Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and A Different World is still on TV.
Except this one’s not a rerun. Steve Harvey ends “Where Are They Now Week” on Friday with some of the original cast members of the spinoff of The Cosby Show. The show quickly carved its identity away from the brownstone of Cliff and Clair Huxtable when daughter Denise moved back home.
The show will air at 2 p.m. Friday on NBC5, KXAS-TV.
Lisa Bonet (seen most recently in an ad campaign with daughter Zoe Kravitz for Calvin Klein) isn’t among the reuniting stars of the show, and neither is Marisa Tomei (last seen on Empire).
But the show’s power couple of Whitley and Dwayne (Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison) takes a seat on Steve’s set, along with Freddie (Cree Summer); Kim (Charnele Brown); and Ron (Darryl Bell). They talk about the impact of the show set on a fictional Historically Black College campus and the issues it explored, including racial identity, domestic violence and just plain fitting in.
Here’s what I know, just off the top of my head: Kadeem Hardison is on Disney as Zendaya’s father on K.C. Undercover. Jasmine Guy was also on K.C. Undercover and played Bonnie’s grandmother on The Vampire Diaries. Cree Summer voices too many animated and video game characters to count, including Susie Carmichael on Rugrats and “Watchtower Computer” on Justice League.
And they’re all still friends, just like fans need them to be. “We hang out all the time, on purpose,” says Cree Summer.