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Good Times
Good Times title screen
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Eric Monte Michael Evans
Starring	Esther Rolle (Season 1-4, 6) John Amos (Season 1-3) Jimmie Walker Ja'net DuBois Bern Nadette Stanis Ralph Carter Janet Jackson (Season 5-6) Johnny Brown Ben Powers (Season 6)
Opening theme	Dave Grusin Alan Bergman Marilyn Bergman
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	6
No. of episodes	133
Production
Executive producer(s)	Allan Manings Norman Lear
Running time	approx. 0:23 (per episode)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	February 8, 1974 – August 1, 1979
Chronology
Preceded by	Maude
Related shows	Hanging In
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Good Times is a American sitcom that originally aired from February 8, 1974, until August 1, 1979, on the CBS television network. It was created by Eric Monte and Michael Evans and produced by Norman Lear. Good Times was a spin-off of Maude, which was also a spin-off of All in the Family.

While the series was set in Chicago, all episodes of Good Times were produced in the Los Angeles area. The first two seasons were taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood. In the fall of 1975, the show moved to Metromedia Square, where Norman Lear's own production company was housed.

Synopsis

Good Times was based on Eric Monte's childhood—although one of the main characters' name is "Michael Evans", which was the real name of co-creator Mike Evans, who was a co-star on another Norman Lear-produced spin-off of All in the Family, The Jeffersons.

The series starred Esther Rolle as Florida Evans and John Amos as her husband, James Evans, Sr. The characters originated on the sitcom Maude as Florida and Henry Evans, with Florida employed as Maude Findlay's housekeeper in upstate New York and Henry employed as a firefighter. When producers decided to feature the Florida character in her own show, they applied retroactive changes to the characters' history. Henry's name became James, there was no mention of Maude, and the couple now lived in Chicago.

Florida and James Evans and their three children live in a rented apartment in a housing project (implicitly the infamous Cabrini-Green projects, shown in the opening and closing credits but never mentioned by name on the show) in a poor, black neighborhood in inner-city Chicago. Florida and James' children were James, Jr., also known as "J.J." (Jimmie Walker), Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis), and Michael (Ralph Carter). When the series began, J.J. and Thelma were seventeen and sixteen years old, respectively, and Michael, called "the militant midget" by his father due to his passionate activism, was eleven years old. Their exuberant neighbor, and Florida's best friend, was Willona Woods (played by Ja'net Du Bois), a recent divorcée. Willona would affectionately call Michael Evans "Gramps", because of his wisdom.

Principal cast

• Esther Rolle - Florida Evans (Seasons 1-4, 6)
• John Amos - James Evans, Sr. (Seasons 1-3)
• Ja'net Du Bois - Willona Woods - Willona is the next door neighbor and best friend of Florida Evans, having known her since she moved to Chicago, Illinois, from Jackson, Mississippi. Willona works at a clothing boutique and is often defined as independent and single. She is very exuberant and has a tendency to gossip about almost everyone. She acts as the surrogate mother for the Evans siblings and adopts Penny.
• Ralph Carter - Michael Evans
• Bern Nadette Stanis - Thelma Evans Anderson
• Jimmie Walker - James Evans, Jr. ("J.J.")
• Johnny Brown - Nathan Bookman (Seasons 5 and 6; recurring 2-4)
• Janet Jackson - Millicent "Penny" Gordon Woods (Seasons 5 and 6)
• Ben Powers - Keith Albert Anderson (Season 6)

Minor characters

Ned the Wino (Raymond Allen) - the local drunk who frequented the neighborhood and the apartment building where the Evans family reside. One episode was centered around Michael's plan to "clean up" Ned and get him off the booze by letting him stay at the Evans' household (during the same time Florida was beautifying the apartment for a prize). Ned became so clean that he was barely recognizable. When the judging committee chooses the Evans' home as the winning apartment, Mrs. Vinson (the chairwoman) comes back and admits to the family that what won her over was the fact that Ned was so clean. In the end, we find out that she is, in fact, married to Ned (much to the shock of the family).

"Sweet Daddy" Williams (Theodore Wilson) - a menacing neighborhood numbers runner, who had a reputation for wearing flashy clothing and jewelry. He is usually accompanied by bodyguards (one portrayed by Bubba Smith) and comes across as cool and threatening, but has shown a soft heart on occasion, particularly when he decided not to take an antique locket (to settle a debt) that Florida had given to Thelma because it had reminded him of his late mother.

Alderman Fred Davis (Albert Reed, Jr.) - a local politician with a slightly shady disposition. Spoofing President Richard M. Nixon, he would state in a speech "I am not a crook." He always relied on the support of the Evans family (his "favorite project family") for reelection or support (and usually threatened them with some type of adverse action if they did not agree). He always had James' support; J.J. supported him when he became of age to vote; the rest of the family did not particularly like him (J.J. would later come to despise him like the rest of the family). During the first season, he addressed Willona as "and you too, Willona." In later seasons, he would forget her name entirely and called her something else that began with a "W" (such as Wilhemina).

Lenny (Dap 'Sugar' Willie) - a neighborhood hustler who is always trying to sell items that are usually attached to the lining of his fur coat. He usually approaches people with a laid-back rap and a rhyme ("hey there mama, my name is Len-nay, if you buy from me I can save you a pen-nay"). He will sell anything from watches to bedpans (out of his coat!). Usually the person he approaches will ignore him or tell him to go away. He usually responds by saying "that's cold" or uses a small brush to "brush off" the negativity.

"Grandpa" Henry Evans (Richard Ward) - James' long lost father. He abandoned the family years before because he was ashamed that he could not do more to provide for them. This was a deep hurt for James, who wrote his father off and told everyone he was dead. Thelma learned about him while doing some family research and got to meet him; she invited him over to the Evans' home to surprise James for his birthday, not knowing that James was well aware of his whereabouts but chose to stay out of his life. After Henry arrives to the house and meets the rest of the family, he realizes that James hasn't exactly rolled out "the welcome mat" and decides to leave. Florida convinces him to stay and talk to James and explains that there may never be another chance to do so. Henry and James have a heart-to-heart talk, with Henry being remorseful and apologetic. James ultimately forgives his father. After James' passing, the Evans family embraces Henry into the family, alongside his common-law (and eventually legal) wife, Lena in later episodes.

Wanda (Helen Martin) - another resident in the apartment building where the Evans reside. Earlier episodes show her at a women's support group, and the tenants rallying around her by giving her a rent party (she had fallen behind on her rent). Later episodes showed her appearing and crying at several funerals, whether she knew the person or not.

Topical situations

As was the case on other Norman Lear sitcoms, the characters and subject matter in Good Times were a breakthrough for American television. Working class characters had certainly been featured in sitcoms before (dating back at least to The Honeymooners), but never before had a weekly series featured African American characters living in such impoverished conditions. (Fred and Lamont Sanford of Sanford and Son, though they lived in the poor Watts area of Los Angeles, at least had their own home and business.)

Episodes of Good Times dealt with the characters' attempts to "get by" in a high rise project building in Chicago, despite all the odds stacked against them. When he was not unemployed, James Evans was a man of pride and would often say to his wife or family "I ain't accepting no hand-outs". He usually worked at least two jobs, many of them temporary such as a dishwasher or car washer, and when he had to he would gather his trusty pool stick, much to Florida's disappointment, and sneak out and hustle up a few bucks as he struggled to provide for his family. Being a sitcom, however, the episodes were usually more uplifting and positive than they were depressing, as the Evans family stuck together and persevered.

Initial success

The program premiered in February 1974; high ratings led CBS to renew the program for the 1974–1975 season, as it was the seventeenth-highest-rated program that year. During its first full season on the air, 1974–1975, the show was the seventh-highest-rated program in the Nielsen ratings and a quarter of the American television-viewing public tuned in to an episode during any given week. Three of the top ten highest-rated programs on American TV that season centered around the lives of African-Americans: Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, and Good Times. Good Times's ratings however, declined over time partly because of the many times the show was moved around the CBS schedule. In its third season, the series was that season's twenty-fourth-highest-rated program.

