A 'Good Times' Episode Sampler
Five dyn-o-mite episodes to get started.
Good Times, the CBS sitcom that ran from 1974-1979, may have started as a Maude spinoff, but its legacy extends far past spinoff status. The show followed the Evans family (mother Florida, father James, sons J.J. and Michael, and daughter Thelma - and next door neighbor/resident gossiper Willona), a black family living in the public housing projects of Chicago. Like all shows produced by the legendary Norman Lear, the show tackled real-life issues with a strong pathos while never, ever sacrificing laughs along the way.
Toward the end of the series, Jimmie Walker's J.J., complete with the biggest gags and a signature catchphrase, "Dyn-o-mite!," began to dominate the show and it lost some of that social conflict that made originally made it so great. However, Good Times, as it now celebrates 50 years, is still best known for all of its earliest episodes.
To get you started, here are the five best from those early seasons:
“The Visitor” (Season 1, Episode 9)
The strength of Good Times was its ability to incorporate honest, real-world situations while still working towards the main goal of a sitcom: be funny. As the show went on and they focused more and more on breakout star J.J., they lost sight of that goal, but the early seasons are totally on board for that mission statement. That's why we will only see episodes from the first three seasons on this list.
In this early episode, youngest son Michael's activism comes back to bite the family in the butt. He writes a letter to the newspaper highlighting their terrible housing conditions, but that brings a visit from the housing commission. By bringing an outsider white character into this black family's home, Good Times knows exactly what it's doing - this show was doing the exact same thing by bringing America into the Evans home.
“The I.Q. Test” (Season 2, Episode 7)
This Season 2 episode is another Michael plot, as it's the eve of his 8th-grade graduation and the young genius is on his way to a great high school, prestigious university, and, as J.J. predicts, the Supreme Court. But when his standardized test scores come in low with the suggestion of trade school, his parents panic. What happened?
"I thought the test was unfair to blacks, so I walked out," he protests. One of the test questions asks the student to count a house's bedrooms. "How many kids in the ghetto are going to know what a guest bedroom is?" he asks.
His parents agree that the test isn't fair and take it up with the white testing proctor. "I suppose it wouldn't be hard for you to tell me Malcolm X's last name?" Florida asks him. He gets it wrong.
"You know something because you come from one culture, I know something because I come from another," she offers him.
Rolling Stone just placed this episode at #64 on their list of The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time, and chief TV critic Alan Sepinwall wrote, "The episode nimbly addresses systemic problems in a way that few shows were even thinking about at the time, much less willing to incorporate into their scripts. And it does it while still having some fun with the situation, through the obliviousness of the white test proctor."
“The Gang” (Season 2, Episodes 9 and 10)
Just a few episodes later, the series' most famous two-parter sees J.J. mixed up in some gang activity.
You might be thinking: J.J.? The goofy artist, loverboy, Kid Dyn-o-mite himself? He's obviously unfit for any street gang. And yes, that's true and the core of the first part's comedy, but, if anything, the episode shows just how easily it can happen. He's recruited by gang leader Mad Dog and as much as he wants to get out of it, that's not going to happen. There's this threatening undercurrent throughout the entire episode that ends in the biggest possible cliffhanger: J.J. gets shot.
I cannot imagine waiting an entire week to see what would happen next.
When the second part begins, J.J. is luckily fine (perhaps even milking his recovery a tad) and is back home receiving the full nurse treatment from his family. "I shake when I think what could have happened," Florida says. I'm still thanking the Lord that J.J. is home and he's safe. It's all over."
"I'm thanking the Lord he got his health too, baby," James says. "But it ain't all over."
The rest of the story sees James go down to testify against Mad Dog. I won't spoil what he learns about Mad Dog's life when he gets down there, but let's just say that Good Times could find the humanity in anybody.
“The Dinner Party” (Season 2, Episode 19)
"The Dinner Party," another Season 2 standout (they were really on a roll this season), might be the best episode of the entire series. It showcases what the show did best, which was address authentic and sincere sociopolitical issues while still being damn funny.
The family finds empty dog food cans in their neighbor's trash and concludes that money must be so tight that she's resorted to eating dog food. She's older and lives alone, so she must be trying to do this in secret. The line, "It's a sin that in the richest country in the world, anyone has to be eating pet food," cuts right to the thesis of the show.
The least they can do is invite her over for dinner, right? However, when she arrives, she comes bearing a lasagna.
But where did the meat come from?
The rest of the episode is line after line, joke after joke, that never seems like it could be funny but always is. It's an incredibly thin tightrope, but one the entire cast is talented enough to do blindfolded, backward, and without a net. If there's one episode that shows both sides of what Good Times could do, it's this one.
“The Politicians” (Season 3, Episode 9)
The final entry on this list, Season 3's "The Politicians," almost didn't make the cut. And that's because, to be frank, there are better episodes of the show. Plenty get much funnier, but few feel as representative of our current political climate, especially amid this election season. Thus the inclusion.
Though the Evans family has long supported one city councilman, Florida and the kids are fed up with his corruption and throw their support behind the new, young, up-and-coming and progressive opponent. This, naturally, splits the household as James still plans on voting the same way he always has.
Though I initially passed on putting this one on the list, it has stuck with me as I think about its prescient conversations. Voting is so important and sometimes your candidate wins and sometimes they lose, but voting is often all we have to raise our voice, let our concerns be known, and signal for the future.
ABC found contemporary qualities in it as well, I suppose, as it is the episode they decided to recreate for their 2019 commemorative specials called Live in Front of a Studio Audience. Though the modern cast of Andre Braugher, Viola Davis, Tiffany Haddish, Jay Pharoah, Corinne Foxx, and Asante Blackk did a great job, as everyone says: nothing beats the original. Esther Rolle, John Amos, Jimmie Walker, Bernnadette Stanis, and Ralph Carter will always be the Evans family and the heart of Good Times.
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