Knock on any door in the low-income areas of America and you will find the Evans family - black, white, hispanic, etc.
This was an accurate account of a family living week-to-week. It was the 70s, but the problem still exists today.
Just the right amounts of comedy and drama made this show believable. It stood above the other African-American-type shows because it was real.
I think John Amos, as the family patriarch James Evans, was the cornerstone of the show. Would he be happy or mad when he walked through the door? If mad, it was only because he had to struggle with racial problems and low-income jobs in order to support a family of five. I thought Amos was truly superb in his role. Esther Rolle as Florida and the rest of the cast could draw tears from the audience as easily as they could draw laughter.
The fact that they could show comedy through the drama makes it, I think, one of the top 10 television series of all time, even though it declined after John Amos left.
This was an accurate account of a family living week-to-week. It was the 70s, but the problem still exists today.
Just the right amounts of comedy and drama made this show believable. It stood above the other African-American-type shows because it was real.
I think John Amos, as the family patriarch James Evans, was the cornerstone of the show. Would he be happy or mad when he walked through the door? If mad, it was only because he had to struggle with racial problems and low-income jobs in order to support a family of five. I thought Amos was truly superb in his role. Esther Rolle as Florida and the rest of the cast could draw tears from the audience as easily as they could draw laughter.
The fact that they could show comedy through the drama makes it, I think, one of the top 10 television series of all time, even though it declined after John Amos left.