Ratings

Good Times was a hit during the first four seasons. The ratings went down when the show had entered its final season:

• 1973–1974: #17
• 1974–1975: #7
• 1975–1976: #24
• 1976–1977: #26
• 1977–1978: #39
• 1978–1979: #45

Backstage tension

Almost from the premiere episode, J.J., an aspiring artist, was the public's favorite character on the show and his frequently-invoked catch phrase "Dy-no-mite" became very popular. As the series progressed through its second and third year, however, Rolle and Amos, who played the Evans parents, grew more disillusioned with the direction the show was taking as J.J.'s antics and stereotypically buffoonish behavior took precedence in the storylines. Rolle was rather vocal about disliking the character of J.J. in a 1975 interview with Ebony magazine.

"He's eighteen and he doesn't work. He can't read or write. He doesn't think. The show didn't start out to be that...Little by little—with the help of the artist, I suppose, because they couldn't do that to me—they have made J.J. more stupid and enlarged the role. Negative images have been slipped in on us through the character of the oldest child."¹

Although doing so less publicly, Amos also was outspoken about his dissatisfaction with J.J.'s character. The ill feelings came to a head when it came time to negotiate Amos' contract in the summer of 1976, and he was dismissed from the series.

"The writers would prefer to put a chicken hat on J.J. and have him prance around saying "DY-NO-MITE", and that way they could waste a few minutes and not have to write meaningful dialogue."²³

The big move

Husband-and-wife team Austin and Irma Kalish were hired to oversee the day-to-day running of the show, replacing Allan Manings, who had become executive producer at a time when he was also working on another Lear sitcom, One Day at a Time. The Kalishes and Manings, as script supervisors, threw ideas to writers Roger Shulman, John Baskin, and Bob Peete, and eventually penned an exit for Amos's character.

At the beginning of the 1976–1977 season, the family was packing to move from the ghetto to a better life in Mississippi where James had found a job as a partner in a garage. At the end of the first episode that season, Florida learned via a telegram (which, at first, she thought was to congratulate her on her move) that James was killed in a car accident. It was the following episode in which she uttered her famous line: "Damn, damn, DAMN!" The show continued without a father, which was something Rolle did not want to pursue. One of the primary appeals of the project for her had been the presentation it initially offered of the strong black father heading his family.

However, she stayed on hoping that the loss of the father's character would necessitate a shift in J.J.'s character, as J.J. would now become the man of the family. The writers did not take this approach, however; if anything, J.J.'s foolishness only increased. Wanting no further part in such depictions, by the summer of 1977, Rolle left the series. She was written out as marrying and moving to Arizona with her new love interest, Carl Dixon (played by Moses Gunn).

Despite this, Good Times still excelled in the Nielsen Ratings, peaking during the 1976-77 season at number 26, making its fourth year breaking the top 30 rated programs.

Rolle had disliked the Carl Dixon character, as she believed Florida would not have moved on so quickly after James' death. Rolle also thought the writers had disregarded Florida's devout Christian beliefs by making her fall for Carl, who was an atheist. When Rolle eventually agreed to return to the show, there were several conditions, one of which was that the Carl Dixon character be written out as if he never existed; another condition of her return was she would have a greater say in the storyline and J.J. would become a more respectable character -- and she would also receive a raise in pay.

Good Times without the parents

With Amos and Rolle gone, Ja'net Du Bois took over as the star, as Willona checked in on the Evans children as they were now living alone. New characters were added or had their roles expanded: Johnny Brown as the overweight building superintendent Nathan Bookman; Ben Powers as Thelma's husband Keith Anderson; and Janet Jackson as Penny Gordon Woods, an abused girl adopted by Willona.

