Before jumping into the season one DVD, a little primer is in order. What's Happening Now! is the sequel to What's Happening! which aired in the late 70's. The show's plot focused on three African-American teens, Raj, Dwayne and Rerun, living in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The show also featured a smart-mouthed waitress named Shirley and Raj's pain of a sister, Dee. While other shows at the time, in particular Good Times, tried to draw focus on African-American issues, What's Happening! took a different approach and presented characters that anyone, regardless of race, could relate to.
What's Happening Now! takes place six years after the original and brings back most of the original cast. Raj returns to his childhood home with his new wife, Nadine, as a fledgling writer. After seeing that his old hangout, Rob's Diner, has closed, he and Shirley reopen the place. Dwayne is now a computer programmer and Rerun is a local personality for a used car lot. The only cast members who don't return are Raj's mother, who has since remarried and moved to Arizona, and Dee, who is in college but does make periodic guest appearances throughout the season.
The follow-up takes the same light-hearted approach as the original. Though a few episodes touch on social issues, many of the plotlines revolve around not-so-typical problems. In one episode, Rerun accidentally sells Raj's house from under him while in another, the boys pose as older gang members.
Like The Cosby Show, What's Happening Now! fits the mold of a timeless show. Even after twenty plus years, many of the show's jokes and plot lines are still relevant and never date themselves. Although a few of the plots pull from the bottomless bag of sitcom clichés, most give them a different spin. The writing isn't always the best, but the chemistry and personality of the cast is what makes it all work, so the occasional cheesy or bad dialogue is forgivable. This is something that becomes more evident in later seasons when the original cast begins to leave.
The show also manages to entertain without being offensive. Though the show is built around stereotypes, jokes devolve into crude humor, making it ideal for family viewing.
