“Good Times..ain’t we lucky we got ‘em?” Again!
Norman Lear’s beloved sitcom from the 1970s gets an animated sequel this week as a re-imagined version of Good Times premieres on Netflix. The show, which is created by Ranada Shepard (Born Again Virgin, Young Love) and Carl Jones (The Boondocks, Black Dynamite) and exec produced by Shepard, Jones, Lear, Seth MacFarlane and Stephen Curry, follows the irreverent adventures of a new generation of the Evans family as they try to face the challenges of life in a Chicago housing project. The voice cast includes J.B. Smoove, Yvette Nicole Brown, Marsai Martin, Wanda Sykes, Jay Pharoah and Luis Bermudez.
We recently had the chance to chat with talented writer-exec producer Shepard to learn more about this high-profile new adult animated show:
Animation Magazine: Congrats on the debut of your new show on Netflix today! Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with this new take on Norman Lear’s highly influential and beloved sitcom, which originally ran from 1974 to 1979?
Ranada Shepard: Well, we started working on the show about three years ago. Last night, we had our first screening and it was the first time the cast and crew were together for the first time. It felt like we were finally sharing our baby with the world. It felt great to hear how proud the actors were to play these characters.
How did it all start?
Well, I was running the room on the series Young Love, and Sony called, and they told me they have this animated project and they wanted my take on it. Well, it was Sony, Norman Lear, Seth MacFarlane and Stephen Curry … no need to say anything more!
At the time, did you have any hesitations about the enormity of the task since it was an animated take on such a huge pop culture favorite?
My first feeling was big excitement, and the second came from a place of love, because I just love the original. The third was asking myself, “Why would anybody be animating this?” Because if I couldn’t figure out in my mind why this show should be animated, then how could I lead the room. Luckily, there were a lot of good answers that came to mind. Being a native of Chicago myself, I had an understanding of how the tearing down of the Cabrini-Green and the other buildings impacted the city.
It was also about telling the truth about the experiences of people that never got told. In the original series, there was no threat of gentrification; it just wasn’t in our zeitgeist at the time. We wanted to think of common experiences of the original series: One was that Florida often spoke to God, and she would often have responses that she heard but we didn’t hear. God told her to be calm and rest assured because things were going to be OK … but we have this notion that sometimes God is used as a genie, and maybe God just says, “I just turned your power on three days ago, now you want me to fix your car? I got a lot to do up here.” We are only able to do that through animation.
But they are also living in a building that no longer exists. We have to understand that this is the fourth generation of a family that’s being raised in the original unit, No. 17 C. We were only going to be able to do that through animation. It also plays in spaces that push the boundaries more than a regular sitcom would allow. This isn’t just animation: It’s adult animation, and that’s interesting to go from a sweet sitcom that presents a problem and wraps it up at the end of the episode.
Adult animation asks you to go hard with jokes, social commentary, narratives and characters and push the boundaries in every way possible. But you have to also do it with such sensitive content and do it with Black people that I’m very conscious and aware of. I want to protect my people. I just don’t want to just throw us out there without carefully handling it: So the goal was to do animation in a very kind, careful, yet jarring and edgy, funny way. Norman Lear still wanted traditional stories. That was a big issue when I came here — like, Ranada can you provide us with the edginess, this realness, this loud comedy, with this traditional story about this family that garners empathy and compassion. That was the task and I think our team exceeded all expectations. I am so proud of the writers that pushed boundaries on this project and allowed our characters to work with something special.
How tough was it to balance all the different elements of the show and balancing these expectations that everyone would have from such an important legacy?
I think it’s always tough to make sure you say something that hits and still remains funny. I remember in one episode of the original Good Times, Jay Leno was the guest. It was about venereal disease, and you got the statistics and who gets it and how you handle it in “a very special episode.” (I was actually born the year the show ended, but it stayed on in our house. There was no cable TV in our household. That was a luxury and we didn’t have that. I have three brothers, so there were six people that needed to be fed.) So I think the biggest challenge was to be really saying something that impacts people to think differently about the situation that this family’s in and continue to stay funny and relevant.
You mentioned watching Good Times in reruns. What were some of the other shows that made a big impact on you when you were growing up?
We have to start with Norman Lear. Any show that brings the conversation to the living room is my kind of show. Other shows? I will never forget the day Cherie got locked in the refrigerator on Punky Brewster! I wanted to be her friend. I also wanted to be one of Rudy’s friends on The Cosby Show. I wanted to get inside that TV box. Having three brothers, we watched cartoons non-stop on Saturday and Sunday mornings. From Tom and Jerry cartoons to The Muppet Babies, our lives were centered on what was on TV. We didn’t have a VCR — even if we did, our parents weren’t wasting VHS tapes on our shows. After school, it was Charles in Charge or afterschool specials. I remember doing homework to those shows.
Now, what do you love about your show’s animation and visuals?
Oh, the animation is so much fun: When you are writing for a live-action show, you got to figure out how to get the person out of the room. Both in animation, you can create a portal or whatever. You can do whatever you want to do, right? Once your board artist and animators fall in love with the show, every day is like Christmas. You open up your email and you get this visual of what you wrote — that just blows your mind. You don’t know how somebody is going to see your words and visual them in animation. That was the big gift. The angles they chose to draw, how they chose to draw from how they interpret a food fight scene and turn it into an anime sequence, that ended up being one of my favorite scenes. Studio Moshi and Six Point Harness did a fantastic job with the animation.
What were some of the first reactions to the show?
We had a lot of varying opinions, from “That was just so good” and “That was so funny and relevant!” That animation is beautiful, the texture and the colors.” We have these real wood textures on the floor, for example. Our animation supervisor/director Tyree Dillihay did such a fantastic job. I had one woman pull me aside and thank you for an episode that addressed PTSD. She said my fellow veterans don’t even want to talk about it, so thanks for being brave enough to include these important issues.
What is your reaction to purists who don’t believe you should really touch a cultural milestone like Good Times?
You know, I get it, right? There are some things that we hold true in our hearts and we love what we love. In my mind, things tasted a certain way that they don’t necessarily taste right now. We wish we could all stay in that sweet spot when life was perfect for us. There’s nothing wrong with that. I like that people can voice their opinions about things. I love that we’re pushing people into an uncomfortable situation because it’s about change. This is an adult animation reimagining of the sitcom which delivers the entire story in different ways. I think it’s normal to be put off by it a little bit. But there are rules about adult animation and you have to stick by those rules.
But let’s be real. We don’t have a Black family in adult animation right now. We’ve been watching Family Guy and American Dad! My own kids never miss an episode, They watch all of them two or three times. I am so excited to be able to give people that type of animation and storytelling about a Black family. Having Seth MacFarlane and the amazing Norman Lear involved was a real gift. He was giving me notes. Not only that, he is actually voicing a character in Episode 8. It was a very sweet moment to have him in the booth. What a gift!
What do you hope audiences will take away from this labor of love?
My hope is that the audiences will look at life a bit differently after watching the show. News and media impact the way Black families are understood and interpreted all around society. I hope this family impacts the way we see ourselves, but also how others see us as well. I hear a lot of commentary that people say they don’t laugh anymore when they watch shows. My hope is that the audience laughs and that they fall in love with this family just the way I am in love with them.
The first season (10 half-hour episodes) of the animated Good Times is currently streaming on Netflix.
