Good Times: Black Again – Why?????

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Karen Hannsberry

Before I decided to create this blog, I’d planned to write a book on Good Times. In my (never-sent) book proposal from 2022, I mentioned the continuing popularity of the show as indicated by the numerous Facebook groups, and its ongoing relevance, evidenced by the then-upcoming animated series being developed by Norman Lear.

That animated series – called Good Times: Black Again – launched on Netflix on April 12th with a cast that includes Yvette Nicole Brown, Godfrey, Lil Rel Howery, Marsai Martin, Ego Nwodim, Rashida Olayiwola, Jay Pharoah, J.B. Smoove, Cree Sumner, and Wanda Sykes. Since it premiered, I’d seen numerous comments on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Most were not favorable. And that’s putting it mildly. But I had to check it out for myself.

The show’s pilot, entitled “Meet the Evans of New,” informs us of a few facts that I hadn’t previously known, primarily that the show is not a reimagining of the original although it does consist of a mother, a father, and three children – two boys and a girl – living in a Chicago housing project. But the father in Black Again – Reggie Evans – is actually the grandson of James and Florida Evans. This detail notwithstanding, the animated version resembles the original in several ways: the oldest son – Junior – is an artist and is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, academically speaking; Junior frequently squabbles with his sister, the middle child, whose name is Grey; and one of the children, who is an excellent student, also has a militant, politically aware persona. (The difference is that in the animated version, those characteristics are assigned to Grey, instead of the youngest child.) The animated Evans family also lives in the same apartment as the Good Times Evans: 17C; they even have the same triangle-shaped mirror and curtain-for-a-door closet in the front room.

After reading the comments on social media, I was primed to dislike the series, but I tried to keep an open mind. But to be honest, I was turned off by the opening title sequence! The new theme song is fine – it includes lyrics like, “Head above water, makin’ a way . . . Keep my family close, pick me up when I’m low, help me down on this road and I’ma bring us back home again . . .” But I didn’t care for the graphics, which included a close-up of a woman’s sizable rear sashaying down a city street and a baby with dyed blonde hair, a pacifier on a gold chain, and diamond earrings in each ear shooting craps on the street.

*Before the babies start shooting. The BABIES.*

It turns out that the blonde-haired, earring-wearing tyke from the title sequence is Dalvin, the family’s youngest child – a drug-dealing baby who has been kicked out of the house by his father. When we first see him, he’s selling drugs from his stroller on a street corner. When a car full of rapper-babies pull up, insisting that he give up his corner, he refuses, and they actually start SHOOTING AT HIM. Later, he snorts powdered formula like it’s cocaine. And he keeps a gun in his diaper.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me begin with the pilot’s very first scene, which shows Reggie Evans in the shower, warbling a few lines from the original show’s theme song. But it’s not a solo performance, y’all – it’s a duet. WITH. A. COCKROACH. It’s not a great start.

The plot of the pilot contains references to episodes from the original show – Junior paints a picture of Black Jesus on the living room wall, the mother – Beverly – is readying the apartment for the building’s beautification contest, and Reggie – attempting to raise money to help with his wife’s beautification efforts – takes his pool cue to the local billiard hall. (He refuses to take money from his drug-dealing baby and instead, takes Junior with him, saying, “I’m gonna show you how a man takes care of his family in a respectable way.”)

In the remainder of the episode, we meet Bev’s best friend, Lisa, who runs a beauty salon; Grey goes on a hunger strike to draw attention to the use of chemicals in food products; and Bev is told by Delphine, the head of the beautification judging committee, that the criteria has been expanded from previous years, and that they are taking a “more holistic approach.” (Incidentally, after this declaration, we cut to three scantily clad women clustered nearby; one of them says, “Y’all hear that, hoes? We got a shot to win.” And Delphine explains, “Not that kind of HOE-listic.” Hardee har har.) Because the beautification judges will now take “the family unit” into consideration, Bev prays to Black Jesus for the return of her son, Dalvin, to the fold, promising to get him baptized if he does. Before long, Dalvin does, indeed come back home – because he’s seeking sanctuary from the baby-rappers who are shooting at him.

