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Diff'rent Strokes Season 3 Episodes

20 Episodes 1980 - 1981

Episode 1

The Bank Job

Wed, Nov 12, 198046 mins

As the hostage crisis continues at the bank, the bank robbers learn that Drummond is a multi-millionaire and decide to use Arnold and Willis as bargaining tools to ensure their demands are met. Drummond decides to assist with a plan to save his adopted sons and have the robbers captured, knowing full well that failure could mean death.

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Episode 2

Small Claims Court

Wed, Nov 19, 198025 mins

After Arnold buys a toy train that doesn't work, he takes the owner of the store, who refuses to refund his money, to small claims court.

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Episode 3

Substitute Mother

Wed, Nov 26, 198025 mins

When Adelaide goes away, Drummond hires a temporary housekeeper to take her place. With the new housekeeper, Arnold soon realizes that she reminds him a lot of his mom and tries to arrange it so that she and Drummond fall in love.

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Episode 4

The Accident

Wed, Dec 3, 198048 mins

Drummond eventually awakens - and recovers, at least physically - from life-threatening injuries suffered in a car crash. However, a concussion Drummond suffered in the wreck leaves him with amnesia ... and unless he can regain his memory, the potential loss of both his company and his family.

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Episode 5

Little Mother

Wed, Dec 10, 198025 mins

A misunderstanding with a visiting friend leads Drummond, Arnold, and Willis to believe that Kimberly is pregnant.

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Episode 6

Football Father

Wed, Dec 17, 198025 mins

When he sees that Arnold is heartbroken after not making his Pee Wee league football team, Drummond secretly meets with the coach and agrees to buy the team new uniforms in exchange for Arnold being given a spot on the team.

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Episode 7

First Love

Wed, Dec 31, 198025 mins

With his grades down, Drummond forbids Willis to see his new girlfriend, Charlene. However, a love-struck Willis is determined to see her, even if means doing it behind Drummond's back.

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Episode 8

Count Your Blessings

Wed, Jan 7, 198125 mins

When Arnold finds out that he will only grow to be 5 foot tall, he becomes very depressed. To make him feel better, Drummond introduces him to a friend's daughter who is very upbeat despite being confined to a wheelchair.

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Episode 9

The Loan

Wed, Jan 14, 198125 mins

Arnold befriends the doorman who asks him for a $100 loan so he can bet it on a horse race.

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Episode 10

Roots

Wed, Jan 21, 198125 mins

Mr. Drummond worries that Willis's newfound Afrocentric attitudes are dividing the family.

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Episode 11

Junk Food Junkie

Wed, Jan 28, 198125 mins

Arnold's poor dental checkup has Drummond suspecting that the easy availability of junk food from vending machines at school is to blame. But when Drummond begins a campaign to replace the hot dogs, cookies, potato chips and soft drinks with more healthy foods, Arnold's friends try to convince him to get his father to reconsider.

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Episode 12

The Bus

Wed, Feb 4, 198125 mins

Arnold's joy of being transferred to an all-white school (and riding a bus to get there) is shaken to its very core when a racist busing opponent calls the Drummond household warning the pro-busing family patriarch not to send his black children to the new school, or else.

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Episode 13

The Older Man

Wed, Feb 25, 198125 mins

Kimberly gets a role in a school play, and turns to Blair for help in looking like an older woman. While rehearsing, she meets and accepts a date from a 25-year-old man who thinks she's at least 20. Arnold and Willis find out about the date and sneak off to the movie theater to try to stop the date before Drummond finds out.

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Episode 14

Where There's Hope

Wed, Mar 4, 198125 mins

Arnold gets annoyed with the new girl next door and makes it known that he does not want her at his 10th birthday party. However, when Drummond finds out from her parents that she has leukemia, he tries to get Arnold to re-invite her without telling him of her illness.

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Episode 15

The Magician

Wed, Mar 11, 198125 mins

With a magazine reporter and Ed "Too Tall" Jones coming over to the house, Arnold decides to show off his talents by putting on a magic show. He plays a silly trick on everyone that leaves him out on the balcony ledge, afraid to move.

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Episode 16

Drummond's Fair Lady

Wed, Mar 18, 198125 mins

Drummond creates controversy with his shareholders when he recommends hiring a woman with whom he starts dating to head up a new division in his company. The children, shareholders themselves, are all for it until Kimberly overhears her talking to a mystery man on the phone.

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Episode 17

The Ancestors

Wed, Mar 25, 198125 mins

Drummond is initially excited to hear that he is the owner of a two million dollar piece of land in Harlem only to later find out that the ancestor whom he inherited it from was a slave trader. He must now decide whether to donate it to be used as a community center or decline it.

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Episode 18

Almost American

Wed, Apr 1, 198125 mins

After getting a D in history, Arnold is forced to stay home from a hockey game to study. While at home, he and Drummond meet Milos, a Czech immigrant who is going to night school to try and become a US citizen.

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Episode 19

Room for One More

Wed, May 6, 198125 mins

Worried that his foster father's unemployed status will send him to another foster home, Dudley runs away and hides in Arnold's room in hopes that Arnold can convince Drummond to adopt him too.

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Episode 20

The Athlete

Wed, May 13, 198125 mins

Willis, the star pitcher of his junior high team, is recruited by a coach from a high school with a reputation for producing major league talent. When Drummonds learns that attending this school entails lying and grade fixing, he forbids Willis to go.

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