What's Happening!!

What's Happening!! follows the lives of three working-class African-American teens living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. The show stars Ernest Thomas as Roger "Raj" Thomas, Haywood Nelson as Dwayne Nelson, and Fred Berry as Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs. Additional co-stars include Danielle Spencer as Roger's younger sister Dee, Mabel King as Roger and Dee's mother Mabel. Shirley Hemphill stars 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 Mrs. Collins (Fritzi Burr), a sarcastic history teacher and the sponsor of the school newspaper.

• Roger "Raj" Thomas (Ernest Thomas), the show's protagonist, is a teenager living in Watts with his divorced mother Mabel, and his younger sister Dee.
• Dwayne Clemens Nelson (Haywood Nelson) is the youngest member of the trio.
• Frederick (Freddy) "Rerun" Stubbs (Fred Berry) is a bumbling, comedic young man.
• Dee Thomas (Danielle Spencer) is Raj's younger sibling.
• Mabel “Mama” Thomas (Mabel King) is Raj and Dee's divorced mother.
• Shirley Wilson (Shirley Hemphill) is a waitress at the neighborhood soda shop.

During the second season, Fred Berry demanded a higher salary and better studio accommodations for the actors by using the show's first season as leverage. The accommodations issue eventually led to a full-fledged walkout by Berry and Thomas during the second-season episode "If I'm Elected" (leaving Haywood Nelson to carry the entire episode, with Shirley Hemphill stepping to the forefront, along with Bryan O'Dell and Debbi Morgan in featured speaking parts). Producer Bud Yorkin, in turn, suspended the pair, forcing them to sign $25,000 promissory notes to return to the show and guard against further walkouts.[3] The dispute was quickly settled, and both returned for the following episode.

In addition, Mabel King had a much-reduced role in the series during the second season, largely due to creative differences with the producers (she wanted the Roger and Dee characters to have married parents, rather than divorced). Her character, Mama, was not written out of the show but rather limited to brief appearances on set (where she would say she was "leaving for work" or "going to the store") or mentioned in passing by other characters as being "at work."

The show changed significantly in the third season, with Raj and Rerun graduating high school (Rerun after seven years), with the two moving into their own apartment near the University of Southern California. Mabel King finally left the show (her character moved to Phoenix, Arizona to tend to a sick relative), and Shirley moved into the Thomas household as a boarder and Dee's guardian. Also, several new recurring characters were introduced. The first was a basketball player whom Roger tutored and nicknamed "The Snake" (played by Leland Smith). The other characters were white detective "Big Earl" Barnett (played by John Welsh) and his son "Little Earl" Barnett (played by David Hollander), who were neighbors in the apartment building where Roger and Rerun lived.

What became the role of "Little Earl" was initially created to be filled by ten-year-old Gary Coleman at the suggestion of ABC President Fred Silverman. Silverman was a huge proponent of Coleman and, feeling that breakout stardom was around the corner for the young talent, wanted him added to the show. When Silverman left ABC in 1978 to head rival network NBC, he had Diff'rent Strokes created for Coleman; it ran for eight years and was highly rated.[4]

During the third season (1978–79), Berry again threatened to strike (not appearing in the third-season episode "Dee, the Cheerleader"). Thomas joined Berry in the strike threat, which led to a heated meeting with the executive producers, culminating with Berry making accusations of racism.[5] In light of the seriousness of the accusation, and now unmotivated (and unwilling) to accommodate the stars, the producers opted to cancel the moderately successful series.[6]

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.[7]

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

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 change their after-school programming lineup from cartoons to evening sitcoms in the 1980s. 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.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released all three seasons of What's Happening!!

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 Happening!![10] On September 2, 2014, they re-released the first two seasons on DVD.[11]

On April 21, 2015, Mill Creek released a budget-priced complete series set, a 6-disc set featuring all 65 episodes.[12]

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 began airing the original series.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to What's Happening!!.

Wikiquote has quotations related to What's Happening!!.

• What's Happening!! at IMDb
• TVParty.com's three part series on What's Happening!!:
  • What happened to What's Happening!!?
  • What's Happening!! soars to the top, then a deadly car crash, walkouts, drugs and death...
  • The show is revived, Rerun quits (again) and three cast members die...