https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/all-family-good-times-set-as-abcs-next-live-comedy-special-1252621

All in the Family will return for the second Live in Front of a Studio Audience special airing Dec. 18 with Good Times -- a spinoff of All in the Family spinoff Maude. It's unclear if Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei will reprise their May roles as Archie and Edith Bunker. Additionally, Kerry Washington, who starred in The Jeffersons portion of the May special, has boarded the second special as an executive producer. Good Times, starring Esther Rolle, John Amos, Jimmie "J.J." Walker and Janet Jackson, aired for six seasons on CBS, from 1974 to 1979. It was TV's first family sitcom that featured two African-American parents. Norman Lear produced and developed Good Times, which was created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans. "The holiday season is the perfect time for families to come together and enjoy another Live in Front of a Studio Audience special on ABC,” ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke said in a statement. "Only Jimmy (Kimmel) and Norman (Lear) can top what they accomplished the first time. From the superstar talent to the unforgettable music and the richly deserved Emmy win, their collective vision has introduced a whole new generation of people to these groundbreaking and timeless stories — and now with Good Times as part of the lineup, this will surely be another can’t-miss television event."

No Interest

Ooooo Lovely!

It'll be interesting to see if Mr. Lear will let Mr. Walker have ANY part of this whatsoever- either as a 'stunt' cast member or a 'special audience guest'. Sad to say, I think Mr. Walker could somehow be pinning a career boost based upon this event whether he's an actual participant or not!

FWIW, though, I'd rather see Ja' Net Dubois or Bernadette Stanis somehow pop up in this than Mr. Walker (and it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be more fans of these two interested in them than in him).

Have John Amos come back as the father James and say that there was mistaken identity and he wasn't killed after all but had amnesia. Maybe he could even be wealthy.

It's too bad Live in Front of a Studio Audience's Good Times restaging "fell victim, briefly, to a more substantial bit of 1970s cosplay" (https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience-good-times-all-in-the-family-review-1203448382/)

As a result of the House impeachment vote last night, "viewers missed several minutes of a story that positioned the Evans family (led, in 2019, by Andre Braugher and Viola Davis) against a rapacious local politician when the broadcast cut in to announce (https://www.thewrap.com/kimmel-warns-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience-viewers-we-might-get-interrupted-due-to-trump-impeachment-vote/), first, that President Trump had been impeached on the first charge against him, of abuse of power," says Daniel D'Addario. "Later, the end of that episode seemed briefly curtailed by the announcement of Trump’s impeachment on the second charge, of obstruction of Congress. That was too bad, if only because the Good Times episode seemed vaguely resonant to our moment in a way that the All in the Family episode chosen did not. (Blown lines, especially on the part of Braugher, might be forgiven in service of a larger point, had the story been told to completion.) If there was an episode for current events to interrupt, it felt almost poetically ironic that it had to be the episode about a black family carrying out small acts of resistance, as opposed to a Christmas episode of All in the Family that tended to feature, in the show’s own manner, liberal adult children endlessly flattering their Nixonian (https://deadline.com/2019/12/impeachment-vote-primetime-delay-donald-trump-all-in-the-family-survivor-masked-singer-abc-cbs-nbc-fox-1202813171/) papa, until they stop."

ALSO:

Live in Front of a Studio Audience was slicker and smoother this time, but it lost its pace against political reality (https://deadline.com/2019/12/impeachment-all-in-the-family-good-times-live-review-donald-trump-abc-1202813199/)
Overall, the second Studio Audience seemed a slight deceleration from May's powerful first edition, an outing that had the advantage of freshness and surprise (https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2019/12/19/jimmy-kimmel-norman-lear-recreate-two-more-70-s-sitcom-episodes/2693915001/)

John Amos says it was a "quadruple blessing" to reunite with Norman Lear decades after he was fired from Good Times over creative differences (https://ew.com/tv/2019/12/19/john-amos-norman-lear-live-in-front-of-a-studio-audience-role-blessing/)

Amos, who turns 80 next week, previously said he got kicked off the 1970sLear ABC comedy after Season 3 following his complaints that Good Times had descended into shucking and jiving (https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/john-amos-says-he-was-kicked-off-good-times-because-he-1790886594). Amos says he was labeled a "disruptive element" and that Lear told him personally hat he would not be returning for Season 4. On Wednesday night, Amos and Lear reunited for Live in Front of a Studio Audience. "I was informed that they were doing Live in Front of a Studio Audience, where they’d be doing a recapitulation of a Good Times episode," Amos tells EW. "That meant working with Norman Lear again, which was like a quadruple blessing. Norman and I have a history that goes back a number of decades. He literally changed the face of television for all time. He’s the most creative person I’ve ever worked with in my career, and I feel so blessed to have been able to work with him again." Amos says he and Lear resolved their differences years ago. "In fact, I went on to do at least three other pilots for him," says Amos. "They all could’ve been very successful if they had been handled the right way by the media. Norman was one of the most dominant and creative forces on television at the time. He had several of the top 10 shows at the time, and there were some people that were quite jealous of him. They showed their jealousy by not showing support for his shows that they should’ve received. One way or the other, we resolved our differences."

It would be weird now that Janet Dubois just died earlier this year. This would have been great last year.