Good Times is an 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 itself 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 portrayed Lionel Jefferson on the Norman Lear-produced series All in the Family and 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 Tuckahoe, 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 project apartment, 17C, at 963 N. Gilbert Ave., 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. Her daughter Millicent "Penny" Woods (Janet Jackson) joined the show in the fifth season. Willona would affectionately call Michael Evans "Gramps", because of his wisdom. In real life, Esther Rolle was 53 when the series began, and was 58 when the series ended. John Amos was 34 when the series began, and was 36 when his character James was killed off in the fourth season.
Although Jimmie Walker, Ralph Carter and Bern Nadette Stanis' characters J.J., Michael and Thelma were in their late teens/adults, in real life Walker, was 26 when the series began and was 32 when the series ended, Stanis, was 20 in the beginning of the series, and was 25 at the end of series, and Carter was 12 years old when the series began, and was 18 when the series ended.
In the series finale, the cast was able to leave the projects, but without James who was killed off in the 4th season and without Carl Dixon (played by late actor Moses Gunn), Florida's new husband who just disappeared (actually, the character was written out of the series by the script writers) and was never mentioned again.
Principal cast
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 when JJ painted a mural. Michael came in and said he thought it was "black Jesus" it was bringing the family good fortune for a short period of time. Another episode was centered around Michael's plan to "clean up" Ned and get him off the booze byk letting him stay at the Evans' house.
Carl Dixon (Moses Gunn) - an atheist shop owner who married the widowed Florida Evans following the final episode of Season 4. Carl and Florida do not appear in Season 5. Florida returns at the beginning of Season 6 for Thelma's wedding. Carl is referenced briefly in the second episode of Season 6, but is never mentioned again (Florida continues to use the surname Evans instead of Dixon).
"Sweet Daddy" Williams (Theodore Wilson) - a menacing neighborhood numbers runner and pimp, 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, Winnifrieda, Winsomnium and Wyomia), thus earning him her everlasting ire as well as the nickname "Baldy".
Lenny (Dap 'Sugar' Willie) - a neighborhood hustler and peddler 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" or "don't go to J.C. Pen-nay, just come and see Sweet Len-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, thus earning her the nickname "Weeping Wanda" from J.J. and Willona.
Mrs. Gordon (Chip Fields) - Penny's abusive mother. Mrs. Gordon had been abandoned by Penny's father when she became pregnant. As a result, she took her anger and frustrations out on Penny. After the abuse was finally brought to light, Mrs. Gordon abandoned Penny, despite Willona's pleas to her to try and seek help. Just before she disappeared, Mrs. Gordon expressed regret for hurting her child, telling Willona that Penny deserved better than her. She reappeared more than a year later, but now she was remarried and revealed that her new husband was from a very wealthy family. She used her husband's wealth to send Penny anonymous gifts and also attempted to frame Willona, making her look like an unfit foster parent so she could take back custody of her daughter. However, her scheme was exposed and Penny rejected her, and told Willona that no matter what anyone said, she would always consider her to be her real mother. Mrs. Gordon was devastated by this and left Penny with Willona, never to be seen again.
Cleatus (Jack Baker) - Cousin of J.J. Evans, Thelma Evans Anderson, and Michael Evans and nephew of Florida Evans and James Evans. He first appeared in the episode "Cousin Cleatus".
Typical 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 been featured in sitcoms before (dating back at least to The Life of Riley), 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 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 top 30 hit during the first four seasons. The ratings went down when the show had entered its final season, likely due to a Saturday night time slot.:
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."[2][3]
Departure of John Amos and Esther Rolle
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 in the episode "The Big Move", 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!" (spoofed in the season 4, episode 96 of the sitcom Living Single). 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 leading 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 Rolle returned for the sixth and final season in 1978 (after the writers had matured J.J.'s character to Rolle's liking), the viewers did not return, 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 August 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 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]
Theme song
The theme was composed by Dave Grusin with lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman. It was sung by Jim Gilstrap and Blinky Williams.
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.[5] The insert for the Season One DVD box set have the lyric as "hangin' in a chow line." But the Bergmans confirmed that the lyric is "hanging in and jiving"[5]
Reruns
The cable network TV One (which can be seen on most cable systems as well as DirecTV) currently airs the show.
The sitcom has also aired regularly on TV Land. It first aired as a 48-hour marathon the weekend of July 23, 2005, with two more marathons following on the weekends of 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 weekday mornings 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST.
Good Times is also seen in Canada on DejaView, a specialty cable channel from Canwest. A selection of full episodes of the show are available to Canadians for free on GlobalTV.com
Minisodes of the show are available for free on Crackle.
DVD releases
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 between February 2003 and August 2006, with a complete box set following the separate seasons on October 28, 2008.
See also
References
External links
