Jimmy Kimmel spent years trying to get Kevin Hart to play Diff'rent Strokes' Kevin Arnold on Live in Front of a Studio Audience

Variety

The problem was that Hart, with a very busy schedule with numerous projects, was always unavailable. “Jimmy had tried, almost three or four years ago, he wanted to approach Kevin Hart about this, because he just thought he would make the perfect Gary Coleman,” said Live in Front of a Studio Audience executive producer Brent Miller, Norman Lear's producing partner. “And we had been talking to his team for the past couple years about when Kevin would have a break. So we waited until we got his schedule, and then we built from there.” Meanwhile, the third iteration of Live in front of a Studio Audience intended to step away from the social issues of the first two, which featured episodes of All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Good Times. This time, “we were looking for lighthearted and funny. And not the world’s problems In this case,” Lear said. Miller added: "As Norman said, we’ve just come off two tough years. And rather than focusing on episodes that were relevant, issue wise, to some of the times we’re living, we really just wanted to make them relevant to a good time. Where we’d have fun and the audience could have fun.” ALSO: ABC promos go retro in honor of Live in Front of a Studio Audience.