Good Times - The Complete First Season
What first comes to mind is super-skinny Jimmie Walker proclaiming  "Dyn-o-mite!" and waving his arms like a funky scarecrow in a whirlwind of 1970s  jive. But while Walker's James "J.J." Evans Junior became the most famous face  ofGood Times, the bedrock of the sitcom were the actors playing his  parents, Esther Rolle and John Amos as Florida and James Evans, two good-hearted  but fallible people struggling to raise their family amid the poverty of the  Chicago projects. Add to the mix boy-crazy daughter Thelma (Bernnadette Stanis),  preadolescent black activist Michael (Ralph Carter), and Florida's world-wise  best friend Willona (sassy Ja'net DuBois), and you've got one of the best comic  ensembles of the time. Modern politically correct sensibilities may wince a bit  at J.J.'s sometimes cartoonish antics, but what's far more striking about the  first season ofGood Timesis how frank the show was willing to be about  race, politics, class, religion, sexual double standards, and family  conflicts--considerably more direct and daring, in fact, than just about anything you'll  find on television today. The topics of shows range from the corruption of  television evangelism and white-centered history classes in school (Michael gets suspended for stating that George Washington owned slaves) to more typical sitcom themes like a  housekeeping contest or J.J.'s girlfriend troubles--but even the most  lightweight episodes tosses out a few acerbic (and genuinely funny) comments on  the difficulty of being black in America.--Bret Fetzer