Why Was John Amos Fired from “Good Times?”

He kept demanding tighter and tighter pants to show off that ass. The last straw came when he demanded to wear short shorts in an episode focused on James “mistakenly” walking into a gay bar thinking it was the food stamp office.

John Amos was sexy, yet ugly.

Amos demanded respect for his character. It angered him that a buffoon character like JJ Waker was taking over the show. Norman Lear, for all his good intentions, tripped over his own brand of liberal racism, i.e. he thought that his vision and understanding of people of color was greater and more insightful than people of color.

[quote] It angered him that a buffoon character like JJ Waker was taking over the show

Rightfully so.

The "JJ" character was an idiot. Like Gilligan, on "Gilligan's Island."

I can see why John Amos hated him.

Not to mention that Jimmy Walker is a huge asshole.

R3 is right. I also read in his obituary that the shows writers were all white. Although that should not have surprised me, it did. .

One of the best performances Esther Rolle gave in that show was in the episode marking John Amos' character's death. She's a woman bearing it all up for the sake of her family, and then the enormity of it all -- grief, rage, fear -- takes hold of her and she breaks down.

both Amos and Evans struggled with writers on the show

The story was CBS executives felt it was more realistic to have no father for the black family. Rather than have him leave, Lear wrote in his death as a more dramatic tool to drive the stories.

I have the "Roots" DVD signed by him. Thanks CHILLER!

Sometimes I feel bad that I always thought one of the lyrics was hangin and a jivin instead of hanging in a chow line and yet when I catch the odd rerun while flipping through channels I still sing it like I thought it was.

My mother would come in while we were watching it and say "that is one handsome Black man" and other similar things. She definitely had a thing for John Amos.

Lear fired him because he was a DL schwarz bathouse kween who was overcompensating by bullying the staff.

OP, why do you think we've never heard of this show and must describe it?

Same r9

[quote] OP, why do you think we've never heard of this show and must describe it?

Please forward all complaints to PEOPLE MAGAZINE, dear.

They wrote the article.

(Are you really that stupid?)

R12 on this site with pre 1975 TV no introduction is necessary.

I wanted him since he was the weatherman on the MTM Show......hot piece.....and you know he was a great fucker.....you can always tell by the walk.

Of course the writers should have listened to him.....maybe they were dicktamized.

John Amos....damn damn damn. I stopped watching when he left.

Me and my dad loved this show. It was shocking that they killed him off. He was most of the reason we enjoyed it. I don't blame him , though. A black man would know more about the character. R.I.P John Amos.

[quote] One of the best performances Esther Rolle gave in that show was in the episode marking John Amos' character's death. She's a woman bearing it all up for the sake of her family, and then the enormity of it all -- grief, rage, fear -- takes hold of her and she breaks down.

You're talking about the "damn, damn, damn!" scene, right?

Esther Rolle said that the producers wanted her to be a single mother, but she refused. Enter John Amos as James Evans, Sr.

I can see the producers having no problem in firing Amos when he started acting rebellious, etc. He admitted that he took the wrong approach with the producers.

Jimmy Walker, of course, was loving the expansion of his character.

Here's John Amos, talking about how he got fired:

[quote]The "JJ" character was an idiot.

As I recall hearing at the time, JJ's buffoonery was one of the primary reasons Esther left the show for a while before eventually returning for its final season. It was also why (at least according to gossip) she nor Amos got along very well with Walker, who didn't like the fact that they objected to his character.

He was sexy af.

Jimmy Walker said he wasn't friends with Amos & Esther while filming Good Times.

I don’t think he was ugly. Gorgeous man.

His name was Henry on Maude I wonder why they changed it for good times. The same year Amos was killed off Lear. made the show put in that red headed pig Judy cohen in a guest starring role. I think she was a housekeeper for the Lear family.

I understand the actors wanting to portray a good model family, in that time and place, but it’s a sitcom and entertainment value is the primary concern. Without JJ and the attention he attracted no one would remember this show because it would have been cancelled early.

