A Different World producer credits Whoopi Goldberg’s HIV/AIDS episode with saving ‘millions of lives’

A Different World creative visionary Debbie Allen credited one of the sitcom’s most influential special guest stars, Whoopi Goldberg, with ushering in a different world of understanding amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s.

Allen appeared Wednesday on The View — which Goldberg moderates — for an emotional Different World cast and crew reunion, and reflected on the Oscar-winning actress’ willingness to appear in the then-controversial 1991 episode titled “If I Should Die Before I Wake,” which followed Whitley (Jasmine Guy) processing fellow college students’ ignorant reactions when one of their peers, Josie (Tisha Campbell, also in a guest-starring role), reveals that she is HIV-positive.

“I remember, especially, the degree of difficulty doing a show about AIDS, and Whoopi Goldberg was our secret weapon. She was someone I knew, we were friends, we all knew she was going to win that Oscar [for Ghost] that year. When we were the first network television show to address AIDS after Magic Johnson made his announcement. I had to do something,” the producer-director said, who joined the show for season 2 and revamped its overall creative direction. “I said, we’ve got to get a big gun to make this happen, and Whoopi, I called her, and she said ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ She was down.”
Allen said Goldberg’s participation “made it possible to save millions of lives” because “advertisers were pulling out” from the broadcast, and Goldberg was a major A-list star willing to use her public profile to highlight the HIV/AIDS epidemic that impacted the queer community and people of color.

“We’d never had to show a script to an advertiser,” Allen recalled. “It was our highest-rated episode.”

Goldberg beamed as Allen spoke about her contributions to the show, before pointing out another important element of the beloved sitcom’s impact on pop culture during its run from 1987-1993.

“Folks needed a job, but this was also a unique opportunity that did not present itself, and you know that because you only saw one show full of characters who were brown, about a school, a college, some place you didn’t see us on television,” Goldberg said. “It’s just a reminder. Any time Debbie asks me to do something, I just said yes.”

A Different World initially debuted as a spin off of The Cosby Show starring Lisa Bonet as Denise Huxtable and Marisa Tomei as Maggie, Huxtable’s eventual roommate. Allen’s tenure at the show saw the exit of Tomei’s character and a revamped focus on the students at the show’s fictional historically Black institution, Hillman College.