♪ Good times
♪ Any time You meet a payment ♪
♪ Good times
♪ Any time You need a friend ♪
♪ Good times
♪ Any time You're out from under ♪
♪ Not gettin' hassled Not gettin' hustled ♪
♪ Keepin' your head Above water ♪
♪ Makin' a wave When you can ♪
♪ Temporary layoffs
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♪ Easy credit Rip-offs ♪
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♪ Scratchin' And survivin' ♪
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♪ Ain't we lucky We got 'em ♪
♪ Good times
Man, I got a good feeling about this job application.
Keith Anderson, bank managerial trainee. Mm.
Hey, Keith, on that application, do they ask if you're black?
No, but when I get there for the interview,
I'll be sure to tell them.
You know, it's also against the law to ask about your sex.
Now, baby, that's something I'm not gonna tell them about.
Come here, you.
Keith, you better cut it out.
I see here where Romeo's
climbing up Juliet's balcony again.
Would you warn somebody when you walk into a room?
Like, rattle your brain?
Look here, bear face.
When y'all get the urge to merge,
why don't y'all put up a flashing red light
like they do in Hollywood
with a little sign outside saying,
"Love scene in progress.
Young man kisses the Creature from the Black Lagoon."
Move.
J.J., I'd break you in half,
but, you see, I don't want to have two of you around.
Hey, Michael, you gonna let him talk
to your big brother like that?
Not if I can do it first, chicken ribs.
What do my eyes espy here?
Looks like, uh, two bony fingers to me.
Looks more like dust to me, Thelma.
Look here, I got a couple of art students
coming over here in a minute,
and I don't want 'em painting over dust.
Look, this is your jive painting class. You dust.
I can see that I'm surrounded
by creative and mental midgets in here.
I mean, would Rembrandt do furniture?
Would Michelangelo do windows?
No, but he did ceilings.
[LAUGHS]
Look, you better start doing
your share of the work around here.
You hear that, puny Picasso?
You got some nerve, you old crocodile face.
Don't start.
[BOTH ARGUING]
Just calm down. There's no need to argue.
[BLOWS]
At ease.
All day long I have to handle a bus full of screaming kids,
and there's only one thing worse:
coming home to a house full of screaming kids.
Ma, you had a bad day, huh?
Let me tell ya.
You know that Leroy Jr.
who's always beating up on little Billy Washington?
Well, Billy brought his dog on the bus.
And before I could stop the fight,
Leroy bit the dog.
[LAUGHING]
Ma, he bit...
Now, will somebody tell me what started all this?
J.J.'s stupid art class again.
I'll tell you what started all this, Ma.
June 18th, 1957...
the day Omen Illwas born.
Mama, J.J.'s art classes are here.
I mean, this apartment is crowded enough.
Michael, it may be crowded, but the fees that J.J.
gets from his students is helping to pay the rent.
Ma, he only has two students.
Clumsy Earl, who eats more than he paints, and Dumb Donna.
"Dumb Donna"?
That's right.
Dumb Donna.
When you asked her if she was ready to work in oils,
she said, "Mazola or Crisco?"
That's dumb, honey.
Well, you got to admit that that little Earl Mitchell
really has got talent.
Michael, did you see this one?
MICHAEL: Let me see, Mama.
Hold on. Yeah, that one's really good.
But did you take a look at this monstrosity?
What do you call it?
Hey, come on, Michael,
Donna's one of my prize students.
Uh, this is a, uh... This is a, uh...
An abstract version of pizza with everything on it.
But it looks like an explosion in a paint factory.
[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
Well, look here, y'all. Donna's got a lot of talent.
It's just a matter of bringing it out. You know?
[SCOFFS]
Hi, J.J.
It looks like her problem is keeping it in.
Hi, everybody.
MICHAEL: Hello, Donna.
Nice to see you again.
Hi, Michael.
Yeah, baby, you got a lot of talent.
Oh.
[MOUTHS WORDS]
J.J., I just know I'm gonna be a famous artist some day.
Yes.
I saw the cutest purple smock today.
Mm-hm.
It was low...
It was low-cut in front, and it comes up to here.
So what do you think, J.J.?
Oh, if Lautrec saw that he would really be too loose.
Mon cheri, la amore de fabor.
Lord, have mercy.
Say, Donna, how'd you get started in that painting stuff?
Well, all my friends at school
just rave about the way I paint my nails.
Yes.Yeah.
THELMA: Ah... Ah, Keith darling,
let's go to a movie.
