What’s Happening!! aired on ABC from August 5, 1976, to April 28, 1979, premiering as a summer series. With good ratings and reviews, and after the failure of several other series on the network, What’s Happening!! returned as a weekly series from November 1976 until its April 1979 conclusion; ratings were modest. What’s Happening!! was loosely based on the Eric Monte-penned film Cooley High.
Daddy Comes Marching Home
What’s Happening!! follows the lives of three working-class African-American teens living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. The show stars Ernest Thomas as Roger “Raj” Thomas, Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry as Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs. Co-starring are Danielle Spencer as Roger’s younger sister Dee; Mabel King as Roger and Dee’s mother Mabel; and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson, a waitress at Rob’s Place, the neighborhood restaurant where the boys are regular patrons. Recurring characters include Rob (Earl Billings), owner of Rob’s Place; and Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr), a sarcastic history teacher and the sponsor of the school newspaper.
During the second season, using the show’s first season success as leverage, Fred Berry demanded a higher salary and better studio accommodations for the actors. The accommodations issue eventually led to a full-fledged walkout by Berry and Thomas during the second-season episode “If I’m Elected” (leaving Haywood Nelson to carry the entire episode, with Shirley Hemphill stepping in to a much more featured role). The dispute was quickly settled, and both returned the following episode. In addition, Mabel King had a much-reduced role in the series during the second season, largely due to creative differences with the producers (she wanted the Roger and Dee characters to have married parents, rather than divorced). Her character, Mama, was not written out of the show, but rather limited to brief appearances on set (where she would say she was “leaving for work” or “going to the store”), or mentioned in passing by other characters as being “at work.”
Also, during the third season (1978-79), Berry again threatened to strike, not appearing in the third-season episode “Dee, the Cheerleader.” Thomas again joined Berry and threatened to strike, leading to a contentious meeting with the executive producers, who opted to cancel the series, rather than give a pay raise to the stars.
The Jeffersons broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, to July 2, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes. The Jeffersons is one of the longest-running sitcoms, the second-longest-running American series with a primarily African American cast (surpassed in 2012 by Tyler Perry’s House of Payne by one episode, though The Jeffersons ran for more seasons), and the first to prominently feature a married interracial couple.
The show focuses on George and Louise Jefferson, a prosperous African-American couple who have been able to move from Queens to Manhattan owing to the success of George’s dry-cleaning chain.
During the January 11, 1975 episode of All in the Family, titled “The Jeffersons Move Up”, Edith Bunker gave a tearful good-bye to her neighbor Louise Jefferson as her husband George, their son Lionel, and she moved from a working-class section of Queens, New York, into the luxurious Colby East, a fictitious high-rise apartment complex in Manhattan. The Jeffersons premiered the following week, on January 18, 1975.
George’s career as a dry-cleaner began in the first season of All in the Family in the third episode “Oh, My Aching Back” (though the character himself did not appear on-camera). After his car was rear-ended by a bus, he filed a civil action and won $3200, enough to open his first store in Queens. At the beginning of The Jeffersons, he was operating five stores throughout New York City, with another two opening during the following seasons.
Louise made friends with Tom and Helen Willis, an interracial couple with two adult children of their own (whom George derided as “zebras“): son Allan (played by Andrew Rubin in the first-season finale, and by Jay Hammer throughout season 5), a white-passing college drop-out; and daughter Jenny, an aspiring fashion designer. Jenny and Lionel became a couple, married on December 24, 1976, and later became the parents of a daughter, Jessica (played in later seasons by Ebonie Smith). Lionel and Jenny experienced marital issues, and filed for divorce in 1985, but remained friends.
George says why Tom and Helen don’t fight
Marla Gibbs portrayed the role of Florence Johnston, the Jeffersons’ back-talking, wisecracking, and devoutly religious housekeeper. Florence often teased George, mostly about his short stature and receding hairline. Paul Benedict arrived as Harry Bentley, a loyal, kind, friendly yet somewhat dimwitted British next-door neighbor,[8] who worked as an interpreter at the United Nations.
A common sight-gag of the show was George slamming the door in Bentley’s face mid-conversation. Bentley also had a bad back, and frequently needed George to walk on his back. He also became known for addressing the Jeffersons as “Mr. J” and “Mrs. J”. Zara Cully played George’s mother, Olivia “Mother” Jefferson, who constantly disparaged her daughter-in-law
The Jeffersons ended in controversy after CBS abruptly canceled the series without allowing for a proper series finale. The cast was not informed until after the July 2, 1985, episode “Red Robins”, and actor Sherman Hemsley said he learned that the show was canceled by reading it in the newspaper. Sanford, who heard about the cancellation through her cousin who read it in the tabloids, has publicly stated that she found the cancellation with no proper finale to be disrespectful on the network’s part. Per an article in the May 8, 1985, Los Angeles Times, the series was cancelled by announcement at the CBS network “upfront” presentation the day before, nearly two months before the airing of the final episode. (cont’d)