DYN-O-MITE!: The Revolutionary Origins of an Explosive Catchphrase

Long thought to be a sitcom catchphrase like any other—DYN-O-MITE!—the excited refrain of James Evans, Jr., the oldest son on the Norman Lear produced family sitcom, Good Times, is perhaps the most interesting and subversive in television history.

The refrain was created by a writing staff that consisted of four former Black Panthers, two active members of the Weather Underground and a gawky red-haired Harvard Lampoon alumni named Phil. The character of JJ (played by comedian Jimmie Walker), the writers thought, was destined to be a breakout star. He would be their vehicle to slip radical calls for revolution into primetime television. All JJ needed was a catchphrase. First, the writers came up with: “Off the pig!” then “Destroy the White power structure, maaan!” Those lacked the requisite flexibility of a good catchphrase. For instance, while JJ often called himself, “Kid DYN-O-MITE!,” “Kid Off the Pig” would have been ill-fitting and awkward.

The group nearly settled for, “Throw the White man out the Windooooow,” but no one was satisfied with that. After hours of deliberation, Phil, the Ivy League grad, went out to grab dinner for the group. Thinking he needed to spend more time in the black ghetto to pick up the rhythms of speech, he went down to a nearby impoverished African-American neighborhood. Phil spent the better part of an hour hanging in a chow line, when it hit him. Yep, a piece of wood to the back of his head. Some thugs smacked him and took his wallet and car keys. By the time he returned, the other writers had figured it out. JJ would scream the name of Alfred Nobel’s explosive invention as a battle cry, a call for viewers to “DYN-O-MITE!” the White power structure that left the Evans family and others in the “gh-eee-to”— as JJ called it—poor.  For example, in the episode, “JJ Becomes a Man, “ JJ, freed from a holding cell after being cleared of a crime he didn’t commit, is asked by his little brother if he was scared while in jail. JJ responds: “Scared? Are you jivin’? At first The Man thought he was dealing with some frightened little boy, then he took one look at me and realized he was dealing with Kid a-DYN-O-MITE!”

The implications of the line are clear, it’s not the downtrodden who should fear The White power structure (The Man), but the The Man who should fear a nation of radicalized “Kids a-DYN-O-MITES!”

Outside of JJ’s catchphrase, the writers often stuck in revolutionary messages. For instance, in the landmark episode, “Junior the Senior,” JJ says: “What do I have to know Algebra for, anyway? What am I, an Algerian?” The line today is derided as the ignorant talk of a dimwitted stereotype. When it was first uttered in prime time, it was properly understood as a nod to Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle for independence against the French, a guerilla style of combat the Good Times writers hoped to reproduce in the gh-eee-to.

As the show progressed however, something got lost in translation. After the FBI raid that nabbed the entire Good Times writing staff on suspicion of conspiracy and subversive activity, which included, ironically, the purchase of dynamite for use in illegal acts, the new writing staff failed to wield JJ’s catchphrase as a political tool and the show lost most of its edge. JJ’s radical persona was shoved aside and his little brother Michael became the vehicle for a more measured and liberal brand of commentary.

“Free the Good Times 7 or we a-DYN-O-MITE!” became a popular cry in the late seventies. It was plastered on t-shirts,  scrawled on placards and shouted at rallies. The state eventually dropped all charges against six of them. Phil, though maintaining his innocence, was convicted on several counts of conspiracy and is still locked up in a federal facility.

Later, the team went on to write for Diff’rent Strokes where they invented the subsequently altered catchphrase, “Whatchu talkin’ about, Whitey.”

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe.