‘STROKES’ WON’T BE DIFFERENT EVEN WITH MOVE TO NEW HOME

The cast of “Diff’rent Strokes” will be working for different folks now that the show has been traded to ABC, but Conrad Bain expects the format to remain the same.

He hopes that the comedy series, now that it’s no longer under pressure from NBC, may get back to basics.

“I never thought of myself as a tradeable item,” Bain said of the show’s shift after seven years at NBC. “This business is full of surprises.”

Bain, who stars as the father on the show, Phillip Drummond, said in an interview that he thinks it would be senseless for ABC to seek major changes in the series, since it has a built-in audience, but he added:

“I hope this will be an impetus to us to do better than we’ve been doing. The challenge will be very useful to us. I don’t think we’re complacent, but it would be dishonest to deny that by the time a series is on the air for seven years, people are more relaxed than they were in the first year.

“I also think, looking back over the seven years, and especially last year, you could make a good argument for gravitating back to what the show was in the beginning.”

Some changes are inevitable, particularly in a show with children who grow up as even Gary Coleman has done over the years, but Bain said there were other changes, too.

“I have a feeling that last year we got into some different areas that were at variance with the strength of the show,” he said. “Probably there was some input from NBC. A couple of times I read a script and commented that we were headed for Saturday morning television. I got the impression they were making a special effort to try to hold a young audience and they wanted some scripts that were more for children’s television--kinderspiel.

“I think we gravitated away a little bit from what I always thought was our strength--the family and the interrelationship among the people in the family. I think we should go back to first principles a little bit.”

Bain was performing on Norman Lear’s “Maude” when he signed a contract with the Lear organization for an after-”Maude” show, to be decided upon. The result turned out to be “Diff’rent Strokes.”