*Earning money at the pool hall. Respectably.*

Meanwhile, in the pool hall, Reggie encounters a man – Minnesota Matt – whose grandfather lost his last $72 to James Evans in a pool game years before. It was all the money he had, his wife left him, and Matt wants a revenge rematch. This is another callback to the original series as, in the pilot of that show, the Evans family needed exactly $72 in order to avoid eviction from their home, and James Evans took to the local pool hall to get the money.

Let me try to wrap this thing up. Dalvin runs away from his mother (who, for some reason, was having him baptized in Lisa’s beauty salon) and gets picked up by the baby rapper shooters. Reggie is playing pool when he gets a call from Bev that Dalvin has been kidnapped and he leaves. Bev’s leaking boobs (because she’s still nursing) lead her to Dalvin and Reggie spanks the rapper babies with a belt, but one of them cuts the belt with a knife. Junior steps in with a broken pool cue and beats them all.

The family returns home too late to be considered in the contest, but Bev philosophizes, “I thought our family had to win this stupid contest to prove we were just as good as the Evans of old. Truth is, we’re the Evans of New.” (We have a title!) A short time later, Delphine returns, says her clock was wrong, and gives Bev the winning trophy. When she leaves, we see that she is being held at gunpoint by Dalvin, who also forces her to give him the keys to the building’s penthouse, where he intends to stay.

*Reggie drives a cab. (That’s something, anyway.)*

At the end of the episode, a safe falls through the ceiling, from Dalvin’s apartment onto the Evans’s dinner table, and Reggie closes things out with “Damn Damn Damn!” – the final homage (and I use the word loosely) to the original series.

I don’t want to belabor this thing, but I also checked out episodes two and three. Let me give y’all a few highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be):

We learn from Bev that Reggie’s favorites are takis, dark liquor, and Mexican corn on a stick wrapped with a chitlin.

Junior’s teacher (whose name, incidentally, is Mrs. Idontgiveashit) meets with Reggie and Bev because of Junior’s “lack of focus” in class. During the meeting, she’s smoking a cigarette and slurping from a flask.

Junior and Grey have a contest to see who will get the best grades on an upcoming test. The loser has to pick the roaches out of the cereal. Continuing with the roach theme, in another scene, Junior reminds his father that he’d told the children they couldn’t have a dog “because the roaches were our pets.”

Grey takes her exam and tells her parents: “The only person who can score higher on that test is Wendy Williams on Memorial Day weekend.” (I don’t even know what this means. I’m not sure I WANT to know what this means.)

Grey gets her period for the first time. When she and her mother see blood staining her pajamas, they both have the same reaction: “Please let her be shot!” Bev’s rationale is because now that she’s gotten her period, Grey can get pregnant.

Bev insists that Grey use sanitary napkins instead of tampons because “they’re a gateway. First tampons, then who knows what you’re sticking up there?”

At school, Grey stains her clothes and her mother shows up to help. They find that there are no sanitary napkins in the bathroom dispenser, and when Grey reaches for the tampons, Bev objects: “Read my lips. No tampons. Next thing you know, you’ll end up giving birth in a public restroom and your life as you know it will be over.” And THEN, we see the feet of a girl in a nearby stall and, as indicated by the closed captions, we get this:

[girl] Hey!

[water bubbling]

[baby crying]

And Bev says, “Well, if the stall fits!”

And that, for me, was the last straw. I couldn’t reach for the remote control fast enough.

I don’t even know where to begin to tell you how appalled I was by this show. Even if I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Good Times, I would be repulsed, but the fact that it serves to desecrate the name of a show that has such meaning for me – it’s just too much. I honestly cannot believe that this crap was allowed to reach the airwaves. And believe me, “crap” is putting it mildly.

It seems that every few seconds, I was witnessing a ridiculously offensive sight or hearing an unbelievably insulting line. I don’t put anything past Seth MacFarlane – the brains (or whatever) behind shows like American Dad and Family Guy – but I’m really saddened to know that before his death last year at the age of 101, Norman Lear put his stamp of approval on this garbage. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But what DOES surprise me is that NBA basketball star Stephen Curry, along with MacFarlane and Lear, was also an executive producer. Surely, he could have stepped up and had a say. Surely, he read the scripts and could have pulled out a red pen. Surely, he found SOMETHING about this series that left him feeling as disgusted as I was. But maybe the dollar signs provided a more salient inspiration than his conscience.

