50 Fun Facts About Silver Spoons

Which future Arrested Development star played Ricky's troublemaking best friend Derek on Silver Spoons?

Jason Bateman played bad boy Derek Taylor from 1982 to 1984, two decades before he led the cast of Arrested Development.

What ridable vehicle runs through the Stratton mansion that Ricky moves into on Silver Spoons?

A freight train built to scale and big enough to ride runs through a mansion that Edward has also stocked with arcade games.

Mr. T plays himself on Silver Spoons when Edward hires him to do what job for Ricky after a bully strikes?

Bodyguard was a job Mr. T knew well: before fame he spent almost ten years guarding clients who included Muhammad Ali and Steve McQueen.

Which arcade game's theme music sets Edward Stratton III doing a little jig on Silver Spoons?

Pac-Man, the best-selling arcade game of all time, was still a fresh craze when the sitcom began in 1982, and Edward's jig shows how childlike he is.

Ricky Schroder landed Silver Spoons after his film debut opposite Jon Voight in which boxing drama?

The Champ made Schroder, at nine, the youngest Golden Globe winner in history. He played the son of Voight's former fighter.

Which Diff'rent Strokes star visits Silver Spoons, where Ricky shows off by hacking top-secret files?

Gary Coleman dropped by in character as Arnold, a role he also carried into The Facts of Life and Hello, Larry.

On Silver Spoons, fun-loving millionaire Edward Stratton III owns a firm called Eddie's that makes what?

Toys suit someone the series paints as an overgrown child: Edward has never taken responsibility for anything, his own firm included.

Which pop singer's visit to the Stratton mansion on Silver Spoons leaves Dexter so smitten he plans to move west?

Whitney Houston played herself in the fourth-season opener, months after her debut album came out on Valentine's Day 1985.

Joining Silver Spoons, Dexter's nephew Alfonso tries to impress Ricky's crowd by claiming to know whom?

Michael Jackson was a fair boast: actor Alfonso Ribeiro had danced in a 1984 Pepsi commercial with him and his brothers.

The Stratton mansion seen in the Silver Spoons opening credits is really a private home in which country?

England is home to Compton Wynyates, the Warwickshire manor in the credits, even though the Strattons are meant to live in New York.

Which actor and prolific jingle writer played childlike millionaire Edward Stratton III on Silver Spoons?

Joel Higgins wrote more than 200 advertising jingles, for brands such as Kool-Aid and M&M's, alongside a stage career that took him to Broadway.

Which former top model and Buck Rogers star played Kate, Edward's assistant and later wife, on Silver Spoons?

Erin Gray had flown as Colonel Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and before acting she was one of America's top television models.

Which Oscar winner, famous as a fearsome law professor, played Ricky's grandfather on Silver Spoons?

John Houseman won his Oscar as Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase, after decades as a producer who co-founded the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles.

Which network aired the first four seasons of Silver Spoons, pairing it on Saturdays with Diff'rent Strokes?

NBC first slotted the comedy at 8:30 on Saturdays, right after Diff'rent Strokes, then moved it to Sunday evenings for its third season.

Before moving in with Edward on Silver Spoons, Ricky had been sent by his remarried mother to board where?

A military academy is where Edward first sends Ricky straight back, before a change of heart brings the boy home to the mansion for good.

Early in Silver Spoons, Edward dresses up as what to take Ricky out of boarding school and bring him home?

A swamp monster costume is how Edward reclaims the son he had only just sent away, a stunt that sums up his playful idea of fatherhood.

Which boy band does Ricky promise will appear at his party to impress a girl on Silver Spoons?

Menudo, the Puerto Rican group that later launched Ricky Martin, gave the episode its title, Menudo Madness.

Silver Spoons is set in the fictional town of Shallow Springs, located in which real corner of New York?

Long Island is where the scripts put the Stratton estate, although the house shown in the credits stands thousands of miles away.

Which street, also the Munsters' famous address, is home to the Stratton mansion on Silver Spoons?

Mockingbird Lane was best known as the spooky 1313 address of the Munsters before the Strattons moved onto a street of the same name.

What is the one-word title of the Silver Spoons theme song, written by Rik Howard and Bob Wirth?

Together was recorded in three versions over the run, moving from a guitar-led original to a synthesized take and finally a rock arrangement in 1986.

The original Silver Spoons theme was sung by Ron Dante, the real voice behind which chart-topping cartoon band?

The Archies existed only in a cartoon, yet with Dante singing lead their Sugar, Sugar was the top-selling record of 1969 in the United States.

What is the maiden name of Kate, who works for Edward before marrying him in season three of Silver Spoons?

Summers gained a hyphen after the third-season wedding, when Kate became Katherine Summers-Stratton.

What job does the stuffy Dexter Stuffins hold for Edward Stratton III from season two of Silver Spoons?

Business manager Dexter replaced Edward's first-season attorney, Leonard Rollins, and proved a good deal stuffier than his predecessor.

Flying the Strattons to the Caribbean on Silver Spoons, Kate makes an emergency landing in which region?

Bermuda Triangle trouble leaves everyone stranded far from home for the holiday, in a two-part story titled Voyage of the Darned.

On Silver Spoons, Edward must run up the steps of which New York landmark to help a fund-raiser?

Empire State Building stair racing is real: an annual run-up to its 86th-floor observation deck began in 1978.

