What's Happening!!

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What's Happening

What's Happening!! opening titles from the show's third season
Genre Sitcom
Creator(s) Eric Monte
Starring Ernest Lee Thomas
Haywood Nelson
Fred Berry
Danielle Spencer
Mabel King (Season 1-2)
Shirley Hemphill (Season 2+)
David Hollander (Season 3)
John Welsh (Season 3)
and Earl Billings as Rob
Opening theme Henry Mancini
Country of origin Flag of United States United States
No. of episodes 65
Production
Executive producer(s) Bernie Orenstein
Saul Turteltaub
Bud Yorkin
Running time 30 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run August 5, 1976 – April 28, 1979
Links
IMDb profile

What's Happening!! was an American sitcom that ran on ABC from August 5, 1976 to April 28, 1979. Originally meant to be a summer series, it premiered in August, ran four episodes, and was brought back that November as a weekly series. It was suggested by an American International Picture Cooley High written by Eric Monte.


Contents

[edit] Premise

What's Happening!! dealt with the antics of three working class African-American teens living in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Ernest Thomas played Roger "Raj" Thomas, Haywood Nelson played Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry played Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs. Also featured were Danielle Spencer as Roger's younger sister, Dee; Mabel King as Roger and Dee's mother, Mabel; and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson, the waitress at "Rob's Place", the boys' favorite restaurant. Other recurring characters included Diane Harris (Debbi Morgan), an attractive girl whom the boys liked; Rob (Earl Billings), who was the owner of Rob's Place; and Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr), the boys' sarcastic history teacher and the sponsor of the school newspaper of which Roger was the editor.

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 of the episodes revolved around the travails of the three young men that most American youngsters of any race could relate to, such as the need to find a date for the dance. Other schemes involved getting back at Roger's sister Dee, who was a caustic, bratty busybody.

[edit] Major characters

Roger "Raj" Thomas (Ernest Thomas), the show's protagonist, is a black teenager living in a house in Watts with his divorced mother Mabel and his younger sister Dee. Raj is an intelligent, well-mannered, young man who sports large, black horn-rimmed glasses and has aspirations of becoming a writer. Many episodes find Raj taking steps to pursue his dream, such as saving up for a screenwriting course or a typewriter. The show begins while he is still in high school; he later graduates as valedictorian, moves out of his house, and attends college.

Frederick (Freddie) "Rerun" Stubbs (Fred Berry) is an overweight, bumbling, comedic young man, commonly seen wearing a red beret and matching suspenders. He is often teased by his friends for being overweight and unintelligent. Rerun is a very skilled dancer and is commonly seen entering dance contests or trying to get on TV commercials. He is nicknamed "Rerun" because, due to his failures in school, "every summer he has to go to school to rerun the stuff he did all winter." (Ironically, the character of Rerun was originally intended to be a skinny white teenager.)

Dwayne Clemens Nelson (Haywood Nelson) is the youngest member of the group. He is well known for his greeting, "Hey, Hey, Hey". Dwayne has an unassuming, good-natured demeanor and suffers from debilitating shyness and acute Nyctophobia (fear of the dark). While Rerun attempts to enter dance contests and Roger aggressively pursues his dream of becoming a famous writer, Dwayne's plotlines often deal with his problems with girls and bullies.

Mabel Thomas (Mabel King) is Raj's 'large and in charge' mother. She is typically the voice of wisdom, and the parental authority over the main cast. Her role became less important in later episodes, until eventually she disappeared from the show (though her character was never written out and still mentioned off-screen).

Dee Thomas (Danielle Spencer) is Raj's younger sibling. She personifies the typical 'annoying little sister'. Dee is obsessed with making money, usually by blackmailing her brother and his friends a quarter at a time. She is also shrewd, and difficult to keep secrets from. Her trademark phrase is "Ooh, I'm tellin' Mama!" Her favorite food is peanut butter.

Shirley Wilson (Shirley Hemphill) is a portly waitress at the local restaurant, "Rob's Place", where the main cast is constantly eating. She is a brash person who likes to take shots at the boys, and most often clashes with Rerun (with whom she exchanges fat jokes, both characters being overweight).

[edit] Minor characters

Bill Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) is Mabel's ex-husband and the father of Roger and Dee. He divorced Mabel, ran out on his family, and became a shady sort of character. When he first appears he tries to con Mabel out of money. Later episodes in which he appears depict him in a more positive light and culminate with his remarriage. After his remarriage, Bill was not seen on the show although he is mentioned.

Big Earl Barnett is a detective who lives in the apartment building Raj and Rerun move into and was introduced in the third and final season.