I know, from reading online comments, that there are those who think this series is funny, but I just can’t, y’all. I was far too offended.

Far, far too offended.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Good Times!

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Karen Hannsberry

Fifty years ago today, on February 8, 1974, Florida and James Evans, their children J.J., Thelma, and Michael, and neighbor and friend Willona Woods, made their debut on American television on Good Times. The series was only on for five seasons, but it continues to entertain fans with its insightful writing and first-rate performances from the cast and guest stars.

To celebrate this momentous 50-year milestone, I am offering 50 things I love about Good Times, including memorable quotes, favorite episodes, and much more. I hope you’ll let me know in the comments what you love about this groundbreaking show!

“Well, it’s comforting to know there’s still some respect for Black Power around here.” – Florida’s first line in the show’s pilot episode.
“Boy is a white racist word.” We heard this declaration from Michael in several of the early episodes.
Florida, Thelma and Willona’s performance of “Stop, in the Name of the Love” in “The Rent Party” (Season Three). It’s a delight.
Janet Jackson’s four-episode introduction to the series as Penny at the start of Season Five. I’ll never forget when it first aired – everyone I knew was watching and talking about it.
Seeing guest appearances from performers who went on to be stars, like Roscoe Lee Browne, Judy Pace, Brenda Sykes, Jay Leno, Alice Ghostley, Ron Glass, Charlotte Rae, and Debbie Allen.
The way the show addressed real-life issues like teen drinking, gang violence, teen pregnancy, hypertension, and venereal disease.
The live studio audience – their responses were part of what made the show so memorable – not just the laughing and clapping, but other reactions like shocked gasps and audience members calling out, “Right on!”
Ralph Carter having the opportunity to display his singing talent in several episodes, including “The Rent Party” and at Thelma’s wedding.
The theme song. I’ve heard it countless times and still can’t help singing along.
Willona’s collection of wigs. She had a different look in practically every episode! (One of my favorites was her afro in “Sex and Evans Family.”)
Ernie Barnes’s paintings. This talented artist was behind most of the artwork on the show that was presented as J.J.’s.
James’s patented responses in place of the word “yes,” like, “Is fat meat greasy?” and “Is an elephant heavy?”
James’s brown corduroy pants. (What can I say?)
The first three seasons. There’s no denying that the series was never the same after John Amos left, but the three seasons that he was on the show were absolute gold.
“Where There Smoke” from Season Five, a Rashomon-type episode where J.J., Thelma, Michael, and Penny each give their own accounts of how the family sofa caught on fire. It’s hilarious (and the only episode after Season Three that I’ve seen multiple times).
“The Dinner Party,” from Season Two, where a senior citizen friend of the Evans’s has fallen on hard times, and the family believes that she has brought a meat loaf made of dog food to serve at dinner. This is one of the many episodes that expertly walks a fine line between presenting a serious issue and being incredibly funny.
“Bon appetit, y’all!” Willona in “The Dinner Party” (Season Two)
The ideal role model provided by Thelma. She wasn’t just pretty, but she was also smart, talented, ambitious, fearless (I loved the way she stood up to Mad Dog in the “The Gang” episode), and she could put J.J. in his place every time.
Having two former members of the 1930s Little Rascals on the show: Stymie Beard and Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison.
“Sir? Can I ask you just one question? Who IS looking for the guy who shot Medgar Evers?” – Michael, talking to the FBI agents looking for Florida’s nephew in “Cousin Cleatus” (Season Three)
“The Debutante Ball” episode, which included an interesting depiction of a couple who’d made it out of the ghetto, but forgotten from whence they came.
The many Chicago references, like Mayor Richard J. Daley, Marshall Field’s department store, and the Chicago Defender newspaper.
The loving relationship between James and Florida. There was a reason why Willona called them the “Liz and Dick of the Ghetto” – these characters were clearly still in love, and showed it often through their affection for each other. It was beautiful to see.
The way James called Florida “baby.”
