- Mrs. Rutledge was the original "Punky Brewster" when the late NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff was little. At the time, she was a tomboyish older girl whom young Tartikoff had a crush on. (The "B." initial is her maiden name Brewster, and her married name is Rutledge.) When Tartikoff grew up and later became a programming chief at NBC, he thought the name "Punky Brewster" would be a good name for the title character of a sitcom about an old man who adopts an abandoned waif. He had NBC's lawyers track her down (she was married to an attorney in Connecticut) and gained her legal permission to use her name for the series. In a clever casting move, Rutledge was given the role of a teacher in one of the "Punky Brewster" episodes so that both the real and the fictitious Punky could appear on screen at once. The only difference in naming the character on the series is that Mrs. Rutledge's true first name is Peyton, although "Punky" was her nickname; in the show, "Punky", played by Soleil Moon Frye, is the nickname for her character's given name Penelope.
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