Little Earl Barnett is the son of Big Earl. Little Earl has a huge crush on Dee (who is about five years older than he is).

Rob is the owner of Rob's Place.

The Snake was a basketball player whom Roger tutored. He eventually became a friend of Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun.

Miss Collins was a high school teacher. She admired Roger, while Rerun had trouble getting along with her.

Marvin was a schoolmate of Roger, Dwayne and Rerun at their high school. He was a reporter for the high school newspaper and was sometimes seen at Rob's Place.

[edit] The third season

The third season marked changes for the show. Roger and Rerun moved into their own apartment. Mabel King left the show, but the character of Mabel Thomas was not written out. Instead it was said that Mama was working or not around. To take the place of an adult presence in the house for Dee, Shirley would move into the Thomas household as a boarder. Several new recurring characters were introduced. The first was a basketball player whom Roger tutored nicknamed "The Snake" (played by Leland Smith). The other characters were Caucasian detective "Big Earl" Barnett (played by John Welsh) and his son "Little Earl" Barnett (played by David Hollander) who were neighbors in the apartment building where Roger and Rerun lived.

During The 1978-79 season, which was the third and final season of the teen comedy program, Fred Berry caused problems on the show, and allowed Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson to join him in the strike, The Executive Producers of the show had enough with The three co-stars conflicts, and closed the show in April 1979, the reason for this was that the three actors demanded more money, and constantly walked out during rehearsals, and What's Happening!! aired its last episode on April 28, 1979, A Year Later, in 1980, Hemphill starred in her very own short-lived sitcom, One In a Millon, the short-lived program preimered in January 1980, and ended on July 23, 1980, after being on The ABC for a few months. Six Years Later, In 1985, a Revival named What's Happening Now!! preimered in syndication, the show aired from 1985 until 1988, lasting only three seasons.

In The Sequel of "What's Happening!!", Raj became a struggling writer, co-owner of the Hangout, Rob's Place (with partner, Shirley (played by Shirley Hemphill) and married a girl named, Nadine Hudson (played by Anne-Marie Johnson), Raj and Nadine became foster parents to a 9-Year old girl named, Carolyn (played by Reina King, real-life sister of Regina), Rerun became a used car-salesman, and Dwayne became a Computer clerk, and Dee was off to College, Fred Berry caused problems in the new version of the series, and was dropped from the show's cast and was written out, alongside with, Reina King, who disappeared after the 1985-86 season. in the 1987-88 season, a Young Martin Lawrence came onto the show as a brand new character, Teenager, Maurice, who worked as an assistant in Rob's Place, and Ken Sagoes his friend, Darryl. the series ended in 1988.

[edit] Success and What's Happening Now!!

The show was a modest success in its network run despite some serious production problems, and the repeats of the show's 65 episodes did considerably well in syndication. 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.

[edit] DVD Releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released all 3 Seasons of What's Happening!! on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time.

Cover Art DVD Name Ep # Release Date
The Complete 1st Season 21 February 3, 2004
The Complete 2nd Season 22 October 5, 2004
The Complete 3rd Season 22 August 23, 2005

[edit] Trivia

  • The character of Roger Thomas was specifically written as wearing glasses. However, Ernest Thomas, the actor who portrayed the character, has 20/20 vision. In the series' early episodes, it's clear that the "glasses" he is wearing are actually just empty frames with no lenses in them. Eventually, the show moved to using actual glass lenses that had no prescription, so the light reflection can be seen from the lenses.
  • Tim Pelt, the stepfather of Danielle Spencer, appeared in the first season episode "My Three Tons". In 1977, he was killed in a car accident that also seriously injured Spencer.
  • In the 5th season episode of Family Guy, Stewie Loves Lois, Peter is featured doing the "Rerun Dance". Also, in the episode, "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", Peter asks Stewie (who is trapped on Disneyland's "It's A Tiny World" ride), "Why are you dressed like Rerun?"
  • On the new series Big Day, a couple plans to get married to the theme of What's Happening!!.
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • On the show Scrubs, John Dorian mentions in one episode that whenever he see's two women he has been intimate with talking to each other, he imagines them doing the Rerun Dance. In that same episode, J.D. has a fantasy that Turk's bachelor party would have consisted of a large group of friends doing the Rerun Dance.

[edit] Cultural References

The 2004 song Biscuits by Ghostface Killa references What's Happening, when Ghostface refers to his pistol as "Big Shirley"

Don't move, turn around!
Act like James Brown
And get down!
Get slapped with the put down
Wasn't you the same clown
Uptown, yappin'?
I keep big Shirley on my side,
So What's Happenin'?

[edit] External links

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