“The kitchen and the bedroom, Florida, the kitchen and the bedroom!” – James in “Florida Flips” (Season Two)
“You know what I’m gonna leave the world when I go, Florida? A tombstone that reads “Here lies James Evans. Back in the hole again.” – James in “Florida’s Rich Cousin” (Season Three)
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love you for your skin’s pure sheen, for your two sweet lips, with teeth in between.” – J.J. to Marcy Jones in “My Son, the Lover” (Season One)
“Those coulda been Sweet Daddy’s drawers!” – James in “Sweet Daddy Williams” (Season Three), where the flamboyant numbers runner hires J.J. to paint his girlfriend, Savannah Jones.
“The elevator ain’t workin’” in “The Visitor” (Season One). This line was said by nearly every character in the episode and whenever I see it, I say it right along with them!
“Now that’s the kind of religion I can get into. The good word rolls out and the long green rolls in!” – J.J. in “God’s Business is Good Business” (Season One)
“Florida the Woman” episode, where Florida’s boss Oscar Harris (Thalmsus Rasulala) brightens Florida’s day after an especially frustrating morning with James and the children. One of my favorite scenes is when Oscar and James come face to face and James can’t suppress his jealousy.
“The TV Commercial” episode, featuring a particularly funny bit with J.J. and James, where they present a faux commercial of their own.
Willona’s wardrobe. Some of her outfits were so sharp, they could be worn today!
The fact that Willona was content being single. It was so refreshing when, during a conversation with Florida, she declared that there was “a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And the one thing I ain’t is lonely.”
Mention of popular Black performers like Diana Ross, Redd Foxx, The Isley Brothers, The Jackson Five, Harry Belafonte, Isaac Hayes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.
J.J.’s love for Thelma, despite their constant arguing. This was demonstrated in numerous episodes, including his defense of her engagement to Larry (Carl Franklin), and his protective reaction after she was attacked in the “Family Gun” episode.
Florida’s constant support of James – like in “Too Old Blues” when James missed out on a job opportunity because of his age, or “The Mural,” where the family learns that James had spent Thelma’s college fund.
“If she gets any happier, she’s gonna break every dish in the house.” – J.J. in “Florida Flips” (Season One)
“The Family Gun” episode, which had an especially chilling ending, when Michael shoots his father’s gun into the air after mistakenly thinking that he’d removed the bullets.
“She hit her husband? Free at last, free at last! You’re halfway there, sister.” – Wanda (Helen Martin in “Florida Flips” (Season One)
“Thelma’s Young Man,” where Lou Gossett guested as the balding, 40-something boyfriend of 17-year-old Thelma.
“The Lord is my German Shepherd.” – J.J. in “The Dinner Party” (Season Two)
“If you want that button sewed, you sew it yourself. And if you want breakfast, make it yourself. Then make the lunch for the children. Wash the dishes, do the laundry, make the beds and sweep the floor. And see how you’d like being mother, housewife, diplomat, referee, counselor, cook, seamstress, and sparring partner, with no pay and no fringe benefits!” – Florida in “Florida the Woman.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” Florida’s unforgettable reaction in “The Big Move, Pt. 2,” when she finally allows herself to feel the pain of James’s untimely and unexpected death. (Season Four)
The “Thelma’s Scholarship,” episode, where Thelma is sought as the “token” in an all-white sorority at a Michigan boarding school.
The lines said and situations depicted on the show that simply could not be aired today, like James using the “N” word or delivering a whooping to Michael’s classmate.
The way James bravely, and with no hesitation, protected his family. One instance that comes immediately to mind is his confrontation in “Cousin Cleatus” with Florida’s nephew, who planned to use Michael as a hostage (or worse yet, a shield).
Scenes that make me laugh every single time, no matter how often I’ve seen them – like when James cracks up in “My Son, the Lover” after hearing J.J. reading his poem to Marcy Jones, or in “Sex and the Evans Family” when Michael asks if the item Florida’s hiding has anything to do with Black unity and Willona responds, “In a way.” Florida’s silent slow burn is a masterpiece!
The show’s use of terms I remember from my childhood, like “blister your behind.”
“Have mercy!”

My First Good Times Quiz!

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Karen Hannsberry

Do you watch Good Times episodes over and over again? If you do, this quiz — focusing on Season 1, episodes 1-3 — is for you! Click here to join in the fun — and please leave a note in the comments to let us know your thoughts about our first quiz!

The Cast: John Amos

Posted on January 21, 2023 by Karen Hannsberry

If you’re a fan of Good Times (and if you’re reading these words, you must be!), John Amos may always be James Evans to you. I’m right there with you — his portrayal of the Evans family patriarch is near to my heart, and one of the two characters I most associate with Amos. (The other is Kunta Kinte, from the 1970s miniseries Roots). But Amos was also Gordy on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Admiral Fitzwallace on The West Wing. Cleo McDowell in Coming to America. And he has numerous other accomplishments – but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning.

John Allen Amos, Jr., was born on December 27, 1939, in Newark, New Jersey, the second of two children of Annabelle and John Amos, Sr., an auto mechanic. He grew up in East Orange, New Jersey, and was a running back at East Orange High School (where one of his schoolmates was future star Dionne Warwick.) “The opportunity to play football was one way of getting neighborhood approval,” Amos said in a 2022 interview on the Rational Hour podcast. “And to be a running back – that meant you were in line for glory and fame, possibly, contingent on how good you were. . . . I began to harbor the illusion that I could possibly get a scholarship and maybe even play pro football.” Amos also played on the football team at Colorado State University, where he majored in sociology, and he continued demonstrating his athletic prowess after college by becoming a Golden Gloves boxing champion.

After a stint as a social worker at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York, it appeared that Amos was on the path to achieving his professional football aspirations when he signed on as a free agent with the Denver Broncos of the American Football League in 1964. On the second day of training camp, however, he was released due to a pulled hamstring. Amos recalled that he went on to try out for “more teams than I even knew existed,” and he played with numerous clubs during the next several years, including the Canton Bulldogs of the United Football League, the Wheeling Ironmen of the Continental Football League, and the Jersey City Jets of the Atlantic Coast Football League. In 1967, he returned to the American Football League, signing a free agent contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, but his brief association with the team was cut short by a torn Achilles tendon. To console himself following his injury, Amos wrote a poem entitled “The Turk,” which is a euphemism given to “the guy that releases you from the team when your services are no longer required.” In a 2012 interview with Susan King of the L.A. Times, Amos recalled that Chiefs coach Hank Stram allowed him to read the poem to the team, resulting in a standing ovation. After seeing the team’s reaction, Stram told him, “I think you have another calling.” (To read Amos’s complete poem, “The Turk,” click here.

With McLean Stevenon and Tim Conway on Conway’s show.

Not long after, Amos put his football dreams behind him for good. Instead, he became an advertising copywriter and then in 1969, he joined the writing staff for the CBS-TV musical variety series The Leslie Uggams Show. The series only lasted for 10 episodes, but the following year would be a significant one for Amos – he appeared on an episode of The Bill Cosby Show, he landed a gig as a semi-regular on The Tim Conway Show (“It was a good experience and I learned a lot,” he said), and he was tapped for a role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show after some writers who worked for both the Uggams and the Moore shows thought he would be a good fit for a weatherman character. “They wrote me a few lines,” Amos told the L.A. Times, “and thus Gordy was born, and quite frankly I never looked back after that.” He would appear in a total of 12 episodes on the show during the first four seasons, and then return in the seventh season for a final appearance.

During the next couple of years, Amos guested on several television shows, includng Love, American Style and Sanford and Son, played a biker in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), and appeared in a popular singing-dancing commercial for McDonald’s. He made his Broadway debut in 1972 in Tough to Get Help, directed by Carl Reiner, but the play – about a black couple working in a liberal white household – was trashed by critics and closed after only one performance. But the following year, Amos was cast on the hit Norman Lear sitcom Maude (a spinoff of All in the Family) as Henry Evans, the husband of Maude’s maid, Florida (Esther Rolle). He appeared as Henry on three episodes of Maude before Good Times was created as a spinoff, starring Rolle and Amos as Florida and James (no longer Henry) Evans.

