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Good Times
built 191 days ago
Good Times was a spin-off show of the hit series Maude. In Maude, the Black maid/housekeeper Florida, was portrayed by actor Ester Rolle. Rolle was chosen to star with John Amos as Mr. and Mrs. Evans in Good Times. The cast of Good Times [I]ncluded Florida; her unemployed but always looking-for-work husband, James; their teen-aged son, J.J.; a daughter, Thelma; and a younger son, Michael. The Evan's neighbor, a fortyish woman named Willona made frequent appearances. A very young Janet Jackson of the Jackson family fame, joined the cast later as Willona's adopted daughter.
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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, California. In the fall of 1975, the show moved to Los Angeles' Metromedia Square, where Norman Lear's own production company was housed.
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Throughout its initial success and later criticism, sitcom Good Times revolutionized prime-time television. While the story lines of 1950s and early 1960s television sitcoms provided little more than cautious counsel on the minor vicissitudes of family life, the decade of the 1970s ushered in what came to be known as the era of relevancy in television programming. In Good Times, which aired on CBS from February 1974 to August 1979, suburban street crime, muggings, unemployment, evictions, Black Power, and criticism of the government were frequent and resounding themes. The show is regarded as perhaps the first in prime-time television to tackle such issues with any measure of realism. It stretched the boundaries of television comedy and provided a different view, not only of black family life, but of the social fabric of 1970s American society in general.
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Good Times was ... noteworthy in its portrayal of an African-American family attempting to negotiate the vicissitudes of life in a high-rise tenement apartment in an urban slum--the first show to tackle such a scenario with any measure of realism. The program exploited, with comic relief, such volatile subject matter as inflation, unemployment and racial bigotry. Along with The Jeffersons, Good Times was one of first television sitcoms featuring a mostly Black cast to appear since the controversial Amos 'n' Andy show [H]ad been canceled some twenty years prior.
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Good Times is ... significant for the controversy that haunted the show's production. Disputes developed about the program's changed direction; in particular, the ever-popular J.J. character. J.J.'s comical, but at times undignified, antics raised the resentment of many in the black community. With his toothy grin, ridiculous strut, and bug-eyed semblance, to some he had metamorphosed into a coon-type stereotype of former times. More and more episodes were centered around his farcical exploits, featuring his trademark exclamation, "DY-NO-MITE!"
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The Good Times scare has been around for years, constantly re-appearing under a new name. Until recently it was just an unwarranted scare ("don't read any message with subject 'kumquats'; it'll destroy your hard disk and rot your brain!").
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Good Times