I just watched the Animated Series Good Times: Black Again (2024) and it satisfied a part of me that has been hungry for a while!
And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have this same hunger in this same part of them, so what part and what hunger am I talking about?
Simply the part of me that has been longing for a cartoon that can fill the shoes of Aaron Mcgruger's Boondocks!
Good Times doesn't fill those shoes properly because those are really big shoes, but at least we can probably agree on 70%.
The part it got right the most that a lot of Boondocks lovers would appreciate is the variety of funny African American accents. That's some huge stuff that a lot of Boondocks lovers have been missing out in a cartoon and good times more than provided that!
Basic Info
It was released on April 2024, and has big black names like:
Jay Pharoah
Marsai Martin
Yvette Nicole Brown
Slink Johnson
J. B. Smoove
It's kinda an exaggerated version of the popular Sitcom Good Times that started airing in 1974. Some of the old characters are in it too, the setting is the same, just modern times.
It's still a story of a family living in the projects of Chicago. A black husband and black wife with three interesting black children.
A Look at the Features
2D Art:
The art is interesting, unique, and very colorful. There is great use of realistic texture, but this realism was only applied to the environment and not to the characters, the characters remain basic 2D cartoon drawings.
Humor and Satire:
The type of humor and satire here is just right for cartoons, exaggerated crazy humor. Just like the type seen in Boondocks, Family Guy, American Dad, etc.
It was all well done too, and world class.
Voices
We all know voices are a huge part of animations, and the voices here made a killing. The crazy variety of black American accents were just what anyone watching a black American cartoon would expect.
Plot
It was made in a villain of the week type of way, which means there was a new conflict in every episode. Most of the stories were really interesting and ingenious, and as exaggerated as it should be.
Failings
The only failing I see here has to do with the characters, some of them seem like they were just copied from other cartoon characters we know.
Like the character Dalvin seem to be a copy of Stewie Griffin from family guy, an exaggeratedly mature baby.
Thelma seems to be a copy of Huey Freeman from Boondocks, an obsessed activist, just that Thelma was more exaggerated.
It would have been better if these characters didn't seem like copies, because with them there was a little feeling of unoriginality.
But that didn't take away from the enjoyment, though. Most likely, only the above average viewer would take this as a failing.
The End
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