Netflix has released the first trailer for its animated Good Times reboot, coming to the platform on April 12.
Showrun by Ranada Shepard (Young Love, Diary of a Future President), Netflix refers to the animated series as a “spiritual sequel of sorts.” To that end, Good Times was produced with extensive involvement from the original groundbreaking series’ executive producer and writer, Norman Lear. He executive produced the reboot alongside Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and NBA great Stephen Curry and made a voice cameo in the show’s eighth episode, his final role before his death at the age of 101 in December 2023.
Discussing her experiences working with Lear, Shepard explained:
Norman was completely supportive of me as a showrunner, a creative, a writer, even as a visionary, to take a piece of material that he had produced prior in his career and watch as I took it to another level and pushed the boundaries. He showed up for our meetings, our Zooms, our table reads, and made an impact on how we were able to produce this series.
Although most of Shepard’s previous work has been as a writer, she worked closely with the animation artists on Good Times to develop a cast of characters that accurately represented modern Black families. She explained:
It was extremely important to me that the skin tones varied. One family is just not one shade wiped clean. How do we show this? There were certain subtleties involved, [for example,] of the inside of the palms being lighter than the outside of the hands. That’s what it looks like in real life. Let’s actually play with this and humanize these characters as much as possible.
Good Times is produced by Netflix, which teamed with Sony Pictures Television Studios on the reboot. Modernized and updated to discuss contemporary themes and issues, this Good Times will touch on topics including elections, first periods, poverty, women’s empowerment, coded bias, and technology. No animation studio was mentioned in today’s release, but we’ve reached out to Netflix for more information and will update when it becomes available.
According to Shepard:
It’s about a Black family that comes together, laughs together, and survives the system on the South Side of Chicago. What you’ll get from that is a lot of social commentary, a lot of pushing the boundaries, a lot of feel-good television, but also a lot of things that may be in the vein of The Simpsons and South Park and Family Guy. When you’re looking back 10 years later, you’ll be like, ‘They said that on Good Times?’ Oh my gosh.’
