When it was decided that Fame would be ending after the Season 6 Finale in 1987, the Executive Producers decided to save some money from previous episodes in order to bring previous cast members back.
They managed to save $160,000.00, however a few episodes before the end Lee Rich, who was then head of MGM heard about the money. He just saw it as they hadn't spent their budgets so took the money back.
With only a couple of episodes to go they needed a way to have some additional money to still bring the original cast members back.
So they made cuts in the final 2 episodes before the finale to try to recoup some for the money they needed. One way was to add Flashbacks to the episode"Of Cabbages and Kings" of previous episodes. That way they saved on not having to film new material and finished the episode in 5 and a half days instead of the usual 7 days filming.
This helped give them the money they needed and the original cast members were brought back.
This is bonkers. A show that went on for 7 years and touched so many lives deserved a better treatment...and a better foresight.
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