Focus : GOOD AND BAD TIMES IN ‘South Central’

In the 1970s, it was hard times for the Evans family on television’s “Good Times.”

On the Norman Lear-Bud Yorkin situation comedy, the lower-middle-class black family living in a Chicago high-rise housing project struggled weekly to keep their heads above water, despite overwhelming social odds. When actor John Amos, who played the father, left the series, his character was killed off and Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) had to work extra hard to keep her three children on the straight and narrow.

The song remains much the same in 1994 for another black television family. But from the looks of Fox’s new comedy-drama, “South Central,” the “good times” have only gotten worse.

In the middle of riot-torn Los Angeles, single mother Joan Mosley (Tina Lifford) struggles determinedly to keep her three children from the ravages of poverty and gang-related influence and violence while attempting to overcome her own difficulties in trying to find a job.

But unlike its 1970s predecessor, “South Central” does not have characters such as J.J. Evans (J.J. Walker) bellowing DY-NO-MITE at opportune moments to help take the edge off the realism.

In one episode, Tina admonishes her teen-age son Andre (Lorenz Tate) when he tries to get a beeper. In another episode, when Andre accepts a “gift” of money from a high school friend who is a drug dealer, she angrily takes him over to the dealer’s apartment to make him give it back.

“Hey, ain’t no thang to me,” says the dealer to Joan. “You’re the one who don’t have the money to feed your sorry-ass family.”

Joan evenly responds, “No, I don’t. But I would rather clean toilets, dig ditches, do anything than take one penny from you.”

Not exactly rib-tickling material. But as the show’s creators, Michael J. Weithorn and Ralph Farquhar, explain, the honesty must come through despite the show’s sitcom format.

“We want it to have an integrity, and we have to make it work this way,” says Farquhar, an African American who was a former supervising producer on Fox’s “Married . . . With Children.”

Even before “South Central” went into production on its second episode, the show had already created a “buzz”--and not all of it positive.

Critics from Newsweek and other publications praised the tone of the show, saying it transported “the comedy-drama genre into a whole new place.” However, others had trouble with some of the lines and ensuing laughter, such as when the series’ young daughter tells her mother, “I love the smell of gunfire in the morning.”

Farquhar says he and Weithorn held focus groups and discussions with community leaders to assure them that the show would not make light of South Central Los Angeles.

“There is a lot of trepidation and anticipation in the community about whether this show is going to trivialize the issues with jokes,” he says. “But we’re going to treat everything with honesty.”

Weithorn recalled another run-through of the show last year when it was being considered by CBS as one of its fall series. Executives attending the first rehearsal were bothered by the show, according to Weithorn, and wanted him and Farquhar to inject more jokes before the second run-through. They refused. The show was subsequently turned down by CBS.

“Fox has not put any restrictions on us whatsoever,” says Weithorn. “The show we’re putting on is entirely our vision. So if it fails, it will not be something we can blame on the network.”

What’s also important to Weithorn and Farquhar is that “South Central” is not classified strictly as a “black” show. “There are problems that this mother and this family are going through that absolutely everyone can relate to,” Weithorn says.

Meanwhile, the cast members seem to be taking the controversy surrounding the series in stride.

“I approach this apprehension as just another job that I am doing as an actress,” says Lifford, who has appeared as a guest star on several series. “I’m just letting the chips fall where they may. It is not my responsibility. I am totally focused on the work. I just know that this show is dealing with the truth, the total truth.”

Tate says that he feels a little pressure about the public expectations for the series.

“It seems to me that people are looking forward to this just to see exactly how we’re going to handle it,” says Tate, who played a murderous wayward youth in last summer’s critically acclaimed film “Menace II Society.”

“When I first read for this, I didn’t even know it was a sitcom,” says Tate. “There are shows similar to this, like ‘Roseanne,’ but nothing quite like it. This will show things in our community more in depth.”

The set of the show reflects its inspiration in many aspects--positive and negative. Graffitis mar the walls of an apartment building. Although the family’s house is not in the best of shape, it is clear that someone is doing the best she can to maintain it.

The cast and the producers say that “South Central” will mark an important step in the portrayal of African Americans on television.

“For once, viewers in America will see the variety of the African American experience,” says Lifford. “It’s about time.”

“South Central” premieres Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Fox.