On this day in comedy on August 1, 1979 CBS aired series finale of Good Times, “The End of the Rainbow”.
It was in season six, episode 21. Directed by Gerren Keith and written by Michael G. Moye & Jacqueline Henken, this farewell installment tells the last story of the long suffering yet happy-to-be-alive Evans family. James (John Amos) is long dead and Florida (Esther Rolle) has shattered the punch bowl and uttered the immortal “Damn, damn, damn” and now it’s time for some seemingly “real” good times to visit their tenement dwelling.
For once it seems everybody is working. Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis) has a husband named Keith (Ben Powers) who gets a football contract. Meanwhile JJ (Jimmie Walker) has created a comic book character based on Thelma called Dyno-Woman. They love it and now JJ has a steady job. Wilona (Ja’net Dubois) gets employment paying good money and so she moves on up with Little Penny (Janet Jackson) in tow. Michael (Ralph Carter) is in college so he’s not working and neither is Thelma, but that’s because she’s pregnant, not lazy. As a matter of fact, they insist that Florida move in with them 9to help with the new baby of course which is just what a woman of Florida’s age needed after raising three children of her own). Yet the real co-incidence occurs when it turns out Wilona and Thelma’s family all moved into the same building (and never bragged about it to each other). And they all lived happily ever after in syndication.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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