Series Description

Dangerous Minds was a 60 minute drama series on ABC about a female ex-marine named Louanne Johnson who became a teacher at an inner-city school. The students were mostly street smart but had no interest in getting an education. Louanne wouldn't be intimidated like the students' previous teachers. She motivated them to achieve by making learning a fun, cool thing to do and by truly caring about them. It was a difficult task because even after she managed to convince a student that it was in their best interest to learn, there were always others ready to pull that student back to the streets.

Dangerous Minds Cast

Annie Potts .... Louanne Johnson
Tamala Jones .... Callie Timmons
Stanley Anderson .... Bud Bartkus
Greg Serano .... Gusmaro Lopez
Jenny Gago .... Amanda Bardales
LaToya Howlett .... Alvina Edwards
Vicellous Reon Shannon .... Cornelius Hawkins
Cedrik Terrell .... James Revill
Maria Costa .... Blanca Guerrero
Michael Jace .... Jerome Griffin (1996-1997)
William Converse-Roberts .... Hal Gray
Jenny O'Hara .... Jean Warner
Meredith Monroe .... Tracy Daiken

Dangerous Minds Trivia:

Dangerous Minds was inspired by the 1995 movie also titled, "Dangerous Minds", starring Michelle Pfeiffer as the teacher, "Louanne Johnson".

Both the movie and then the TV show were based on the life experiences of a real-life ex-marine.

One reason why Dangerous Minds only lasted one season is that it had some pretty heavy competition in its time slot. CBS was airing "Cosby" and "Pearl". "The Jeff Foxworthy Show" and "Mr. Rhodes" were on NBC. "Melrose Place" was on FOX and "7th Heaven" was on the WB (now the CW network).

The setting in which Dangerous Minds took place was the inner-city of East Palo Alto, California.

From the 1986/87 to the 2001/2002 season, Annie Potts kept pretty busy. She had a starring role on a TV series in 14 out of 16 seasons! She played "Mary Jo Shively" on "Designing Women" for 7 seasons, "Dana Palladino" on "Love and War" for 2 seasons (although she was not a regular for the first season), and as "Mary Elizabeth" on "Any Day Now" for 4 seasons. Oh ... let's not forget the single (admittedly short) season on Dangerous Minds.

If you never saw Michael Jace on Dangerous Minds, you may know him from his role as "Officer Julien Lowe" on "The Shield".