What's Happening!!

Believe me, WHATS HAPPENING came out on a perfect time. There was'nt a better TV show to grow up on! Who could ever forget 1)Raj, the wise, bird-cracklin nerdish dude who could never sit in a chair the right way! 2) Rerun, the round, always-in-step party mover 3) Dwayne, the not so smart, heckling nervous breakdown "They cut off your fingers and your toes, man!" 4) And good ol' bratty sister Dee, who reminded you of everyone's sister!

WHATS HAPPENING is really missed by this commentator. Come on TVLAND, give us some RERUNs! RERUNs!

Interesting note about this show. It was the creative brainchild of producer Eric Monte(who also co-created and produced "Good Times"),and produced under Saul Turtletaub, Bernie Orenstein and Bud Yorkin(of "Sanford and Son",and "All In The Family"),"What's Happening!" premiered on ABC as a summer replacement for "Barney Miller" on August 5,1976 but returned on November 13,1976 as a regular series running three seasons and 65 episodes until April 28,1979.

This was one of my fondest memories of childhood back in the day,coming home and watching the antics of Roger,Dewayne,and Rerun getting into all sorts of trouble only to get Roger's smart-mouth sister Dee and Roger's mother get them out of unsuspected situations. Interesting note on "What's Happening!!",though.....it got the idea from a 1975 film "Cooley High"(on which the show was based)about three Chicago kids who were having fun and getting into all sorts of trouble......The show(getting back to "What's Happening"!!) was based in the residental section of Los Angeles where the mom was the single parent with two children in the household. The show itself was side-splitting hilarious indeed catching the gang down at the soda stop coming up with some crazy scheme or another,and catching Rerun and Shirley(the waitress) battling it out,or getting some girl to go out with them. The show was a major top ten hit for the ABC network(which started off as a trial run,but returned in the fall as a weekly series). The theme score to the show was done by the great Henry Mancini,and its a classic. Some of the cast members reunited for a spin off called "What's Happening Now!!",with Roger getting married off,and Rerun and Dewayne having a business of their own,and the waitress Shirley who brought Rob's Place and is the owner. Rumor has it that two of the cast members of that show Dewayne,(played by Haywood Nelson),and Dee(played by Danielle Spencer) are living in North Carolina now,and Roger(played by Ernest Thomas)is doing feature films(notably seen in Denzel Washington's movie "The Hurricane") nowadays. Great show,as it celebrates it Golden 40th Anniversary!!! Happy Anniversary Roger, Dewayne and Rerun!!!

I was a senior in high school when this show debuted and even though I was a white kid in the 'burbs, I found much of what Raj, Rerun and Dwayne did and talked about easy to relate to because even though my own life was pretty far removed from black kids in the city, I think kids are going to be kids at heart, guys are always going to come up with ideas that seem better at their genesis than they actually end up being and "What's Happening!" seems to have been written with that at the show's core. It's a well-done sitcom that doesn't talk down to its audience.

I'll spare the character profiles and such because there are plenty of other reviewers here who've done a good job of that. What I will say is that 40 years after it first aired on ABC, "What's Happening!" holds up nicely. It was definitely an ensemble comedy that changed when Mabel King left the show, but the actors worked well together and had a good on- screen chemistry. Although "What's Happening!" wasn't as popular at the time as other sitcoms based on black families like "Good Times" or "The Jeffersons," it is definitely in their league in terms of the quality of acting and writing.

I didn't give it a "10" rating because there wasn't a lot of character development (hardly unique for sitcoms), Mabel King's exit meant the loss of the one character who seemed able to create order out of the chaos that usually ensued when the guys got into a jam and a sense of staleness was beginning to set in by its last season. Still, it rates a solid "8" with me and that "8" applies in 2017 as well as for 1977. "What's Happening!" endures as one of the better, if underrated, comedies of the late Seventies. Worth watching.

I have to say that I grew up on these reruns. I was surprised to see and remember how much I enjoyed the show during the recent TV Land marathon. The show was still groundbreaking too. I never understood why Mabel King who played Mama so beautifully left. I still remember Rerun, Dwayne, Raj, Dee, and Shirley as a happy group of people in working class Los Angeles, California. I'm not black but I can relate to the financial struggles that they held despite maintaining a happy suburban life. They provided many memorable moments for me over the weekend. It was nice to see Irene Cara in a guest appearance and Alice Ghostley and others too many to mention. The sitcom was probably criticized in its day but today, I can see it as a brilliant piece of realistic comedy touching on subjects tactfully and carefully like teenage pregnancy, marriage, divorce, single-parent home and of course, financial problems like all families share. I believe it was the first sitcom in my memory to feature divorce in a positive light rather than negative. Enjoy it!

What's Happening was loosely based on the movie "Cooley High". It is sometime shown in reruns along with its vastly inferior sequel, What's Happening Now.

The heart of the show was the relationship among the three high school buddies, studious Roger, dim bulb Dwayne, and clownish Rerun. The late Shirley Hemphill got off some good zingers as the surly waitress of the malt shop the guys hung out in. Dee was the perfect snide and bratty kid sister to Roger, and Mama dished out discipline and love.

One of the best episodes was a two-parter that is seldom shown in reruns. Roger, Rerun and Dwayne were forced into illegally taping a Doobie Brothers concert (the rock group appeared as themselves) by some criminals. The tape recorder is discovered when it falls out from underneath Rerun's coat, and one of the musicians sees it. The Doobie Brothers then work with the three buddies to catch the criminals.