What's Happening!!

Premise

What's Happening!! follows the lives of three working-class African-American teens living in the South Los Angeles section of Los Angeles. The show stars Ernest Thomas as Roger "Raj" Thomas, Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry as Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs. Co-starring are Danielle Spencer as Roger's younger sister Dee; Mabel King as Roger and Dee's mother Mabel; and Shirley Hemphill as Shirley Wilson, a waitress at Rob's Place, the neighborhood restaurant where the boys are regular patrons. Recurring characters include Rob (Earl Billings), owner of Rob's Place; and Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr), a sarcastic history teacher and the sponsor of the school newspaper.

Unlike Good Times, a contemporary show that also had an African-American cast (and was also produced by Eric Monte), What's Happening!! only rarely and mildly ventured into social commentary. Most episodes focused on the goals of teenage males: meeting girls, finding afterschool jobs, and planning for the future.

Principal cast

Roger "Raj" Thomas (Ernest Thomas), the show's protagonist, is a teenager living in a house in Watts with his divorced mother Mabel and his younger sister Dee. Raj is an intelligent, well-mannered young man who sports large black horn-rimmed glasses and aspires to be a writer. Many episodes find Raj taking steps to pursue his dream, from saving up for a screenwriting course or a typewriter to trying to impress a TV producer. Eventually, he graduates from high school, moves out, and attends college (ostensibly the University of Southern California). Raj is known for his trademark high pitched laugh.

Frederick (Freddy) "Rerun" Stubbs (Fred Berry) is an overweight, bumbling, comedic young man, commonly seen wearing a red beret and matching suspenders. He is often teased by his friends for being overweight and unintelligent. However, Rerun is a very skilled dancer and is commonly seen entering dance contests or trying to get on TV commercials. He is nicknamed "Rerun" because, due to his failures in school, "every summer he has to go to school to rerun the stuff he did all winter." In the third season, Rerun shares an apartment with Raj and works as a page for ABC. His trademark phrase is "WHAT'S HAPPENING?!?!?!?!"

Dwayne Clemens Nelson (Haywood Nelson) is the youngest member of the group. Dwayne has an unassuming, good-natured demeanor and suffers from debilitating shyness and acute fear of the dark. While Rerun attempts to enter dance contests and Roger aggressively pursues his dream of becoming a famous writer, Dwayne's plotlines often deal with his problems with girls and bullies. Dwayne's character is well known for his greeting, "Hey, hey, hey!" (with an emphasis on the second "hey"). His other trademark catchphrase is when he utters "Uh-Uhn" when he denies or refuses something. Dwayne is the only character who appears in every episode of What's Happening!!

Mabel Thomas (Mabel King) is Raj's "large-and-in-charge" mother. She is typically the voice of wisdom, and the parental authority over the main cast. Mabel's ex-husband drifts in and out of her life during the first season. Her role became less important in later episodes until eventually she disappeared from the show, though her character was never really written out and still mentioned off-screen. Supposedly, King disagreed with the show's concept and direction and decided to leave the show. Her trademark phrase is "This is true" when agreeing with something said.

Dee Thomas (Danielle Spencer) is Raj's younger sibling. She personifies the typical "annoying little sister." She is bratty, keen, shrewd, and obsessed with making money, usually by blackmailing her brother and his friends a quarter at a time. As the series progressed and Dee grew older, her caustic personality mellowed into a sly sense of sarcasm. While Dee still enjoyed scamming Raj out of a quarter every so often, she became more likable and got along better with him. After Raj moved into an apartment in the third season, Dee remained in the Thomas house with waitress Shirley moving in to help out. Her trademark phrase is "Ooooohh, I'm tellin' Mama!" when she witnesses a wrongdoing, especially by her brother. Her favorite food is peanut butter. Her birthday is September 17.

Shirley Wilson (Shirley Hemphill) is a portly waitress at the neighborhood restaurant Rob's Place, where the main cast is regular patrons. She is a brash person who likes to take shots at the boys, and most often clashes with Rerun (with both Shirley and Rerun being obese, they exchange "fat jokes"). Some episodes turn the spotlight briefly on Shirley and her joys and sorrows. Shirley moves into the Thomas residence in the last season to be a guardian to Dee after Raj moves out and Mrs. Thomas leaves to tend a sick relative.

Recurring characters

Bill Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) is Mabel's ex-husband and the father of Roger and Dee. He divorced Mabel, ran out on his family, and became a shady character. When he first appears, he tries to con Mabel out of money. Later episodes in which he appears depict him in a more positive light and culminate with his marriage to Lee Henderson (Lee Chamberlin). After his marriage, Bill was never seen again on the show, although he is mentioned.

