A Favorite TV Show of the Past, "Good Times"

One of my favorite shows of the 1970s was "Good Times," produced by Norman Lear, who also did "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son," "Maude," and "The Jeffersons." "Good Times" was a comedy about a black family, the Evans family, of a husband and wife, 2 boys and 1 girl, living in the housing projects in Chicago. The show dealt with poverty and the struggles of the parents to make ends meet, as well as try to plan for their daughter's future college education. Much emphasis was put on education as a way to escape the almost hopelessness of life in the "ghetto." James, the husband, played by John Amos, works at a variety of low paying jobs, as he lacks education, something he wants his children to avoid. Teenage daughter Thelma, played by Bern Nadette Stanis, is a good student, and the proud parents have big expectations for her, as she does for herself, but a couple of boyfriends enter into her life, bringing her temperamental father to go ballistic! The youngest son, Michael, played by Ralph Carter, is also a good student, who aspires to become a Supreme Court justice, or is it the parents who want that FOR him? This issue was a theme of one episode. Then there's teenager James, Jr., better known as J.J., and the oldest child, played by Jimmie Walker, who has no apparent desire to go to college, and his poor grades and bad attitude toward school contrast with the other two kids, but the scripts dealing with this also became an issue in real life for John Amos and Esther Rolle (who played the wife and mother, Florida), as they felt the J.J. character, who quickly became the most popular on the show to many viewers, was sending the wrong message about education and responsibility, in general. Jimmie Walker quickly became known for shouting "dy-no-mite," an expression he used to dub himself, "Kid Dynomite," besides J.J.

Interestingly, in real life, Jimmie Walker was much older than his character in the show; in fact, he was not all that much younger than John Amos, who played his father in the series. On the other hand, Esther Rolle was much older than the "presumed" age of her character in the series.* If you think this all mattered, it didn't, as everything worked, and the show did well in the ratings for the first several seasons. The show's theme song also was a popular and catchy tune in those days, although trying to understand a couple of lines of the lyrics gave many people fits.

As I mentioned, the show often dealt with poverty, but usually in a comedic way, and in one episode, one of the family's neighbors is retired, but she is so short of money, she also supplements her diet with canned dog food. To help the lady out, the family invites her to dinner, as Florida has a large roasted chicken ready, but when the lady shows up, she tells the family that her pride will not allow her to accept dinner, without her providing the main dish ....... meat loaf! The family members each assume that the meat loaf is made with dog food, and in one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on television, they try to avoid eating. When neighbor and regular character, Willona, played by Ja'net Dubois,** shows up asking to join the family dinner, because she had burned her own dinner, the family members all jump up and try to give her their own seat, pulling and tugging at the poor woman, to the absolute delight and hysterical laughter of the audience (the shows were filmed in front of a studio audience). I can't even type these words without laughing, as I recall that scene. As I mentioned, there were serious scenes during the series too, including about gang involvement by J.J. and later by Michael, and also an episode about James reuniting with his father, whom he hadn't seen since the father had left when James was just a kid.

If you've never seen this show, or if you haven't seen it for a while, check it out, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll be singing, "Ain't we lucky we got 'em .... Good Times!"

* To my recollection Florida's age is never mentioned in the series, but James' age of 40 is mentioned as part of his trouble in getting a job he sought. Using that age, coupled with references to James and Florida having attended school and school dances at the same time, makes me say Florida's "presumed" age.

** A semi-regular cast member was Johnny Brown, who played the apartment building superintendent, Nathan Bookman, and who was often referred to as "Buffalo Butt" by the residents. Prior to "Good Times," Johnny Brown had been on NBC's "Laugh-In," a highly popular weekly comedy for its first few years.

Photo is from the 2003 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD. (All seasons are available on DVD)

WORD HISTORY:
Bed-This common word goes back to Indo European "bhedh, which had the idea of "to stick (pierce);" thus also, "to dig  ("piercing the ground)." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "bathjam," meaning "plot of land for planting, garden," but with the further meaning, "dug out area for animals to sleep," then also the idea of "sleeping place" in general. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bed," with the meanings "planting area" and "sleeping place." The spelling later varied between "bed" and "bed," before the latter winning out. The verb was derived from the noun in the 1200s or 1300s, initially with the meaning, "to give someone a place to sleep," but it didn't take long to add the meaning, "go to bed for the purpose of sex," the main meaning of the verb form in modern times. The other Germanic languages have: German "Bett" (bed) and "Beet," pronounced as if "bait" (plant bed),^ Low German Saxon also has "Bett" (meaning both bed and planting area,^^ West Frisian "bêd," Dutch "bed," Swedish "bädd" (bed, foundation), The other Germanic languages have words that are now essentially out of use.

^ Both words are really the same word, but eventually, from what I can tell in the 1600s, "Beet" emerged as a variant of "Bett" to become the word for "plant bed." While I'm far from certain of this, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that "beet" (the root vegetable, also called "beetroot" by some) and "bed" are related, as beets are "dug out of the ground." If they are related, it would be distantly, as long ago Germanic borrowed the word for the root vegetable from Latin, which may have borrowed a form of the word from Celtic. To be honest, many sources say Latin likely borrowed the term from Celtic, but they sure don't give evidence of this.

^^  Some low dialects seem to use "Bedd," and perhaps even "Bad", as I "believe" the spelling "Bett" was taken from standard German, which is based more on the high Germanic/German dialects. Low Saxon used "Bedde" up until a few centuries ago, as far as I can find, so the "Bett" spelling seems to indeed be borrowed from what is now standard German.