A movie? Yes, a movie.
You know that movie with Peter Falk?
Oh, yeah.
Peter Falk movie.Right.
[IMITATING PETER FALK] Oh, excuse me there, lady. Um...
You see, there's one thing I wanna ask you.
It's a simple question.
Oh, jeez, I forgot the question.
You see, it's about the great form you have there.
My wife has a form like it...
Uh... Ha-ha. Um... Um, see ya later, okay?
Bye-bye, everybody.
You, come on along.[MUMBLING]
Wow, he's nice, but he sure talks funny.
He certainly does. He certainly does.
Well, what's the lesson for today, J.J.?
Well, uh... [GIGGLING]
The, uh, lesson for today is to, uh-uh,
erase what you did yesterday.
Uh, no, I mean, uh,
Donna, I think you're gonna
need a little more private instruction.
Yeah.[KNOCKING ON DOOR]
Come in.
Oh, hey there, Earl. How ya doin'?
Hey, J.J.
Sorry I'm late.
You wouldn't believe what happened to me today.
Hi, Earl. Oh, hi, Mrs...
[EARL GRUNTING]
If I, uh, dirtied any of the fruit,
I'll eat it.
It's all right.
What happened to your other shoe?
Oh, my shoe.
Oh, well, uh,
I spotted this pigeon who hurt his foot.
So you gave him your other shoe.
Uh, no, but, uh,
there was a cat that was ready to pounce on the pigeon,
so I threw my shoe at the cat.
Oh, I see.
No, I don't.
What happened to your other shoe, boy?
Uh, well,
uh, when my shoe missed the cat... Yeah?
... It fell into an open manhole and hit a man on the head.
I've never seen anybody so mad.
He held up my shoe and said, "Hey, kid, is this yours?"
I said, "No, it belongs to the pigeon."
And I ran all the way over here.
Boy.
J.J., my nose is itching.
Oh, Penny, you can't scratch it now.
Earl's in the middle of painting your left nostril.
But I have to scratch it.
Hey, look here, Penny.
You should have thought of that before.
You know, whenever Napoleon had a portrait done of him,
he knew his stomach was gonna itch.
That was how come he always held his hand right in there.
Okay. [GROANS]
Earl, you really can paint, honey.
Thank you.
Penny, lesson's over for today, so you can take a rest.
Same time, same station tomorrow though.
Uh, J.J., aren't you forgetting something?
My modeling fee? Twenty-five cents an hour.
Oh, yeah. What?
Somebody picked my pocket.
Goodness. Well, look, I'll get it to you,
but in the meanwhile,
how about a banana and a apple?
Farrah Fawcett never worked for bananas and apples.
A banana and apple? You're too kind, cheapskate.
Let's go home, baby.
Oh, wait a minute. Gotta tell Thelma something.
They're not in the bedroom.
Say what?
[CHUCKLES]
I knew sooner or later they had to come up for some air.
They went to the movies, Willona.
Well, honey, if those two are up to their usual tricks,
even the Eyes of Laura Mars will be looking at them.
[LAUGHING]
Listen, tell Thelma the new French bikinis
came into the boutique this afternoon, honey.
Ooh. Sixty percent off.
Wow, that's some sale.
That's not off the price, honey. That's off the bikini.
[LAUGHS]
I swear I was born wearing more than that.
Oh, you. I'll catch you later.
Honey, take your money. The jive so-and-so...
Hi, Penny. Hi, Willona.
Hi, baby.
Ooh, Ma, that food smells good. When we gonna eat?
As soon as somebody sets the table.
Hey, I'm ready. I will.
Oh... Oh, what are we having?
Spaghetti, Earl.
Oh, I love spaghetti.
So do I, but it always goes to my hips.
Gee, I never noticed. You're just as big on top.
I... I-I mean, uh, you're built real solid.
I-I mean... You know what I mean.
Yeah, but I wish I didn't.
Earl, don't your parents ever say anything
about you always eating over here?
Well, my parents are divorced.
Oh, so you live with your father?
Yeah, I guess he lost the custody fight.
But he doesn't mind me eating here.
I told him I feel right at home.
Why, thank you, Earl.
Sure, all that hollering and screaming
that goes on around here doesn't bother me at all.
I mean... I didn't mean it that way.
I mean... It's all right, Earl.
What does your father do?
Well, he's a construction worker.
He works so hard that when he comes home
it's three-B time for him.
"Three-B"? Beer, belch and bed.
