What's Happening!!
Overview
 
What's Happening!! is an American television sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 that aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 from August 5, 1976 to April 28, 1979. The show premiered as a summer series. With good ratings and reviews, and after the failure of several other shows on the network, What's Happening!! returned in November 1976 as a weekly series. It remained a regular show until 1979; ratings were modest. What's Happening!! was loosely based on the motion picture Cooley High
Cooley High
Cooley High is a 1975 American film based upon the real high school located on the near north side of Chicago produced and released by American International Pictures and written by Eric Monte...

, also written by Eric Monte
Eric Monte
Eric Monte is an American screenwriter who has written for and created notable shows depicting 1970s African American culture.-Early life and career:...

.
What's Happening!! follows the lives of three working-class African-American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 teens living in the Watts
Watts, Los Angeles, California
Watts is a mostly residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, California.-History:The area now known as Watts is located on the Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant...

 section of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

.
Quotations

I can't eat jackass meat without ketchup!

I'm not Amy Carter|Amy Carter. I have to work for a living.

If you lay one hand on me, I'll tell Mama and report you to the child abuse center. They'll put your picture on 60 Minutes|60 Minutes and Mike Wallace (journalist)|Mike Wallace will hate you until you die.

Who knows? After this one...who knows what could be next. You could become President of the United States. Mom would be the first lady and I could be Amy.

Uh-huh, Uh-huh, Uh awn

If you don't tell me who sprung the leak, you'll be expelled for at least a week. -Nipsey Russell on The Match Game

Dee: (reading the underground newspaper) "Principal Bradley smells badly." You're gonna get in trouble from Mama.

Roger: How is Mama gonna find out?

Dee: She knows me.

 
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