrett).
Executive producers Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel have paired the legendary late 1970s/early 1980s comedy "Diff'rent Strokes" with its offshoot, "The Facts of Life," for the third part of "Live in Front of a Studio Audience." Both programs were produced by Lear's firms at the time, Tandem Productions (established in 1958 by Lear and Bud Yorkin) and T.A.T. Communications, which were later merged into Embassy Communications.