Reception
Good Times: Black Again was panned by critics and audiences, with criticism aimed towards the animation style, the crass presentation, offensive humor, and general lack of connection to the original series aside from occasional mentions of the James Evans character. Despite referring to the jokes as "stereotypical", Bubbleblabber called it the #1 American adult animated comedy of 2024 after it began to "[lean] into more dramedy".
Upon its trailer's release, CEMOTAP publicly condemned it as a "racist cartoon" in the same vein as 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. The NAACP and the December 12th Movement have also condemned the show's representation of Black families and children. The groups' outrage involves the show's obscene, sexualized, violent, and stereotypical portrayal of African Americans.
On May 13, 2024, CEMOTAP co-chairs Dr. James McIntosh and Betty Dopson sent an open letter of "outrage" to Ted Sarandos condemning the show for its portrayal of Black people as unintelligent, violent, simian, and hypersexual; and its usage of obscenity, pedophilia, slurs, drug-dealing, and weaponry. They claimed it had "only the most superficial and negative relationship to the original Good Times TV series", as well as criticizing its disrespectful references to Rosa Parks; the Christian God; Jesus Christ; and the Egyptian God Anubis. They drew parallels with Seth MacFarlane's previous controversial depictions of Harriet Tubman. CEMOTAP urged members of the public to call Netflix and cancel their subscriptions, boycotting Netflix until the show is taken off the streaming service, and for an equal amount of time afterwards.
On June 5, 2024, CEMOTAP led a demonstration at the Netflix Corporate office on Broadway in Manhattan. In December of that year, CEMOTAP passed out leaflets outside of the Netflix office in New York. They asked the public to call NBA commissioner Adam Silver "regarding his double standard" for punishing Kyrie Irving for tweeting a link to the anti-Semitic film Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America "while saying nothing to Stephen Curry, who is the executive producer" of Black Again.
