There was a lot of controversy over the animated update of good times when its trailer came out in March, and Netflix didn’t give critics any episodes to review, which is always a bad sign. The trailer promised that this remake, one of Norman Lear’s last projects before his death last December, would be bolder and more daring than the 1974-79 original. But is it funny?
GOOD TIMES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: Reggie Evans (JB Smoove) is in the shower, singing the old song. good times issue. The song is a duet with a nearby cockroach.
The essence: Reggie lives in the same apartment, 17 C, where his grandparents, James and Florida Evans, used to live. He doesn’t even look much different than when they lived there 50 years ago. His wife Beverly (Yvette Nicole Brown) is busy trying to make the place shine to win a beautification project contest. The oldest son, Junior (Jay Pharoah), was tasked with painting the walls, but instead paints a mural of Black Jesus.
The youngest daughter, Gray (Marsai Martin), is protesting the danger processed foods pose to Chicago’s South Side community. And the baby of the family, Dalvin (Gerald Anthony “Slink” Johnson), doesn’t even live there anymore, although he is literally a baby; Reggie kicked him out of the house for dealing drugs.
Beverly desperately wants to win the contest and prove to Delphine (Tisha Campbell), the officious older lady who is a judge, that this generation of the Evans family isn’t a bunch of screw-ups. But when Delphine tells her that “Drug Dealer Baby” is an automatic disqualification, she promises that a baptized Dalvin will be at her apartment when Delphine arrives at 6 p.m.
She prays to Black Jesus (Godfrey) for Dalvin’s return and suddenly breastfeeds, meaning he is nearby. Why he’s there isn’t exactly a miracle; He is running away from a group of little kids who want to take over his territory. She rushes him to her best friend, Lashes by Lisa (Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola), who runs all sorts of businesses out of her apartment, so she can get Dalvan a quick baptism.
Meanwhile, they turned off the heat, right in the middle of Reggie’s shower, and Beverly spent her “secret stash” of money on pageant decorations. Reggie tries to earn money for heat in his taxi, but his passengers routinely harass him with $24 bills and sobriety tokens. So he tries to earn his money the honorable way: by hustling people at the local pool hall. He’s on a roll, but doesn’t realize that Junior, whom he brought with him, is a pool prodigy. However, all that falls by the wayside when Dalvan is kidnapped by rival children. Grey, who was with Dalvan when he was caught, was too weak from his latest hunger strike; He gets so bad that flies buzz around his head as if he were already rotting.
What shows will it remind you of? Ranada Shepard (Diary of a future president) is the creator and showrunner of this version of good times, but the late Norman Lear and Seth MacFarlane are listed as executive producers (Lear even voiced a small role before his death last December). In many ways, this version of good times It feels like a cross between Lear, Mike Evans and Eric Monte’s original 1974-79 sitcom and MacFarlane’s. Family man.
Our opinion: There was a lot of controversy about this animation. good times It was updated when the trailer came out last month and Netflix didn’t give critics any episodes to review, which is always a bad sign. And throughout the first two episodes, what people hated about the trailer was very evident.
The new good times It is certainly absurd and perpetuates many negative stereotypes. She’s not afraid to push the envelope when it comes to language and nudity. And Dalvan’s character does Family manIn comparison, Stewie looks like a real baby. But the show’s biggest offense, at least during the two episodes we watched, is that it simply isn’t funny.
The mistake that Shepard and his writers make is something that producers of animated comedies have been making for 35 years, since The Simpsons go big. They try to push buttons and make things nervous; They push for the absurd at all times. But in the process, they forget to focus on who the characters are and create stories that talk about where those characters are now and where they are going.
There are some interesting characters in this version of good times, particularly Gray and Junior. Yes, they insult each other like JJ and Thelma did in the original series. But Gray is smart and ambitious with simultaneous streaks of empathy and cunning. In fact, she is not much different from Marsai. blackish character Diane Johnson. In the second episode, we see that Junior, like JJ before him, is not stupid but is actually a pretty brilliant artist and his creativity rules his brain at all times.
In essence, the new good times suffers from the same problem as the original, the problem that led John Amos and Esther Rolle to leave the series (although Rolle was convinced to return): too much emphasis on the silly and absurd and not enough emphasis on the characters and stories . . What are Black families like the Evanses facing in the Chicago of 2024, and how can the strength of their family unit help them confront those issues? There is a way to do this that still has room for nonsense. There’s even a way to do this that still leaves room for a drug dealer baby (there’s less Dalvan in the second episode, which is a good sign, as he’s a character best taken in small doses, no pun intended ). We’re just not sure we’ll see any of that in the first season of this show.
Sex and skin: We see a lot of Reggie naked in the first episode. In the second episode, Reggie and Beverly have a two-minute round of lovemaking.
Parting Shot: Dalvan has decided to move upstairs (we’ll let you see how it happens). Reggie’s reaction is a reference to the original series, one of several callbacks in that first episode.
Sleeping star: If you listen closely, original cast members Jimmie Walker and Bern Nadette Stanis voice a couple of small roles in the first episode.
Most pilot line: Is there anything in this episode more shocking than a drug dealer baby? Probably not.
Our call: SKIP IT. There is real potential in the new animated version of good timesbut Shepard and his writers are too busy pushing the boundaries to realize that potential.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
