BerNadette Stanis shares her thoughts on the new animated “Good Times” series.
In a recent interview, the actress, who played Thelma in the 1970s classic, stated that her co-star Jimmie Walker came up with the idea to remake the show as an animated series which the original cast, (without Esther Rolle who passed away in 1998).
After not hearing anything about it, she learned that Netflix’s version would happen years later. Neither she nor Walker were offered a small part in the new series. “It looked like we were still in the projects. And the things that were said, it wasn’t quite what I know Esther Rolle would agree to,” Stanis said.
She continued, “I’m a bit disappointed because it really was not a reflection of ‘Good Times’ that we know. So when you see something that actually is not progressive, it brings you back into the projects two generations later?”
Stanis also wondered about what happened to the baby Thelma had in the original series as well as her dreams of being a surgeon and JJ’s dreams of being an artist. “You have positive images generations before that and then all of a sudden you see this? I’m not knocking it because I don’t know what the whole show is going to be. Maybe they’ll lean it back to a more positive situation, but when you have the name ‘Good Times’ on top of that, our audience for 50 years have been in our corner. They’ve always supported us, so they were disappointed that they didn’t have it more progressive.”
She went on to say that when she asked late producer Norman Lear about the series, he had no idea what she was talking about.