My all-time favorite show was one I watched as a Kindergartner: What’s Happening!!. The crazy antics of Rog, Rerun, and Dwayne captured my young imagination, even though the show had more black people than I had seen in real life. It was where I learned what a “crush” was.
Whether it was Mama squeezing the life out of Raj, Dwayne’s signature “Hay hay hay!”, Dee blackmailing Raj for a quarter, or Rerun trying to bootleg a Doobie Brothers concert (“Which Doobie you be?”), What’s Happening!! was one of the funniest shows on TV in the late-70s, hands down.
The show was based loosely on Cooley High and spawned a sequel, the mediocre What’s Happening Now!. Raj’s wife was incredibly annoying, Dee just wasn’t funny grown up, and Dwayne’s fro had gotten too small. This was also the show that gave Martin Lawrence his break.
So what’s the crew up to these days? See a recent CBS News interview. (link via Pinger Rob) Sadly, the only What’s Happening!! page on the web (which featured an animated .GIF of Rerun dancing) is no longer available. -ram
Posted in Television, Movies, and Music
al December 12, 2013, 8:21 pm
Does anyone know the name of the dance dwayne does on what’s happening?