It was at this time that many viewers defected from the series as the fifth season ranked only at number 39. Although Florida returned for the sixth season in 1978 (after the writers had matured J.J.'s character to Rolle's liking), the viewers did not, and production was halted abruptly in early 1979, after the last season only ranked at number 45.

The last original episode of Good Times aired in the summer of 1979. In a finale atypical of the series in general, each character finally had a "happy ending." J.J. got his big break as an artist for a comic book company, after years of the audience waiting for such a development; his newly-created character, DynoWoman, was based on Thelma. Michael attended college and moved into an on-campus dorm. Keith's bad knee miraculously healed, leading to the Chicago Bears offering him a contract to play football. Keith and (a newly pregnant) Thelma moved to a luxury apartment across town in Chicago's upscale Gold Coast area and offered Florida the chance to move in with them (and her future grandchild). Willona became the head buyer of the boutique she worked in; she and Penny moved in to the same building and became their downstairs neighbors.

Awards and accomplishments

Good Times received three Golden Globe Award nominations: In 1975 and 1976, Jimmie Walker was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor - Television", and Esther Rolle was nominated for "Best Television Actress in a Musical or Comedy" in the latter year.

The writers of two episodes of the series ("My Girl Henrietta", and "The Lunch Money Ripoff") also were nominated for the Humanitas Prize, which celebrates the encouragement of human values through television screenwriting. ⁴

Reruns

The cable network TV One (which can be seen on most cable systems as well as DirecTV) airs the show in a programming block with another African-American sitcom, 227.

The sitcom has also aired regularly on TV Land. It first aired as a 48-hour marathon the weekends of July 23, 2005, November 26, 2005, and May 6, 2006. However, TV Land airs the version of episodes that were edited for syndication, while TV One airs the original edits, as they were shown on during its CBS primetime run, albeit digitally-remastered.

In late 2006 or early 2007, Good Times was pulled from the TV Land lineup along with several other shows (most notably Happy Days) to make room for some new programming. The show returned in mid-February with a 48-hour weekend marathon. However, the show has now returned to the TV Land lineup, airing every weekday morning, and sporadically as a two-hour block on Thursday evenings. Currently, it can be seen in a two-episode block, (preceded by The Jeffersons) from 3:00AM to 3:30AM (half-hour block, airs every morning) and 11:00AM to 12:00PM, Eastern Time on weekday mornings.

Good Times is also seen in Canada on DejaView, a specialty cable channel from Canwest.

DVD releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 between February 2003 and August 2006. Walmart has also sold seasons of Good Times, with seasons of The Jeffersons in a two pack. Sony Pictures has officially announced the October 28, 2008 release of the complete series in a box set, combining all 6 seasons onto 17 discs.

Season Releases

Complete Series Release

Notes

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles.

• In March 2006, at the fourth Annual TV Land Awards, Good Times received the "Impact Award," for being "a show that offered both entertainment and enlightenment, always striving for both humor and humanity, with comedy that reflected reality." Norman Lear attended the ceremony, as did all the members of the principal cast except Esther Rolle (who died in 1998), Ben Powers, and Janet Jackson.

• The lyrics to the theme song are notorious for being hard to discern, notably the line "Hanging in a chow line"/"Hanging in and jiving" (depending on the source used). Dave Chappelle used this part of the lyrics as a quiz in his "I Know Black People" skit on Chappelle's Show in which the former was claimed as the answer. The insert for the Season One DVD box set have the lyric as "hangin' in a chow line." But the song's writers, Alan & Marilyn Bergman, have confirmed that the lyric is "hanging in and jiving"⁵

• J.J.'s paintings were actually created by African-American artist Ernie Barnes. The series helped to make the artist and his distinctive style famous.

• Ralph Carter's character shares the same name as Good Times co-creator Michael Evans. Evans portrayed Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family and its spin-off The Jeffersons.

• Actor Danny Bonaduce, whose father Joseph Bonaduce wrote scripts for the show, recalls his father locking himself in a bathroom in a rage, lamenting that his career had been reduced to writing lines such as "Dy-No-Mite!"