Well, you can tell him for me that we think
you are very talented, very nice and very...
Ooh. I'm sorry.
Very coordinated.[KNOCKING]
I'm Frank Mitchell. Is my son Earl here?
Oh, there are you.
Boy, I been looking all over for you.
Didn't I tell you I didn't want to have to come looking?
How dare you pull that kid's ear like that.
Say what?
Uh, van Gogh... Yes, he did.
Van Gogh got along very well with one ear.
Yes, he did.
That's no way to treat the boy.
Mr. Mitchell, Earl is my brother's best student.
Not anymore. From now on, he's your brother's ex-student.
Come on, you.
Hey, Donna, you can't quit taking my art lessons now.
So what if you painted a dog that looked like a giraffe.
Haven't you ever heard of a long-necked Doberman?
[KNOCKING]
All right, bye.
First Earl quits taking my art lessons, now Donna.
What worse could happen?
It just happened.
All right, J.J.
There ain't nothing in your lease that say
you can use this apartment for an art studio.
Now, how does the word "eviction" grab you?
Go ahead, Bookman. Evict me, torture me, put me on the rack,
show me pictures of your wife.
I'm washed up anyway.
Well, what's wrong, man?
I just lost my only two art students.
You mean, you only had two students and they both quit?
Yeah, Bookman.
[GUFFAWING]
Whoo-hoo.
Hey, Bookman, what's so funny?
I mean, you got an art class with no students.
You know what that means? No. What?
That means you ain't got no class.
[LAUGHING]
Get it, J.J.? "No class"?
I get it, Bookman.
Now, there's the door. You get it.
I mean, if you want to practice you can always paint me, man.
Look, Bookman, I don't paint landscapes.
That's right. I've heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
but I'd never paint the Slumping Pile of Lasagna.
That does it.
Hey, look out, clown.
Hi, J.J.
Hey, Earl. What you doing here?
I'm here for an art lesson. My father changed his mind.
Don't you believe me?
Earl, I believe you as much as I believe.
Mean Joe Greene sleeps with a teddy bear.
I guess I'm not a very good liar, huh?
I just want to finish my portrait of Penny.
J.J., if I can't paint, I'm lost.
Yeah, I'm the same way.
Hey, but don't worry. I'll figure out something.
I'll tell my mother...
Well, I'll tell her a little white lie.
Okay, J.J. What will you tell me?
Uh, that Earl painted a picture of an apple
that looks so real there were worms on the canvas.
Now, J.J., you know how Mr. Mitchell
feels about Earl taking art lessons.
Aw, Ma, but it's unfair.
I'm teaching the guy a skill
so one day he can hold his head up high
and be a genuine starving artist.
I don't know why he won't let me be an artist.
I can't do anything else.
I couldn't even put together a jigsaw puzzle
if it only had one piece.
Mama, suppose Earl had to give up his dreams
of wanting to be an artist.
You wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you?
Now, Michael, don't you try to push me into a corner.
You forget one thing. Earl isn't my son.
Yeah, but just suppose... Suppose he was.
Would you want somebody like Mr. Mitchell
stomping all over his future?
J.J., if Earl was my son,
I wouldn't want anybody teaching him to disobey me.
So I'm not going to interfere
with the way he chooses to raise Earl.
Earl? Earl, wait a minute.
Well, he didn't say anything about visiting.
Anybody for pie?
Yeah.
All right, then.
Dive right in, Earl.
Make yourself feel right at home there.
[LOUD KNOCKING]
Uh-oh.
Either that's your father,
or the Avon lady's got brass knuckles.
I'll get the door.
Wait, don't tell him I'm here. Please.
FLORIDA: Earl.
Oh, hi, Mr. Mitchell.
He's here again, isn't he?
He's... He's...
Uh, who you looking for, stranger?
You know damn well who I'm looking for.
Uh, well, we got so many art students here,
I get confused.
Come on, come on. Stop jiving. Where's my boy?
Uh, a fellow about this high, big Afro?
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael, he's talking about that little Korean boy.
All right. Then I'll ask you.
You don't see him here, do you?
Earl, you in there?
EARL: No.
Uh-huh.
Well, you heard him.
Don't you believe your own son?
Get out here, boy. You're gonna get the whipping of your life.
Mr. Mitchell, calm down.
You mind your own business, woman.
I said, calm down!
Well, I did ask you nicely.
All right. I'm calm.
Why, thank you.
Now, can't we talk about this sensibly, parent to parent?
All right, parent. Tell me.
