Some may not know this, but Good Times was a spin-off of Maude, which was a spin-off of All In The Family. Florida Evans was Maude’s maid, and during the show, we were introduced to her husband.
Now the same actor plays Florida’s husband on both Maude and Good Times. However, his name changes between shows. On Maude, his name is Henry Evans. On Good Times, it’s James Evans. John Amos plays both characters
Anyone have a reason why they would change Florida’s husbands name?
To set up the character as the father of James, Jr…aka JJ, which works better than HJ for comedic purposes.
For that matter did they explain why Florida and her husband moved from NYC to Chicago? Especially considered they moved into the infamous Cabrini projects, and James could never seem to keep a job?
Another mystery is what happened to Carl, Florida’s second husband. They went off together to Arizona, leaving the children behind on their own. A year later, Florida came back and nobody asked what happened to Carl.
Makes you a lot more suspicious about why the family had to move to Chicago and Henry had to change his name. And how do we really know he died in that car accident?
Okay, the answers are due to Esther Rolle. She wasn’t happy with the show so she asked to be written out. The writers had her essentially abandon her children as a little payback. The ratings declined (the show was getting old by this point) and Rolle and the producers agreed to her comeback. But one of her conditions was that she had thought the marriage story was a stupid idea so she insisted the writers treat it as if it had never happened.
I seem to remember that Carl was diagnosed with cancer and had to move to Arizona for the weather(?). Florida decided to go with him to take care of him. When she returned I thought it was explained that it was because he had finally passed away.
Esther Rolle left for the exact same reason John Amos quit. The show started out as a dramedy like All in the Family, often dealing with serious issues of being a low-income black family. Once Jimmie Walker’s whole ‘Dyn-o-myte!’ schtick took off it just became The JJ Show. Amos once remarked, “Instead of scripts dealing with real issues they’d just have JJ dance around with a chicken hat on his head”. In essence they were right.
All in the Family also beget The Jeffersons (which I believe beget a one-season Florence their maid spin-off), and *Gloria *(another failed, one-season Sally Struthers vehicle) and 704 Hauser a barely spin-off (it took place in the Bunker’s old house) which interestingly starred John Amos!