I was a senior in high school when this show debuted and even though I was a white kid in the 'burbs, I found much of what Raj, Rerun and Dwayne did and talked about easy to relate to because even though my own life was pretty far removed from black kids in the city, I think kids are going to be kids at heart, guys are always going to come up with ideas that seem better at their genesis than they actually end up being and "What's Happening!" seems to have been written with that at the show's core. It's a well-done sitcom that doesn't talk down to its audience.
I'll spare the character profiles and such because there are plenty of other reviewers here who've done a good job of that. What I will say is that 40 years after it first aired on ABC, "What's Happening!" holds up nicely. It was definitely an ensemble comedy that changed when Mabel King left the show, but the actors worked well together and had a good on- screen chemistry. Although "What's Happening!" wasn't as popular at the time as other sitcoms based on black families like "Good Times" or "The Jeffersons," it is definitely in their league in terms of the quality of acting and writing.
I didn't give it a "10" rating because there wasn't a lot of character development (hardly unique for sitcoms), Mabel King's exit meant the loss of the one character who seemed able to create order out of the chaos that usually ensued when the guys got into a jam and a sense of staleness was beginning to set in by its last season. Still, it rates a solid "8" with me and that "8" applies in 2017 as well as for 1977. "What's Happening!" endures as one of the better, if underrated, comedies of the late Seventies. Worth watching.
