Television series

Good Times

Name: Good Times
Genre: Comedy, Family
Released: 1974
Cast: BernNadette Stanis, Ralph Carter, Jimmie Walker, Ja'net DuBois, Esther Rolle

Florida and James Evans raise three kids in a Chicago housing project, and the show made history as the first sitcom built around an intact Black family. It swings between J.J.'s clowning and blunt confrontations with unemployment, racism and poverty — sometimes in the same episode. Uneven by design, but genuinely groundbreaking, and still funnier and angrier than its reputation suggests.

TVMaze rating

7.4

If you liked this

All in the Family1971

The Norman Lear series that started it all — same unflinching mix of comedy and social confrontation, watching one loud household argue about everything Good Times' writers were fighting to say elsewhere.

But Archie Bunker's slurs land harder now than the intended irony; some episodes feel like uncomfortable relics.

Sanford and Son1972

Lear-produced, working-class, same economic anxieties played for laughs — Redd Foxx's grouchy junkman is one of the great comic performances of the era.

But It's more a showcase for one performer than an ensemble family drama, with less of Good Times' social bite.

The Jeffersons1975

Spun off from All in the Family, this follows a Black family climbing the economic ladder — a glossy class mirror to the Evans family's daily struggle, same era, same network.

But Broader and slicker comedy that loses some of Good Times' rawness about actually being broke.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Raisin in the Sun1961

Same South Side Chicago setting and the same deferred-dream question the Evans family lived with daily, but told fourteen years earlier as unflinching drama instead of comedy.

Sidney Poitier stars in this adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's play, about a Black family on Chicago's South Side arguing over an insurance check and a dream of a better house.

But It's a stage play on film — talky, unhurried, a very different pace from a half-hour sitcom.

The Cosby Show1984

A decade later, same networks, asking what a Black sitcom family looks like with money and stability instead of scarcity — a fascinating contrast to sit next to Good Times.

But Hard to watch now without Bill Cosby's crimes casting a shadow over every warm family scene.

Roc1991no page yet

A working-class Black family in Baltimore, unusually willing to end episodes without a joke — the closest thing TV made to a spiritual successor to Good Times' seriousness.

But Short-lived and some seasons were performed live, which changes the rhythm; harder to track down now.

Everybody Hates Chris2005

Chris Rock narrates his own working-class Brooklyn childhood, same hustle-for-rent energy and a scene-stealing sibling dynamic, funnier and gentler but the same DNA.

But Nostalgia-soft 80s setting means less direct confrontation with poverty than Good Times ever allowed itself.

One Day at a Time2017

Lear's legacy continues here, centered on a Cuban-American single mother — same formula of jokes wrapped tight around real hardship, addiction and identity.

But The multi-camera, studio-audience format feels old-fashioned next to modern single-camera comedy.

black-ish2014

The modern heir to the family-sitcom-with-something-to-say tradition, tracking a Black family debating identity and class from a very different economic position than the Evanses.

But A far more affluent setting means less is genuinely at stake episode to episode.

2271985no page yet

Set in a Washington D.C. apartment building, working- and middle-class Black neighbors gossip and clash — the closest thing to Good Times' stoop-and-hallway ensemble energy from the next decade.

But Leans more on broad jokes and less on the economic desperation that defined Good Times.

Maude1972

Florida Evans first appeared as Maude's maid — Good Times is literally a spinoff, born by flipping the household's race and class position from employer to tenant.

Watch the show Good Times actually grew out of — a loud, unapologetically political white feminist sitcom that gave Esther Rolle her start before Florida ever got her own house.

But Maude herself is abrasive by design; some viewers find her far more grating than Good Times' Florida ever was.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth2012no page yet

Good Times fictionalized life in a housing project for comedy; this documents the real policy failure and demolition of one — same setting, opposite register.

A documentary about the real Black housing project in St. Louis whose collapse reshaped how America built and imagined public housing — the true, unsentimental version of the world Good Times joked its way through.

But It's grim, factual, and completely humourless; nothing here is played for a laugh.