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The character Florida Evans (played by Esther Rolle) had been Maude Findlay's houskeeper on Maude, but in early 1974 the character was transplanted to an apartment in a housing project ("the projects") in a poor, African American neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. In this new incarnation, Florida lived with her husband James ( John Amos) and children J.J. ( Jimmie WalkerJimmie Walker (born June 25, 1947 in the Bronx, New York) is an American actor. With appearances in many films and television shows, Walker is perhaps best known for his role as James "J. Evans, Jr. on the 1970s CBS sitcom, Good Times''. While on the show), Thelma ( BernNadette StanisBernNadette Stanis (born December 22, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress. Stanis has appeared in many television shows including The Cosby Show but is best known for her role as Thelma Evans on the CBS sitcom, Good Times''. Stanis, BernNad), and Michael ( Ralph CarterRalph Carter (born May 30, 1961) is an American actor, best known for his work as a child and teenager, both in the Broadway musical Raisin (based on the Lorraine Hansberry drama A Raisin in the Sun and as the character Michael Evans the youngest member o). When the series began, J.J. and Thelma were both in high school and Michael, called "the militant midget" by his father due to his activismActivism in a general sense, can be described as involvement in action to bring about change, be it social, political, environmental, or other change. This action is in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial argument. In contemporary use,, was ten years old. Their exuberant neighbor was Willona Woods (played by Ja'net DuboisJa'net Dubois (born August 5, 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American actress. Perhaps best known for her portrayal of the wise-cracking and gossip-prone neighbor Willona Woods on the 1970s sitcom Good Times''. Dubois also composed and sang the).
Like other Norman Lear sitcoms, the characters and subject matter in Good Times were a breakthrough for American television. Working classThe term working class is used to denote a social class. The definition of the term "working class" is controversial, and depends on the politics and period of the person making the definition and on the society being discussed. For example, pre-war Briti characters had certainly been featured in sitcoms before (dating back to The HoneymoonersIn the late 1940s, Jackie Gleason hosted a variety show, The Cavalcade of Stars on the DuMont Television Network. There he created skits of The Honeymooners with another DuMont performer, Art Carney. The skits became so popular that CBS offered Gleason an), but never before had a weekly series featured African American characters living in such impoverished conditions (Fred and Lamont Sanford of Sanford and SonRedd Foxx as Fred Sanford. Demond Wilson as Fred's son, Lamont. Sanford and Son is a television sitcom, the American remake of the British sitcom Steptoe and Son''. Sanford and Son first aired on the NBC television network on January 14, 1972, and was bro at least owned their own home and business). Episodes of Good Times dealt with the characters' attempts to get by in an inner-city ghetto despite all the odds stacked against them. When he wasn't unemployed, James Evans usually worked at least two jobs, many of them temporary, as he struggled to provide for his family. Being a sitcom, however, the episodes were more uplifting and positive than they were depressing, as the Evans family stuck together and persevered.
The program was very successful during its first full season on the air, 1974- 1975, when it 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 black Americans: Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, and Good Times).
Almost from the premiere episode, J.J. was the public's favorite character on the show and his frequently-invoked catch phrase "Dyn-o-mite!" became very popular. As the series progressed through its second year, however, Rolle and Amos, who played the Evans parents, were more disillusioned with the direction the show was taking as J.J.'s antics took precedence in the storylines. At the beginning of the 1976- 1977 season, Amos's character was killed in a car accident. A year later, at the start of the 1977- 1978 season, Rolle left the series (although she returned for the program's final year). To fill the vacuum left by the parents' departure, new characters were added or had their roles expanded: Johnny Brown as building superintendent Bookman; Ben Powers as Thelma's husband Keith Anderson; and Janet Jackson as Penny, an abused girl adopted by Willona - who herself took on a more central role in the series. (Janet Jackson, of the famous Jackson family, would later make a much larger name for herself as a solo artist in the world of pop music).
The last original episode of Good Times aired in 1979. Today, the first three seasons of Good Times are available on Region 1 DVD in North America.
The British sitcom The Fosters (1976-1977), about a black family in England, was based on Good Times, and in fact used many of the same scripts, after they had been adapted for the British audience.
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