Gene "Rabbit" Walker (Ray Vitte) is a political-science major at the University of Southern California, and a track-team member. He appears in two first-season episodes as a boarder at the Thomas home, renting Dee's bedroom. In his first appearance, he is referred to as "Dean" which is even written on the end credits. Gene took a liking to Dee, giving her the nickname "Small Portion". In another episode his character is mentioned as being away (although his name was not given) so Mrs. Thomas offered his room to Dee's ex-con pen-pal.

Detective "Big Earl" Barnett (Johnathan Welsh) is a police detective who lives in the apartment building Raj and Rerun move into in the third and final season.

"Little Earl" Barnett (David Hollander) is Big Earl's son. He has a huge crush on Dee, who is about 5 years his senior.

Rob (Earl Billings) is the owner of Rob's Place.

Terry "Snake" Simpson (Leland Smith) is a basketball player whom Roger tutored. He eventually became a friend of Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun.

Miss Collins (Fritzi Burr) is a high-school teacher. She admired Roger, but had trouble with Rerun.

Marvin (Bryan O'Dell) is the boys' high-school classmate. He was a reporter for the school paper and was sometimes seen at Rob's Place.

Leon (Henry Robinson) made two appearances as a Rob's customer in "Shirley's a Mother" and as a strong arm gangster who bets on Rerun's disco dance abilities in "Disco Dollar Disaster".

Diane Harris (Debbi Morgan) is another classmate of Roger, Dwayne, and Rerun. For the first two seasons she was frequently seen in the classroom or at Rob's Place with them, and at a birthday party for Roger. (In the pilot episode, she was referred to as "Diane Stewart".)

Larry Nelson (Greg Morris) is Dwayne's father, a local politician.

Notable guest stars

Show changes

The show changed significantly in the third season, most notably with Roger and Rerun moving into their own apartment. Mabel King left the show due to creative differences (she wanted the Roger and Dee characters to have married parents rather than divorced), but the character of Mama was not written out. Instead, she was always said to be working or not around. To provide an adult presence in the house for Dee, Shirley moved in to the Thomas household as a boarder. Also, several new recurring characters were introduced. The first was a basketball player whom Roger tutored nicknamed "The Snake" (played by Leland Smith). The other characters were Caucasian detective "Big Earl" Barnett (played by Johnathan Welsh) and his son "Little Earl" Barnett (played by David Hollander), who were neighbors in the apartment building where Roger and Rerun lived.

During the second season, using the show's success as leverage, Berry demanded a higher salary and better studio accommodations for the actors. The accommodations issue eventually led to a full-fledged walkout by Berry and Thomas during the second season episode "If I'm Elected" (leaving Nelson alone to carry the entire episode). During the final season (1978-79), Berry threatened to strike. Thomas again joined Berry in the strike, leading to the executive producers to cancel the series, rather than give a pay raise to the stars.

What's Happening!! aired its last episode on April 28, 1979. A year later, Hemphill starred in her own sitcom, One In A Million, which premiered in January 1980, and ended on July 23, 1980, after being on ABC for a few months.

Ratings

What's Happening!! was a modest ratings success:

Success and What's Happening Now!!

The show was a modest success in its network run, despite some serious production problems, and repeats of the show's 65 episodes did reasonably well in syndication. In some markets, the show was perceived to appeal to both children and adults in a similar way to The Brady Bunch and Happy Days. The show was often aired in transitional hours where stations would go from cartoons to evening sitcoms. In a few markets the show actually had higher ratings in syndication than during the network run. With this success in mind, a revival of the show was produced entitled What's Happening Now!!. It ran from 1985 to 1988 in first-run syndication.

DVD releases

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released all three seasons of What's Happening!! as well as the complete series.

On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library including What's Happenning!!. On September 2, 2014 they re-released the first two seasons on DVD.

On April 21, 2015, Mill Creek released a budget-priced complete series set, a 6-disc set featuring all 65 episodes.

Syndication

The show was syndicated on many local channels (with all 66 episodes of sequel series What's Happening Now!! joining the syndication package in the fall of 1988 to total 131 episodes) and continued in an on-again, off-again manner until 2009.

BET reran both series from September 20, 1993 to October 27, 1995.

TV Land reran the show during the 2005–2006 season.

As of March 1, 2013, cable network TV One shows reruns of What's Happening!!.

On December 2, 2013, the newly rebranded Encore Black channel started airing What's Happening!!.

Starting January 2, 2017, the digital broadcast network Antenna TV will be airing the original series for the first time.