Amos remained on Good Times for 61 episodes, but his contract was not renewed after the third season and his character was killed in an automobile accident. Amos had clashed with writers and producer Norman Lear on numerous occasions over the direction of the show. “There were several examples where I said, ‘No, you don’t do these things. It’s anathema to Black society. I’ll be the expert on that, if you don’t mind,’” Amos told Andrew Chow in a 2021 Time.com interview. “They thought I was talking about a revolution here in the studio – and I was. I was a sign of the times that we just weren’t going to take any more, but [I] hadn’t developed the social graces to express our disfavor. And it got confrontational and heated enough that ultimately my being killed off the show was the best solution for everybody concerned, myself included.”

*Amos earned an Emmy nomination for his performance.*

Being let go from Good Times turned out to be nothing more than a momentary blip in Amos’s career. In 1977, he was cast in the groundbreaking mini-series Roots, which told the story of Kunta Kinte, an African boy who is abducted from his home and taken to America, where he lives the rest of his life as a slave. Amos was cast as the adult Kunta Kinte. The show was a massive hit, attracting an estimated 130 million viewers (and this was, of course, in the days before VCRs and streaming when, if you wanted to see a program, you had to be in front of your television when it aired. I know – I was in high school when Roots came on, and my family, and everyone I knew, watched every single night of this eight-part phenomenon). Amos earned an Emmy nomination for his performance, but he lost to his co-star, Louis Gossett, Jr., who played Fiddler.

“It meant so much to me on so many levels,” Amos told Time.com. “I knew that it was a life-changing role for me, as an actor and just from a humanistic standpoint. It was the culmination of all of the misconceptions and stereotypical roles that I had lived and seen being offered to me. It was like a reward for having suffered those indignities.”

*With Phylicia Rashad in Gem of the Ocean.*

Amos never looked back. During the next several decades, he appeared in a wide variety of television shows, from guest spots in such popular programs as The Love Boat, The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and 30 Rock, to starring or recurring roles in series including Hunter, 704 Hauser (another spinoff from All in the Family), The District, All About the Andersons, and The West Wing. In addition, he appeared in numerous films, including The Beastmaster (1982), Coming to America (1988) and its 2021 sequel, Coming 2 America, Die Hard 2 (1990), and Dr. Dolittle 3 (2006). Away from the big and small screens, Amos starred in Twelfth Night at the 1989 New York Shakespeare Festival (in a cast that included Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gregory Hines); performed in London at the Old Vic Theatre in The Life and Death of a Buffalo Soldier; wrote and produced Halley’s Comet, a one-man play that he performed periodically at venues worldwide for 20 years; and appeared in 2005 opposite Phylicia Rashad in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean in Princeton, New Jersey. And in 2017, Amos co-wrote a children’s book, A World Without Color, inspired by the roles that have most impacted his life.

In his personal life, Amos has two children with his first wife, Noel Mickelson, who he met while both were students at Colorado State University; the couple had two children, Shannon and Kelly Christopher (better known as K.C.). Shannon is the founder of Afterglow Multimedia, a talent management and production company, and K.C. is a Grammy-nominated filmmaker. (K.C. frequently posts videos of his father on TikTok. You can check them out at kc.filmmaker.)

Amos, who turned 83 in December 2022, is still working; in 2019, he made a surprise cameo appearance on a live television restaging of Good Times, called Live in Front of a Studio Audience, co-produced and co-hosted by Good Times creator Norman Lear.

*On the set of Live in Front of a Studio Audience, with Bern Nadette Stanis (Thelma on Good Times) and Tiffany Haddish, who played Willona on the Good Times reboot.*

The cast, which included Andre Braugher as James and Viola Davis as Florida, performed the series’ third season episode, “The Politician”; Amos played the role of Ald. Fred C. Davis. Other recent appearances include Uncut Gems (2019), Me Time (2022), and an episode of The Righteous Gemstones, and he will be seen in the upcoming comedy, Capture the Flag, co-starring Dick Van Dyke, Louis Gossett, Jr., Paul Dooley, and Barry Corbin.

