Between Showers

What’s Happening

What’s Happening!! is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from August 5, 1976 to April 28, 1979. The show premiered in August 1976 as a summer series. With good ratings and reviews and, after the failure of several other shows on the network, What’s Happening!! returned in November 1976 as a weekly series. It remained a regular show until 1979; ratings were modest. What’s Happening!! was loosely based on the motion picture Cooley High also written by Eric Monte.

What’s Happening Opening Theme Season One 1976:

Joint scenes featured Ernest Thomas (Raj), Haywood Nelson (Dwayne), and Fred Berry (Rerun) taking turns dribbling a basketball down a sidewalk. Individual scenes introduced each character; Raj appearing on front porch, enjoying the temperature and throwing his jacket back inside the house, and Dwayne skateboarding off his driveway, then falls as he reaches the sidewalk, but breaks into laughter. Raj and Dwayne then meet up in front of Rerun’s house, who appears on a balcony eating. Later, the three hitchhike a ride from a pickup truck on a street corner; unbeknownst to Rerun (who was looking in the other direction), the truck stops long enough for Raj and Dwayne to hop onboard. When Rerun realizes this, he starts to run after the truck, with no success. Mabel King (Mabel) and Danielle Spencer (Dee) are named but not shown.

What’s Happening!! follows the lives of three working-class African-American teens living in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The show stars Ernest Thomas as Roger “Raj” Thomas, Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry as Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs. Co-starring are Danielle Spencer as Roger’s little sister, Dee; Mabel King as Roger and Dee’s mother, Mabel; and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson, a waitress at “Rob’s Place”, the boys’ favorite restaurant. Recurring characters include Rob (Earl Billings), owner of Rob’s Place; and Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr), a sarcastic history teacher and the sponsor of the school newspaper.

Unlike Good Times, a contemporary show that also had African-American cast, What’s Happening!! only rarely and mildly ventured into social commentary. TV Guide once famously referred to What’s Happening!! as “a look at urban black life that manages to capture the offensiveness of Amos and Andy while avoiding that program’s fun.” Most episodes focused on the goals of teenage males — meeting girls, finding after school jobs, and planning for the future. Episodes sometimes featured subplots involving Mrs. Thomas, Raj’s bratty sister Dee, or waitress Shirley.

What’s Happenin’ Now!

The show was a modest success in its network run, despite some serious production problems. Many black sitcoms as well as other sitcoms do not achieve the super ratings during their first run, The Cosby Show being an exception. But repeats of the show’s 65 episodes did considerably well in syndication. In some markets, the show was perceived to appeal to both children and adults in a similar way that shows like The Brady Bunch and Happy Days did. The show was often aired in transitional hours where stations would go from the cartoons to the evening sitcoms. In a few markets the show actually had far higher ratings in syndication than during the network run. With this in mind, a revival of the show was produced entitled What’s Happening Now!!. It ran from 1985 to 1988 in first-run syndication.

In the sequel to What’s Happening!!, Raj was a struggling writer who became co-owner of the old hangout, Rob’s Place (with partner, Shirley (played by Shirley Hemphill). He married a girl named Nadine Hudson (played by Anne-Marie Johnson). Raj and Nadine became foster parents to a 9-year old girl, Carolyn (played by Reina King, real-life sister of Regina), Rerun became a used car-salesman, Dwayne became a computer clerk, and Dee was off to college, although she still made appearances from time to time. Actor Fred Berry caused problems in the new version of the series, was dropped from the cast and was written out, along with Reina King, who disappeared after the 1985-86 season. In the 1987-88 season, Martin Lawrence came onto the show as a brand-new character, teenager Maurice, who worked as an assistant in Rob’s Place. Maurice’s friend Darryl (Ken Sagoes) was another new character. The series ended in 1988.