A good example of this is Family Matters. Urkel saved that show and all the other characters do is bitch about it.

And yet J.J. is almost unwatchable now. Just like the Sweathogs.

At the time, people found it hard to believe that Esther Rolle had Amos as her husband. Mad magazine even suggested it was ridiculous that sexy Willona was downstairs by herself and Amos never even looked at her. It was a weirder pairing than George and Weezy.

Jimmy Walker also bitches about Ja'Net DuBois, who played Willona Woods. (As a kid, I thought she was very good-looking.)

JJ said that Willona was always trying to expand her role and she should have just realized she was a bit character. (I'm paraphrasing.)

JJ doesn't acknowledge that it was a fluke that the JJ character took off and that, in retrospect, the character looks like a buffoon.

Oh, well.

It's probably true that, if the JJ character hadn't taken off, the show would not have been very popular.

The production values were horrible. I realize they were supposed to be living in low-income housing, but that was too bleak.

It was because his ass was so perfect it was giving gay men working on the set seizures.

Because CBS owned no known lens wide enough to capture that animal-hot package that character James used to sport in his scenes wearing those tight, fine-fitting beige corduroy pants of his, OP. 🔥

He was dickmatizing everybody, had to.

He was showing his amos to everyone

I wasn’t even alive in the 70s but I grew up watching reruns of Good Times

John Anus.

Fun fact: Esther’s sister Estelle played “Calpurnia” in TKaM.

I remember reading that when Lear wanted Amos off the show, they first proposed that he and Florida were separated, and he would make one or two brief appearances the following season - leaving the door open for Amos to return in the future (if the ratings dropped without him) or write him off for good (via 'divorce') if the ratings held up without him.

However, Rolle was totally against the idea - didn't want Florida to be a separated / divorced woman on the show. She figured audiences wouldn't believe she and 'James' would ever end their marriage, as they 'worked out' every problem. So they killed him off instead.

[quote]I understand the actors wanting to portray a good model family, in that time and place, but it’s a sitcom and entertainment value is the primary concern.

Look at it this way: people still talk about the show decades later. It had an impact. I think Ester and John had a point. Maybe show people the best version of themselves, even if it's fictional, and then write stories to support the comedy. Maybe it will inspire people to be more like that. In the end it may have been the JJ show but people also remember that he had two parents and that was because of Ester.

Lear also said that JJ went a little too far into the caricature category eventually. But because of the criticisms of "Good Times" we ended up with "The Jeffersons" which became a beloved sitcom.

[quote]A good example of this is Family Matters. Urkel saved that show and all the other characters do is bitch about it.

Jimmy didn't get along with Ester or John. Who knows what it would have been like if they never tried to speak up? He said he never even bothered to speak to them unless he had to during the run of the show.

Jaleel almost got his ass beat by Jo Marie Payton because of his attitude (and other actors on the show had issues with him) and while Urkle saved the show, he eventually killed it. That kind of character was falling out of favor. Ratings dropped after Season 6 and then with Jo Marie's exit, the show really went into nonsensical territory.

Will Smith admitted he made life difficult for Janet Hubert and apologized years after the show ended but the writers at least knew how to give us a show about that character while also still including the cast and never letting him go too far into idiocy but no one ever forgot the seriousness the original Aunt Viv brought to the show.

Esther!

Bitches - we all know Miss JANET was the heart and soul of that show, and the reason for its lasting fame!

Amos gave an interview with Ebony magazine expressing his frustrations with the show and the writers that’s when the writers killed his character off. The show did suffer after he left and rolle left after the 1976-77 season coming back for the final season with the agreement that the show make some changes.

The novelty of JJ wore off by the second season.

I wonder if John Amos and Mike Evans ever fucked

Does anyone know why the changed James (Henry) from being middle class (James/Henry was a firefighter on Maude) to being poor and living in public housing.

Because that’s what the writers wrote. In case you didn’t notice, Westchester County, NY is not near any Chicago public housing. 😵‍💫

It’s not a social history treatise, it’s a sitcom.