Dubai, UAE, March 14, 2024, Carlena Evans, Daughter of Mike Evans, said, “Being the daughter of Mike Evans, Co-Creator of “Good Times”, I Carlena Evans do not support, give consent, approve, or agree with the Netflix unauthorized reboot of “Good Times”. Unfortunately, this was done without the consent of myself, Tammie Evans (Sister), or Mr. Eric Monte in which we still hold the intellectual property rights. To do any reboot, re-creation, spin-off, or adaptation whether Film, TV Live or Animation we must sign off on it and that did not take place. From the time the courts granted my father the ownership rights and me and my sister inherited those same rights after his passing, I have never sold or transferred those rights to anyone.
To do anything with the “Good Times” Intellectual property we must license our rights out. This includes being notified, we all agree, are paid, and sign off. In the past, Sony has licensed the rights from us to utilize those rights to produce different types of projects, on two specific occasions in 2012 for the Good Times Movie and the second, in 2019 for the Good Times live show. The first press release about this animation was released in September of 2020. Shortly after, we emailed Act III Productions, Norman Lear’s production company. Act III was listed as one of the Producers on the 2020 press release. In the email (with attorneys copied) we asked what was this production, as it was not licensed by us. They replied to our attorneys, “We are not proposing, or working on anything related to “Good Times” at this time.” Despite this lie, additional press releases were released.
In March 2023, I emailed every production company involved the following statement, “The ‘Good Times Animation Project’ that you are involved in has not been licensed from the original creators: Mike Evans and Eric Monte. Please see attached court order of said rights from Mike Evans estate”. Despite my emails, the production continued. Making matters far worse, are the outrageous and bold images of racism and stereotypes reflected toward Black Americans! It is shocking and severely disrespectful to all of us and certainly to our families. The defamative and damaging effect this has done and will do to the legacy of “Good Times” is catastrophic.
The Original Good Times was NOT created to be portrayed in such a sick and demeaning light. Please rest assured, I am doing everything in my power to get this show CANCELLED immediately. The producers along with Netflix, its distributor, have infringed on our rights, in which I am working to ensure is dealt with and not attempted again. Thank you all for being CLEARLY against this production! We will no longer sit quietly while Hollywood does whatever it wants with our stories, our people, and our creations, whether we give permission or not. We are all in agreeance that this animation should be taken off Netflix and not viewed on any other network, period.
Eric Monte said, “I didn’t have to kill people to be funny, I read books, poetry and still was funny …I was cool. This is not funny or cool.”
Jasmine “Lady” Crisp -Granddaughter of Eric Monte said, “I am very disheartened by this reboot because of my two sons, ages 10 and 5. I’m unable to share this content with them because of the abrasive, negative stereotypical content & images, i.e., profanity, shootings, nudity. images that I try hard to protect my sons from! I feel my sons & I were robbed of our legacy. As a family of writers, we hate that we weren’t able to put our fresh spin on it, add our sauce. Our idea for a reboot was NOT this at all! This isn’t a ‘Good Times’ Reboot, this is the brand being hijacked! Our families are being robbed of our generational legacy and the ability to grow that legacy on our own terms.”
Tammie Evans, daughter of Mike Evans, said, “This reboot is a complete embarrassment and abomination! This was never OUR idea or work. As a mother, I can’t share this with my children! It should not be a general notion for parents to be OK with kids watching cartoon violence and negative stereotypes. It results in aggressive behavior and developmental problems. I do not stand or support this!”
For more information, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTlB7OhdI6k
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