The cast of the hit show A Different World reunited on The View 30 years after its last episode aired.
Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Debbie Allen, Cree Summer, Dawnn Lewis, and Darryl Bell all appeared together on Wednesday’s show and were interviewed by Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, and Sara Haines.
Whoopi guest starred on one of the most controversial episodes in 1991. She played a professor who assigned the students to write their own eulogies and one of the students admits she’s suffering from AIDS.
“We were the first network television show to address AIDS after Magic Johnson made his announcement [that he had it]. I had to do something,” Writer and producer Debbie said.
Advertisers started to pull their ads from the show after the episode, which aired during the height of the disease’s stigmatization. “We had to get a big gun to make this happen and Whoopi, I called her and she said, ‘Yeah I’ll do it,'” Debbie said, “She was down and made it possible to save millions of lives because you said yes, Whoopi Goldberg.”
The season four episode went on to be the highest rated episode of the show ever. Besides tackling controversial issues, the show also made its mark in its portrayal of Black America.
“The thing that no one has said yet that I wanna make sure I point out, yes folks needed a job but this was also a unique opportunity that did not present itself because you only saw one show full of characters who were brown, about a school – a college – someplace you didn’t see us on television,” Whoopi said.
Some of the cast go to HBCUs around America to talk to students. Cree described students’ reactions as “like the Beatles came to town.”
“This show has inspired so many generations to go to HCBUs,” she added, “It’s incredible, I tribute it to Debbie Allen…what she did was she gave everyone at home the opportunity to see themselves.”