Who gave you the right to interfere with another parent
trying to raise his kid?
Believe me, Mr. Mitchell, that's farthest from my mind.
But why are you so dead set
against the child taking art lessons?
It's a waste of time.
It's just a couple of hours a week.
And it's a waste of money.
Well, then I'll give him a special J.J. Evans.
Free Scholarship for Sons with Hardheaded Fathers.
J.J.
It's a waste of hope.
Hope is never a waste, Mr. Mitchell.
Oh, sure. You gonna tell me that canvas over there
is some magic carpet to fame or fortune.
But I don't close my eyes to the fact
my boy and I live in a ghetto.
You don't have to tell me that.
Do we look like we get room service around here?
Then you should understand.
Here we are, and here's where we're stuck.
Don't you care about your son's future?
Sure, I care about my kid, but where's he going?
He got two left feet and 10 thumbs.
[CLATTERING, SHATTERING]
See what I mean?
Oh, my Lord.
Earl, what's going on? What happened?
EARL: Oh, it's okay. I didn't break much.
Just something that smells like burnt rubber.
It's called "Ghetto Musk."
Ghetto Musk? That's my best cologne.
How much of it can you sponge up?
When that boy was born,
I hoped and prayed he'd be an athlete or a performer...
Some kind of job to get him out of the ghetto.
But Earl... The first thing he does
after he gets up in the morning is fall down.
I'm telling you, that boy could trip over lint.
He can't do nothing.
I've seen people fall off of scaffold
with better coordination than what that boy's got.
Mr. Mitchell, instead of harping on what he can't do,
why don't you talk about what he can do?
Yeah. Look at this, Mr. Mitchell.
He did this with 10 thumbs?
I'm telling you, the boy could paint with his feet.
In my opinion, I think Earl has the potential of being
one of the best artists out of the ghetto since...
Since me. And that's the best compliment I can give him.
This... This painting business... It's a pastime for white folks.
What'd somebody do, bleach me?
Where have you been, Mr. Mitchell?
What makes you think that sports and show business
are the only way out of the ghetto?
A lot of our people are serious artists.
That's right, Mr. Mitchell.
Haven't you ever heard of artists like Ernie Barnes,
Charles White or Bernie Casey?
Come on. I ain't never heard of no black man
getting out of the ghetto with a paintbrush.
Oh, yeah? What about the guy
who painted the white line down the freeway?
J.J., please.
Earl, you get out here right now.
Will you get that boy out of your bathroom?
I want him out here in front of me right now.
Now, Earl... There you are.
Now, you going home with me,
and you ain't ever coming back again.
You got that?
No.
Boy, you don't hear so good. You come back here again,
you gonna get a worse whipping
than the one you gonna get tonight.
I'm coming back, Pa.
I swear I'm gonna whip you.
And I'll come back again. Then I'll whip you again.
Then I guess that's just how it'll be
till one of us gives up.
What am I gonna do with this boy?
Well, for starters you can try listening.
I just wanna talk for myself just once.
All right then. Talk.
[SOFTLY] I don't know what to say.
Maybe you could try telling me
why you just have to do this fool painting thing.
Pa, I have to. It's my life.
You really think you gonna paint your way out of the ghetto?
I'm not trying to paint my way out of the ghetto.
I just want to paint the ghetto.
Well, for somebody who didn't know what to say,
you said that very good, son.
Okay, then.
You throw your life away taking painting lessons,
but you ain't gonna use my money to do it.
Where you been getting money to take them lessons?
What you been doing, stealing?
I been using my lunch money.
Oh, my Lord.
No wonder the poor child is always so hungry.
Yeah. And all the time I thought he had a tapeworm.
Mr. Mitchell, my brother J.J.
did say he'd give Earl free lessons.
No, no, the Mitchells don't take no charity.
I'll pay for the lessons.
Pa, you don't have to...
You shooting off your mouth again, huh?
I said I'd pay for the lessons, and that's final.
Don't be a stubborn fool...
like your father.
Pretty good, huh, Mr. Mitchell?
We Mitchells don't do anything pretty good.
It's great.
Thanks, Pa.
[♪♪♪]
♪ Mmm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm
♪ Just lookin' Out of the window ♪
♪ Watchin' the asphalt grow
♪ Thinkin' how It all looks hand-me-down ♪
♪ Good times ♪ Hey, yeah
ANNOUNCER: Good Times is videotaped before a studio audience.
♪ Makin' a wave When you can ♪
♪ Temporary layoffs
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