On Silver Spoons, a visiting Olympic champion suggests Alfonso's trouble in class stems from which condition?

Dyslexia is suggested by the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion, credited then as Bruce Jenner and now known as Caitlyn Jenner, during a visit to the mansion.

What kind of animal do Ricky and Derek find and want to keep in a first-season Silver Spoons episode?

An orangutan turns up in an episode titled I'm Just Wild About Harry, one of 22 made for the first season.

Which Leave It to Beaver mother plays the teacher Ricky tries to pair with his grandfather on Silver Spoons?

Barbara Billingsley, forever June Cleaver, plays a teacher who decides that she and Grandfather Stratton are better off as just friends.

Ricky and Derek try to persuade two women to join them at which band's Chicago concert on Silver Spoons?

Duran Duran tickets drive the second-season opener, Passports to Pleasure, which takes the boys far from home to Chicago.

Alfonso Ribeiro joined Silver Spoons in 1984 fresh from starring as young Willie in which Broadway musical?

The Tap Dance Kid opened in December 1983 and earned Ribeiro an Outer Critics Circle nomination. Savion Glover later took over his title role.

Silver Spoons star Ricky Schroder later joined which gritty police drama as Detective Danny Sorenson?

NYPD Blue cast the grown-up Schroder, by then billed as Rick, for three seasons from 1998.

Silver Spoons co-creator Martin Cohan went on to co-create which hit sitcom about a live-in male housekeeper?

Who's the Boss? ran on ABC from 1984 to 1992. Cohan created it with partner Blake Hunter while his earlier hit was still on the air.

Ron Leavitt and his partner, who helped develop Silver Spoons, later created which rule-breaking Fox sitcom?

Married... with Children was conceived as an antidote to the idealized families of 1980s sitcoms, the very genre its creators had been writing.

Silver Spoons came from Embassy Television, the company co-founded by which creator of All in the Family?

Norman Lear and partner Jerry Perenchio renamed their company Embassy in 1982, and this sitcom was one of the first two series made under the new name.

Which My Favorite Martian star joined Silver Spoons in season four as Kate's doddering Uncle Harry?

Ray Walston, a Tony winner as the Devil in Damn Yankees, moved into the Stratton mansion as the uncle of Edward's new wife.

On Silver Spoons, Grandfather Stratton starts a Hall of Fame rumor to inflate the value of whose baseball cards?

Tommy Lasorda was still managing the Dodgers at the time, and the rumor came true in 1997, when he entered the Hall of Fame for real.

Which Hello, Dolly! star guest-starred on Silver Spoons as Lulu Baker, a retired restaurateur and family friend?

Pearl Bailey won a Special Tony for leading an all-Black Hello, Dolly! in 1968, and she played Lulu twice during the third season.

In the first Silver Spoons Christmas episode, Ricky and Edward help a family forced to live where?

In a cave on Stratton land is where the struggling family shelters, in an episode that carries the title The Best Christmas Ever.

Ricky reports on his school's cable news program on Silver Spoons that the cafeteria is serving what?

Horse meat puts Rick in a reporter's bind: accept a suspension or reveal his source, in an episode titled All the Principal's Men.

After its network cancelled Silver Spoons in 1986, how did the sitcom's fifth and final season reach viewers?

In syndication, the last season's new episodes were sold directly to local stations, which kept the Strattons on the air until May 1987.

In a third-season Silver Spoons episode, how has Ricky been getting to know a girl he has never met?

By computer, under the nickname The Ricker, in a story made for the 1984-85 season. He turns self-conscious after seeing her photo.

Which Raiders lineman and Goonies actor played Elmer, the fiancé of Ricky's mother, on Silver Spoons?

John Matuszak, a two-time Super Bowl champion and the first pick of the 1973 NFL draft, is best remembered on screen as Sloth.

A letter written by one of Ricky's friends on Silver Spoons catches the eye of which real politician?

Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House at the time, serving from 1977 to 1987 without a break.

Which Disney film starring Jodie Foster used the same manor house later seen in the Silver Spoons opening credits?

Candleshoe, released in 1977, was the final film of Helen Hayes and also starred David Niven.

In which country did Silver Spoons air under a title that translates as Ricky or the Good Life?

France met the Strattons in December 1984, when the series ran as part of a Christmas programming block.

Franklyn Seales, who played Dexter on Silver Spoons, won a scholarship to which New York performing arts school?

Juilliard came by accident: Seales was only helping a friend audition when the head of the drama division noticed him and offered four years of tuition.

On Silver Spoons, the family firm run by Ricky's grandfather, Edward Stratton II, is named for which product?

Flour is the trade of Stratton Flour Mills, where Rick is hired for a promotion idea and then fired by his grandfather for leaving a task undone.

On Silver Spoons, Derek learns his parents are divorcing and his mother is moving to which Midwestern city?

St. Louis gave the episode its title, St. Louis Blues, and the storyline came as Derek's time on the sitcom was drawing to a close.

What ailment puts Edward in the hospital in a second-season Silver Spoons episode, worrying Ricky and Kate?

Gallstones bring on the attack that sends Edward to a ward, in an episode simply titled The Hospital.

After Edward says no, what does Ricky talk his mother into buying him in a second-season Silver Spoons episode?

A motorcycle is what he gets by going behind his father's back, in an episode titled Uneasy Rider.