"Just looking out of the window, watching the asphalt grow, thinking how it all looks hand-me-down..." - "Good Times" Theme
Good Times: The Complete Fourth Season DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Good Times never quite measured up to the other classic '70s sitcoms produced by Norman Lear. The Jeffersons was funnier. All in the Family had sharper characters and was better able to integrate social issues into its plotlines. In its early seasons, Good Times did have one thing going for it: the series' cast was able to effectively portray the close-knit Evans family as it struggled to survive under tough circumstances. In the series' fourth season, even that selling point becomes lost.
The best moments of the series' initial seasons depicted the realistic, loving relationship between Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) and her husband James (John Amos, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) as they raised their three children, J.J. (Jimmie Walker), Thelma (Bernnadette Stanis), and Michael (Ralph Carter). Rolle and Amos apparently thought so, too. They complained loudly to the press and to the show's producers when the focus of the series began to shift from presenting a positive image of a black family to simply detailing the buffoonish actions of breakout character J.J. In response, the producers agreed to make a change, but not one that Rolle and Amos could have anticipated. After the end of the third season, Amos was fired.
As season four begins, the Evans family prepares to join James in Mississippi where he has scored a steady job. Their happiness is short-lived, however, when they receive a telegram informing the family that James has been killed in a car accident. Any subject can be mined for humor, including death, but the Good Times creative team had difficulties making even sure-fire plotlines funny, so it should come as no surprise that the episodes dealing with James' death are graceless.
Rolle and Amos' protests also backfired in another way. J.J. becomes the nominal "man of the family," throwing an even greater spotlight on his moronic behavior. Rolle and Amos were concerned about creating positive role models, but after James' death, several episodes in season four center on J.J. becoming involved in shady activities to "help" his family - running numbers, borrowing from a loan shark, etc. Sometimes he does take positive steps toward becoming a responsible adult. In "J.J. in Business," J.J. and his pals start a greeting card business. They are enthusiastic about their new venture and are determined to make it a success, but run into problems when a large order by a discount store chain proves to be too big. Without more capital, they cannot fulfill the order. J.J. sets out to get a business loan, but encounters a bureaucracy that seems determined to ensure his failure.
"J.J. in Business" starts off positively, but becomes sickeningly racist by the end. The writers try to play both sides of the issue. Off screen, J.J. visits and is turned down by four banks, and the implication is that the white-run establishments unfairly discriminate against black applicants. His final stop is a government-sponsored small business agency where he encounters Designing Women's Alice Ghostley as a counselor. She agrees to give him a government sponsored grant, but it will take six months for J.J. to get the money. Thanks to government ineptitude, J.J.'s business is forced to close - just another sign of his race's oppression. But that's only part of the story. J.J.'s behavior in his meeting with Ghostley is so half witted and borderline retarded that the writers seem to be implying that he doesn't deserve to succeed. This scene is truly repulsive, and it surely isn't representative of what Rolle and Amos were fighting for.
Obviously aware of the vacuum created by Amos' firing, the creative team introduces another father figure during the final third of the season. Moses Gunn (Little House on the Prairie) joins the cast as appliance repair shop owner Carl Dixon. By the end of the season, Carl has proposed to a delighted Florida. Gunn is a fine actor, but it is rather disconcerting that Florida would practically forget about her deceased husband less than six months after the accident that took his life. It seems undignified, especially when the actors, at least, had treated their characters with an abundance of dignity. Oh well. Perhaps we should just be happy that the writers had the decency to kill off James rather than have him simply abandon his family. That ignoble fate would be saved for Florida when Rolle decided not to return for the show's fifth season.
The twenty-four episodes that make up the fourth season are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in a digipak that slides into a cardboard sleeve. Overall, the packaging is similar to the previous Good Times releases, this time with a green color scheme. An episode guide and a brochure touting other Sony releases are housed in a folder panel of the digipak.
The main DVD menus spotlight Ernie Barnes' iconic artwork which is featured in the series. Viewers can play all episodes or choose an individual one. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes are divided into chapters.