• John Amos's portrayal of James Evans, Sr. is frequently cited as the first realistic depiction of an African-American father in television history, serving as the template for other strong African-American TV fathers, including Lester Jenkins (227), Phillip Banks (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), Carl Winslow (Family Matters), and J.C. Williams (New York Undercover).^{citation needed} James' death is almost universally recognized as the moment when the series "jumped the shark".⁶

• Howard Stern, while interviewing John Amos on the Howard Stern Radio Show, referred to Amos as the best actor he ever met. Stern gave Amos this accolade because Amos was constantly able to refer to Esther Rolle's character Florida as "beautiful" without cracking up . According to Stern, this was acting at its finest, especially when the script called for Amos to kiss Rolle.

• One of the consistent themes of Good Times during the first three seasons was James' inability to find a well-paying, long-term job. John Amos would later have recurring roles on several TV series as characters with excellent jobs, such as an NFL coach (In the House), the mayor of Washington, D.C. (The District), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (The West Wing).

• The first-season episode "Black Jesus" (where J.J. uses Ned the Wino as the model for a portrait of Jesus) was one of the first times that a primetime television series challenged the notion that Jesus had a Caucasian or European appearance (the first time being a 1972 episode of All in the Family—also a Norman Lear production—in which Henry Jefferson and Archie Bunker square off about the color of Jesus' skin).

• The third-season episode "J.J. in Trouble" was one of the first times that the subject of STDs (then referred to as "VD") was addressed on a primetime television series. A 25-year old Jay Leno appears briefly in this episode.

• On April 10, 2004, guest host and musical guest Janet Jackson reprised her role as Penny in a Good Times sketch on Saturday Night Live featuring the original characters: Florida, played by Kenan Thompson; Willona, played by Maya Rudolph; Michael, played by Finesse Mitchell; and Thelma, also played by Maya Rudolph, with former cast member Tracy Morgan as Bookman. (Neither James Evans Sr. nor Keith Anderson is depicted.) The skit parodies the general theme of the show, where tragic disasters befall the entire family; however, by the end of the sketch, all tragedies have been miraculously resolved, as a nod to the series' finale.

• In 1992, while in its third season, In Living Color performed an "unaired" episode with music video parodies, where Shawn Wayans as J.J. spoofed LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out.

• On October 21, 1995, with David Schwimmer hosting Saturday Night Live, Jimmie Walker made a cameo appearance (alongside cameos by Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, and Gary Coleman) with a background choir performing the Good Times theme song.

• In 1997, The Wayans Bros. parodied Good Times with Shawn Wayans as J.J., Marlon Wayans as Michael, Anna Maria Horsford as Florida, John Witherspoon as James, and Ja'net DuBois, Johnny Brown and Bern Nadette Stanis all reprising their roles as Willona, Bookman and Thelma. (Ja'net DuBois actually had a recurring role in the series as their grandmother.)

• In the Drawn Together episode "Breakfast Food Killer", after Toot Braunstein says, "I'll always remember the good times," the Good Times theme song plays over a montage of clips featuring all the show's characters wearing afros.

• In 1975, John Amos and Jimmie Walker both appeared in the Sidney Poitier–Bill Cosby film Let's Do It Again.

• Former Our Gang child actor Matthew "Stymie" Beard appeared in five episodes, including four appearances as James' friend Monty.

• In 1976, Grand L. Bush guest-starred in a two-part storyline (J.J.'s New Career), playing the role of Leon, J.J.'s bully.

• Theodore Wilson who played the recurring role of Sweet Daddy Williams, returned in an episode in 1977 called "The Comedian And The Loan Sharks" taking on the role as Stanley the owner of a night club instead of his more infamous character in the show originally.

• Robert Guillaume, the actor that portrayed Benson Dubois on the sitcom Benson, played in an episode about Fish Bone on Good Times.

See also

• List of Good Times Episodes

References

External links

• Good Times at the Internet Movie Database
• Good Times on TVLand.com