“I will continue to work until I can’t work anymore. Norman [Lear] is still working well into his nineties,” Amos told Entertainment Weekly following the broadcast of the Good Times reboot. “He makes me feel like I’m just getting started.”

My ‘Good Times’ Journey Begins . . .

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Karen Hannsberry

I watch Good Times every day. Every single day. I’ve done it for years. I laugh at the same jokes in the same places, I make the same mental observations, I say the same dialogue along with the characters. I’m not claiming to be the biggest Good Times fan in the world – but I’ll wager that I’m up there in the top 10. So it was almost inevitable for me to devote a blog to this unforgettable show.

A situation comedy set in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois, Good Times premiered on February 8, 1974, and ran for six years on CBS-TV. I can’t say with certainty what it is about this show that captured and kept my fascination over all these decades – there are so many reasons. It shines a light on real-life issues, from teen pregnancy to drug use to crime. It showcases a variety of up-and-coming performers, including Debbie Allen, Rosalind Cash, Lou Gossett, and Philip Michael Thomas. It incorporates the pop culture of the day. And it’s well-written and legitimately funny. Beyond these tangible features, Good Times simply feels like family; these were people I knew.

Before Good Times, there were only a handful of television shows that featured black people. The 1950s gave us The Amos and Andy Show, Beulah, and The Jack Benny Program, and in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was Room 222, Julia, I Spy, Roll Out, The Flip Wilson Show, Sanford and Son, and The Bill Cosby Show (the one from the late 1960s where he played a physical education teacher named Chet Kincaid).

In 1971, television producer Norman Lear created All in the Family. Previously, Lear (a former writer for The Martin and Lewis Show, and director of two feature films) had created only one television show – a western called The Deputy featuring Henry Fonda that ran from 1959 to 1961. All in the Family starred Carroll O’Connor as rabid bigot Archie Bunker, and Jean Stapleton as Archie’s long-suffering wife. When it aired in January as a mid-season replacement show on CBS, it took a while for it to find its audience, but by the 1971-1972 season, it was a solid hit. In September 1972, All in the Family saw its first-spinoff, Maude, starring Bea Arthur as Archie’s outspoken, liberal cousin-in-law. On Maude’s third episode, she hired a maid: Florida Evans (Esther Rolle). The popularity of this intelligent, fearless, slightly imperious, and often impertinent black character earned Rolle her own spinoff, Good Times, in 1974.

There were a few tweaks between Florida on Maude and Florida on Good Times. On Maude, Florida lived in New York with her husband, Henry (John Amos), who worked as a fireman, while the Evans family on Good Times lived in a housing project in Chicago, Florida’s husband’s name was James, and James often worked several jobs to make ends meet. On Florida’s first episode on Maude, there’s a reference to the two of them drinking a few martinis at lunch, but on Good Times, Florida doesn’t drink alcohol. And on Maude, Florida and Henry have been married for 24 years, but on Good Times, they celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Good Times was created by writer Eric Monte, who also wrote for such series as The Jeffersons and What’s Happening, as well as the screenplay for the film Cooley High (another production set in Chicago – Monte’s hometown), and Michael Evans, best known for portraying Lionel on All in the Family and, for several years, on another spinoff, The Jeffersons. Originally, the show was slated to be called The Black Family, with the family’s last name being Black. (Get it?) Later, the creators decided to change the last name of the family to Evans and they renamed the show Good Times.

*Florida and the former Henry, now James.*

The show was a hit from the start, and in its second season, it trounced its main competition, ABC’s Happy Days, knocking it out of the top 30 shows. In that season, Good Times climbed to number seven in the ratings. After the second season, though, ratings started to dip, and after Amos’s character was killed off at the end of the third season, things would never be the same.

This blog, Ain’t We Lucky We Got ‘Em’, is my love letter to Good Times. I will provide a look at each of the show’s 133 episodes, as well as delve into the pop culture of the 1970s, which is significantly interwoven throughout so many of the episodes. I’ll also periodically offer other features, including trivia quizzes, my favorite episodes, and more.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Ain't We Lucky We Got 'Em?

The Good Times Blog

Tag Archives: Norman Lear