People Want Netflix To Cancel ‘Good Times’ Animated Reboot

Netflix premiered their animated reboot of Good Times on April 12. Unfortunately, before the premiere, the trailer was met with some backlash. The streaming platform even turned off comments on its YouTube trailer. Many people took issue with the offensive stereotypes portrayed throughout the show. Well, now that the show is out, some people put together a Change.org, demanding to cancel the animated reboot.

According to Deadline, the late Norman Lear’s Act III Productions, Steph Curry’s Unanimous Media, Seth MacFarlane's Fuzzy Door, and Sony Pictures Television developed the project, with Ranada Shepard serving as executive producer and showrunner.

The animated Good Times series finds the latest generation of the Evans family, cab driver Reggie (J.B. Smoove) and his wife, the ever-aspirational Beverly (Nicole Brown), scratching and surviving in one of the last remaining housing projects in Chicago along with their teenage artist son, Junior (Jay Pharoah), activist daughter Grey (Marsai Martin), and drug dealing infant son, Dalvin (Gerald "Slink" Johnson).

About 50 years ago, Good Times premiered on CBS. The series, starring Esther Rolle, John Amos, Jimmie Walker, Bern Nadette Stanis, Ralph Carter, and Ja'Net DuBois, was set in 1970s Chicago in the public housing projects in a poor Black neighborhood. The spinoff of Maude was the first series to feature a two-parent Black family on television, was created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans, and developed by the late TV legend Lear. Maude was a spin-off of the show All In The Family.

For many, the sitcom was a historic moment for the representation of a Black family on screen, featuring the Evanses trying to keep "their head above water" and "making a wave" when they can, as sung in the iconic theme song of the show.

Some people feel that the reboot follows stereotypical Black tropes as opposed to the original show that resonated with the Black community of that time. It stood out for its realistic portrayal of a working-class Black family facing everyday challenges. Maybe the creators would’ve been better off detaching Good Times from their show and creating an entirely new one.

Someone wrote on X that the show "feels like it resulted from an AI search of 'stereotypical Black s---.' I could only get through two episodes — time I can never get back."

Another person pointed out that the portrayal of the Evans family’s youngest child, drug-dealing baby Dalvin was offensive. "I just realized the drug dealing baby on that new 'Good Times' monstrosity is supposed to be Michael. Michael of all people. The pro black militant, smart, headstrong, died for his beliefs and his community Michael Evans???," they said on X.

Many people shared their thoughts on a Reddit thread dedicated to the show. "I hate it, the original was uplifting and about the struggle the black families faced. This just plays into every stereotype they can," someone said. Another person pointed out the vulgarity of the show saying, "I found it strange that they blurred out the nudity, beeped out the N-word but kept in the f-word." Some people compared it to the 1992 movie Bebe's Kids and Eddie Murphy's 1999 The PJ's series, which some people said didn’t remotely compare to what Netflix tried to do.

There's a Change.org petition to stop the series from airing. It was created on March 27, ahead of the show's run, but many people weren't aware of it. In fact, there are multiple Change.org positions to end the show. One has over 2,200 signatures, and the other has almost 5,000 signatures.