GOOD TIMES

'''Good Times''' was an American sitcom originally broadcast 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 and was a spinoff of ''Maude''.
Although the show is set in Chicago, all episodes were produced in the Los Angeles area. The first two seasons of ''Good Times'' were taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood, California. In the fall of 1975, the show moved to Los Angeles' Metromedia Square where Norman Lear's own production company was housed.

Contents

Synopsis

Principal cast

Topical situations

Initial success

Ratings

Backstage tension

The Big Move

''Good Times'' without the parents

Reruns

DVD releases

Trivia

See also

References

External links

Synopsis

''Good Times'' starred Esther Rolle as Florida Evans and John Amos as her husband, James Evans, Sr. The characters originated on ''Maude'' as Florida and Henry Evans, with Florida employed as Maude's housekeeper in upstate New York. 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 and always had lived in Chicago.
''Good Times'' was based on Eric Monte's childhood. Florida and James Evans had three children and the family rented an 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 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.
Jimmie Walker (J.J) was actually 26 years old when the show aired in 1974. Bern Nadette Stanis (Thelma) was 20, Ralph Carter (Michael) was 12, John Amos (James) was 34, Esther Rolle (Florida) was 53 (19 years older than Amos), and Ja'net DuBois (Willona) was 29.

Principal cast

★ 'Esther Rolle' - Florida Evans (Seasons 1-4, 6)

★ 'John Amos' - James Evans, Sr. (Seasons 1-3)

★ 'Ja'net Du Bois' - Willona Woods

★ '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 Anderson (Season 6)

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 area of Watts, 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, Illinois despite all the odds stacked against them. When he wasn't 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 dissappointment, 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 of 1974; high ratings led CBS to renew the program for the 1974–1975 season. 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. During 1974–1975, three of the top ten highest-rated programs on American TV 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.

Ratings

''Good Times'' was a hit during the first four seasons, then the ratings went down when the show had entered its final season, here's a list of the ratings:

★ 1973-1974: #17

★ 1974-1975: #7

★ 1975-1976: #24

★ 1976-1977: #26

★ 1977-1978: #49

★ 1978-1979: #54

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.''
:— Esther Rolle^[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.''
:— John Amos^[2]

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 this 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. Many critics contend that the show "jumped the shark" after the death of James' character.

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 (Moses Gunn).
Rolle had disliked the Carl Dixon character, as she believed Florida would have not 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, checking 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, and although Florida returned (the writers had finally let J.J.'s character mature to a point that Rolle found tolerable) for the sixth season in 1978, the viewers did not, and production was halted abruptly in early 1979.
The last original episode of ''Good Times'' aired in the summer of 1979. In a series finale typical of the series, each character had a "happy ending." J.J. finally got his big break as an artist for a comic book company, after years of the audience waiting for such a development. J.J.'s 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 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 (yet again).

Reruns

In addition, the network TV One (which can be seen on Comcast cable systems as well as DirecTV) airs the show in a programming block with another African-American sitcom, ''227''.
The sitcom has also aired on TV Land 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.
CBS also aired reruns of ''Good Times'' during the afternoons from 1976-78.
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.
''Good Times'' will be available in Canada via Canwest's digital specialty channel, DejaView beginning September 10, 2007. It will air at 3:00pm, 9:00pm and 3:00am. It will also air weekends at 3:00 and 3:30pm.

DVD releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 between February 2003 and August 2006.
'Season Releases'

DVD Name	Release Date	Additional Information
The Complete First Season	February 4 2003	Includes all 13 episodes from Season 1.
The Complete Second Season	February 3 2004	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 2
The Complete Third Season	August 10 2004	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 3.
The Complete Fourth Season	February 15 2005	Includes all 23 episodes from Season 4.
The Complete Fifth Season	August 23 2005	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 5.
The Complete Sixth Season	August 1 2006	Includes all 24 episodes from Season 6.

Trivia

★ One part of the lyrics to the theme song is notorious for being hard to discern - notably the lyric "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"^[3]

★ 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''.

★ 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'').

★ John Amos's portrayal of James Evans Sr. is frequently cited as perhaps the most realistic depiction of an African-American father in television history. James' death is almost universally recognized as the moment when the series "jumped the shark".

★ 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 on the show to refer to Esther Rolle's character Florida as "beautiful" without cracking up or throwing up. According to Stern, this was acting at its finest, especially when the script called for Amos to kiss Rolle.

★ James Evans Sr. serves as the template for other strong African-American TV fathers, including Lester Jenkins (''227''), Phillip Banks (''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air''), and J.C. Williams (''New York Undercover'').

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

★ 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.

★ 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 an ''All in the Family''--also a Norman Lear production--episode from 1972 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.

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

★ 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.

★ In real life, John Amos is only 7 1/2 years older than costar Jimmie Walker and nearly nineteen years younger than costar Esther Rolle.

See also

★ List of ''Good Times'' Episodes

References

1. "Bad Times on the ''Good Times'' Set", ''Ebony'', September 1975

2. Plotting His Next Big Break John L. Mitchell
3. Backstage with… Alan and Marilyn Bergman

External links

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